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rome-ii6 · 5 days ago

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★ Forever Winter ★

Ch 2

★The Winter Soldier × fem!original character

★WARNINGS: this series has: slow burn, like really slow burn, like really slow, superduper slow, a pinch of yearning and longing, a lot of hurt and nearly non-existing comfort, death, mention of death, vomiting, a lot of it actually, brainwashing, panic attacks (plural), mention of guns, alcohol, original characters, LGBTQIA+ characters, almost everyone is queer, my girl is cunty and i love her for it. This series has a lot, violence, hurt and panic attacks like i said, i hope you're reading this because I don't want to trigger anyone.

★WORD COUNT: 3k

★MASTERLIST

★SERIES MASTERLIST

★Read it on Ao3

The Winter Soldier

Before

The smell of gun smoke filled his nostrils, its sound kept ringing in his ears.

bang! bang! bang!

Click. He reloaded his gun. bang! He shot.

bang! Again and then screaming. bang! And the sound of thud. bang! The sound of footsteps running away. bang bang! In the head, clear.

The place around him was pure chaos. People trying to run, some of them falling while trying. The screams never stopped since the first bang! he made. But he cares nothing about this, he just had a mission, and he has to complete it no matter what. He's here only to comply.

The Winter Soldier jumped from the stairs, landing swiftly and with ease. He stood up and raised his arm again, walking towards one of the targets. Another bang! Echoed through the place, but this time it wasn't from him.

He saw from the corner of his eyes a body hit the floor on the right side. His fellow soldier shot him. He continued his pace, stalking the target. The Winter Soldier closed one of his eyes, ready to take aim. But the scene in front of him suddenly shifted.

He was still holding a gun, but a different one from the one he was just firing with. And he was holding it with his both hands—his both flesh hands.

With a jerk of his head, the scene fell down and he was back again. What was that? The soldier looked around him, confused. What just happened? He can swear he was just in another place. Did somebody poison him? Is that why he saw a hallucination? But no, he was totally not injured right now, no one shot or stabbed him. And he didn't eat or drink anything unusual before this mission. So what happened to him?

The Winter Soldier looked at his left hand. It was like always, a metal hand with a black fingerless glove. He doesn't understand, why would he—

“Soldier!!” A voice shouted from above him. “Winter Soldier! The target!!” The voice came again.

Right, the target, how could he get distracted? The Winter Soldier raised his hand, ready to fire quick and fast, but the target already disappeared.

He just lost one of the targets. He didn't comply, he didn't finish his mission.

“Go, follow and element him!” shouted the same voice.

He heard footsteps coming closer to him, then he felt the presence of someone standing in front of him. The Winter Soldier’s eyes were on the red carpet under his boots, not looking up at who was standing in front of him, he knows already.

He can't. He failed, and he shouldn't have. He got distracted. He messed it up.

He felt a hard strike on his face even though he was wearing a mask, making his head turn around. He just kept it there, not moving it an inch. “What just happened?” barked the man.

The Winter Soldier didn't do anything. He just went silent, not knowing what to do or say. Finally, he said in a low voice, “I failed to kill one of the targets.”

The man's hand held his jaw roughly, forcing him to look at his face. He didn't utter another word and tried to let his eyes hold the gaze of the man in front of him. In the background, he heard a couple pounding feet coming closer to them. “Sir,” said a new voice behind them. “We couldn't find him. He escaped.” Said another one.

He saw a muscle in the commander's jaw, then, after a long while of silence, he shoved him back. “You two,” the commander said while his eyes were still glued to the Winter Soldier. “Take him.”

And just like that, he was being dragged by two other soldiers. And he let them do it.

He let them do it because he could never fight, only do one thing.

Comply.

In a small room, he lay. Gazing at the white perfect ceiling. He held up his metal arm to it, but he couldn't reach it, the ceiling was far, far away from him. He didn't even know why he did that.

His hand slumped beside him, making a loud noise.

As soon as they dragged him back to the base, he had to report what happened, and not just to anyone, to the supervisor herself. So he did, he told her what he saw. The two flesh hands, the different location he was in and the gun he was holding. And just like that again, he was dragged to the lab.

In the lab, a woman who works there strapped him to a chair, and he had a vague sensation that this had happened before, with the same woman. He felt that her soft hands had touched him before, but he wasn't so sure. His mind seems to be in a mess that day.

The scientist argued with the commander to his left about something, but he didn't really know what they were saying. Because there was this weird tingling sensation in his mind, and he tried to focus on it.

When the shot rang and he looked, he found the body of the woman on the floor, now with a bullet in the forehead.

For the third time this day, he had been dragged, and this time to his room. Or where he usually stays.

So here he's now, laying on the bed with nothing to do.

The Winter Soldier doesn't know how much time exactly he spent in his room without getting out. But he can guess it has been three days because of the arrival of his food. He usually eats in the hall with all the rest of the people who work here in the base, but now they just gave it to him here.

To kill time in this empty room, he sometimes does push-ups, trying to move his muscles (He used to train in the training area, but again, he's stuck in here). Or he'll just stare at the ceiling, just like right now.

They're probably watching him through the cameras and thinking he's weird, but he really doesn't care about that much.

The Winter Soldier closed his eyes, took a long deep breath then let it out.

When the door opened after nine days, he jerked upright immediately.

A soldier stood there and told him to follow him, so he did. He found another two soldiers waiting for him in the hallway. They surrounded him while walking, until they reached an area he knows as the medical area, where he usually gets treated if he was injured in missions. They took him to a section where they had a chair and a strange machine connected to it. There was a panel of control that seemed hard to understand to him.

The Winter Soldier walked into this place again, and immediately after he sat a foot here, he glanced at the place where he last saw the dead body. But it looked clean, someone must have wiped the pool of blood from this white ground.

Of course someone did.

He didn't need to be told what to do, he went and sat on the chair straightforward. He flinched a little when he felt cold fingers touching his hand, he didn't hear any footsteps coming near him. And when he looked, his gaze fell on a woman with bronze skin and reddish brown hair, trying to strap him to the chair, and she wasn't being gentle about it.

Her dark brows were drawing lines on her face, furrowed while trying to secure the straps. She didn't glance at him even once, completely not letting her eyes meet his intentionally and focusing on the task at hand.

She didn't look at his face, but he did. He looked at the split lip, at the purple bruise on her cheekbone, and she got a gauze on her temple. He was eyeing them when she suddenly straightened, pulling away from his body. The Winter Soldier took a moment to realize she finished strapping him. Hands and legs.

The three soldiers who came with him didn't utter a word, they were just looking at her with a strange look, like they were inspecting her, like they were testing her. Seeing if she did one wrong move to shoot her. Just like the former. He thought.

The weight of their gazes were intense, but the new scientist didn't weaver after it. She worked with efficiency, not looking at them either. She came in front of him again, placing something on his head. Then she finally let her eyes meet his, holding something near his mouth. The Winter Soldier opened his mouth while still not breaking eye contact. She got amber eyes. Her eyes are pretty. He thought of that while he closed his teeth on something, biting on it.

Some machine sounds reached his ear, and then out of nowhere, white hot pain. In his head, neck, veins and spreading through every part of his body very fast.

He felt his brain melting, melting, melting. All of his body was shaking uncontrollably, thrashing. Every cell of his body hurt, every bone, every muscle.

He felt his throat vibrate, but he didn't know if he was screaming or not, he couldn't hear anything.

H-he can't….

He—

I— I'm….

I—

I — I—

Then nothingness.

Dr. M

She didn't know it would be like this.

She knew it'd be horrible, this is HYDRA after all, she isn't stupid. But she didn't know it would be like this.

Her eyes were wide, and she sucked in a breath and seemed like she couldn't remember how to take one after that. She felt her hands trembling, but she couldn't look at them. The soldiers were still here.

Actually, now it was her whole body trembling. But she needs to get her shit together, they can't see her like this, she can't decorate this clean floor with her vomit. So she let her nails dig into her palms, shoving her hands into her pockets, trying to distract herself, trying to be calm by shutting her mind down.

It's fine, it's fine. You can do this, you can— a loud guttural scream filled her ears and interrupted her thought, making her remember that everything in fact, is not fine. For God's sake, she's working for HYDRA now. How could she be fine?

No no no, focus, focus or you won't ever survive here. She tried her best to school her face expression to look bored, she looked at the man she's now torturing with cold eyes. Looking at him to appear like she doesn't care, like she's totally like them—a person who's in very need of a therapist like every member in this base—without actually looking at him. She willed her mind to blur her vision, to distract her thoughts, to stray them away.

Not here, not here, not here.

I'm not here.

After that she managed to not have a panic attack. And she walked with her usual speed to the machine, turning it off, turning all the screaming off. And she let her gaze meet their audience, the three soldiers, one by one. With her hands into her pockets and bored expression, she hoped she channelled the “I don't care” look.

With her chin, she nodded to the man on the chair. “You can take him now. I did my job as the instructions said.” And without giving them time to respond, she turned to the door already.

Trying to walk fast but without looking like she's walking fast she padded through the corridors. She knows there are cameras here, and she's not willing to let them know how much they got to her in just her first day of work or she'll be disposed of.

Finally, she reached her room, she flashed her ID card and a green light appeared. She made sure to lock the door behind her before sprinting to the bathroom. And once there, she emptied her stomach in the toilet.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

She kept thinking. I didn't mean it, please, I didn't mean it. The scientist kept talking to herself in her mind.

I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry.

Chanting it in her head wouldn't get the words to reach the man on the chair, but that didn't stop her from keeping saying it over and over again.

She kept saying it even when she was choking on her tears, not knowing if it's from what happened or from vomiting this hard. And when she tried to let air into her lungs but she couldn't.

She couldn't breathe, she couldn't breathe, she couldn'tshecouldn'tcouldn't—

She was having a panic attack, on the floor of the bathroom, while she just vomited her guts. Her body felt like dying, but maybe dying is going to be far more merciful from what's going to happen for the rest of her life here.

She managed to calm herself down.

Eventually.

She also didn't stop vomiting until there's nothing left in her stomach to do so.

Flushing the toilet, she stood up, dragging her feet to the mirror. Looking at it, her face was just like she imagined it. Hollow, her bronze skin is pale now, her hair is a wild mess (from trying to get it out of the way), and her face is still pretty much beaten. She looked so exhausted and horrified.

And that's exactly how she felt.

When HYDRA tried to kidnap her, she fought hard not to. She ran from them, but the soldiers that were sent managed to find her. They cuffed her hand behind her back, and she took the opportunity to dive her head back as hard as she could, breaking the soldier's nose with a satisfying crunch. Another one came to her, his eyes were full of anger and she spat on his face, which made her earn a split lip.

She wasn't going to go down easy without trying with all of her strength, and she thinks they realized that too. That's why they struck her on the head with the butt of the gun (or that's what she assume. She just felt a hard thing collide with her temple then darkness), and that's why there's a gauze on her temple and why it’s causing her a headache like a bitch to this day.

She doesn't know how many days passed after that, she just remembered waking up in this room, the door closed. A prisoner.

(Probably they gave her some kind of a sedation because there's no way she blacked out long enough for them to transfer her here from just a knock by a gun to her head).

So she tried to search the room. Luckily for her, the room already had a wall of books, likely from the former user of it. She opened all the books, looking inside it in hope of finding something between the pages that she can use to escape, but none found. She sat on the floor, books surrounding her, and she knew how ridiculous and crazy she might look to the cameras at that moment.

She looked at the clock on the desk beside the bed, it had been three and half hours and nothing to fine. She searched those drawers first thing, and it came empty. HYDRA really emptied this room carefully after the last person left it. (Or most likely died. And probably by them).

She sighed heavily and decided to continue her search.

She must have fallen asleep while doing so, because she doesn't remember much before the door was opened and she jerked awake, neck hurting from how she slept.

A woman looks in her late forties with brown hair held up in a bun came to her, she was wearing a white lab coat, and if she was surprised by the mess she's in now she didn't show it. She just stood there, looking down at her. So of course, she stood on her feet, looking down her nose at the woman who's slightly shorter than her.

The woman in the lab coat handed her something, and she took it, it was an ID. Plastered on it the picture she uses in official documents, her face decorated with a little smile. (How do they even get that picture?) She looked at the name, and all it said was “Dr. M” so she raised a brow at the woman in front of her. Because who the fuck was Dr. M?

“That's your name from now on.” said the woman like she read her mind. “You're going to start working from tomorrow. Be ready at 06:30 a.m.” and just like that, she went out. Leaving her totally bewildered.

M looked at her ID again, then she let out a curse.

A lot happened, and she needed to process it.

She collapsed on the bed—her bed she guessed now—and held her head between her hands. Trying to remember to breathe slowly, to ground herself in the moment. But she didn't want to ground herself in this fucking moment, this is the worst moment to do so.

HYDRA kidnapped her, and now her name is Dr. M, and she's working for them. Either that or she'll die. She knows it.

M looked at herself in the mirror sighing deeply. She splashed cold water on her face, hoping it would sober up a little after this total disaster of just frying some dude's mind.

Days ago, she discovered she wouldn't find a way out no matter how much she looked for an escape, HYDRA isn't that easy. So she just decided to play along with them, to act like a good puppet until the right moment. It may come, or it may not come ever, but she's hoping for the best (either that or she'll start to lose her mind entirely if she gives up).

M wanted to do nothing but to put her head on the pillow and sleep, but she's feeling so filthy after what she had done and all that heaving. She took a few clothes and got back to the bathroom again to take a long hot shower.

When she emerged out, hair dripping a little on the ground she looked at one of the cameras in her room. With a sweet venomous smile, she waved at it.

Laying on her bed, M wondered what else she would do if her first official task here was wiping someone else's mind.

★Next chapter

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rome-ii6 · 7 days ago

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★ Rome's Masterlist ★

★19. ★fanfic author.

★she/her. ★bi / gray-ace.

—I write only for Bucky Barnes.

—No smut because idk how to write that stuff.

—My request box is now: OPEN.

—My ask box is now: OPEN.

★ My works ★

★Forever Winter (61k)

★The Winter Soldier × og!female character

★slow burn, angst, hurt with no comfort, yearning, longing, slow burn, did i say slow burn?

★Floating Hearts (3k+ word)

★Bucky × fem!reader

★soulmates, fate, little sci-fi, fantasy world, Bucky is a sad man who needs just a hug, sunshine!reader, awkward!bucky.

★A F*cked Up Desire (6.5k word)

★avengers!bucky × fem!avengers reader

★kind of workplace romance, teasing, casual relationship.

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rome-ii6 · 7 days ago

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I can't live without them, i NEED to use them

"If you use em dash in your works, it makes them look AI generated. No real human uses em dash."

Imaging thinking actual human writers are Not Real because they use... professional writing in their works.

Imagine thinking millions of people who have been using em dash way before AI becomes a thing are all robots.

REBLOG IF YOU'RE A HUMAN AND YOU USE EM DASH

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rome-ii6 · 9 days ago

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I just want y'all to know that I'm giggling and blushing AND kicking my feet whenever i get a notification abt my fics😔

#love it sm

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rome-ii6 · 9 days ago

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Mornings

I feel like Bucky is the type of guy who'll kiss every inch of your face once you wake up very slowly.

Like his arms were around you all night, holding you to his chest so he can feel you, so he can feel the perfect way you fit against him, so he can smell your unique scent.

When you start waking up slowly he'll hold you closer, and you'll snuggle more against him.

“Mornin’...” Bucky would say with a very sleepy voice, barely making the words between his lips get out.

At his sleepy voice you'll secretly smile and mutter back to him. “Morning babe. How did you sleep?”

“Perfect,” he'll murmur while kissing the top of your head. “I always sleep perfectly when I'm with you, doll.”

Here Bucky starts showering you with kisses. He'll hold your face between his two hands and kiss your forehead, nose and cheeks before he smiles at you and go for your lips, taking them in a lazy morning kiss.

That kiss sometimes ends in more heated things but this time he just drew back and looks at you, his eyes were full of adoration for you.

With the way he's looking at you, and the way he is still sleepy, hair messy, makes your heart beat fast.

“Gonna make breakfast for us doll, ok?” Bucky will murmur before giving you another kiss.

“Yeah, ok.” You'd say, a huge smile on your face.

So shirtless, Bucky will go to the kitchen to make breakfast for both of you, leaving you in bed trying to calm your heart down before you get a heart attack.

I'm sorry but to me, that man is sweet not a freak😔

U can check my new fic Forever Winter

★MASTERLIST

#i love that man😔#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky x reader #bucky x you #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barns x reader #bucky barnes drabble #ao3 fanfic

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rome-ii6 · 10 days ago

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Omg??? I'm blushing 😭🫶🏽

★ Forever Winter ★

★The Winter Soldier × fem!original character

★SUMMARY: Will it always be winter for them? Will they always feel cold, detached, thick layers covering them, painted white and gray by the winter? Or maybe they'll be able to come this wretched weather?

★WORD COUNT: 61k

★MASTERLIST

★Read it on Ao3.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

A Brief Interlude

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

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rome-ii6 · 10 days ago

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Anyone wanna read my Winter Soldier fic😔?

Forever Winter

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky x reader #the winter solider imagine #bucky x you #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #bucky fanfic #james bucky buchanan barnes #ao3 fanfic #the winter solider x reader #the winter solider fanfiction #the winter soldier x reader #the winter soldier #falcon and the winter soldier

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rome-ii6 · 10 days ago

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For two months i used to write at 3 a.m for my "forever winter" fic, but after writing 61k and posting it, I can't get back to writing my new fic😭 i feel like I'm still mourning "forever winter"😭

#i feel like I'm cheating ngl #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic

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rome-ii6 · 11 days ago

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★ Forever Winter ★

Epilogue

★The Winter Soldier × fem!original character

★WORD COUNT: 3.8k

★MASTERLIST

★SERIES MASTERLIST

★Read it on Ao3

Five months later

Bucky

Bucky took the new delivery, trying to decide where to put them.

He was working in a storage stock, taking the boxes they deliver to the storage and checking if they were damaged, then organize them.

There were a lot of jobs Bucky couldn't have without official papers, and this job was perfect for him since they didn't ask for any papers, and he was good at lifting the boxes that were heavy since he has a super soldier ability. He was fine as long as he kept wearing long sleeves and gloves to hide his metal arm. No one ever will doubt a thing if he kept it hidden, they just thought he was a strong man.

This job didn't pay him much, but it was better than nothing. They need all the money they can get.

When Bucky agreed to run away with M, they spent a long time discussing how to do that exactly after they stopped making out once again.

Bucky told M that HYDRA usually leaves some money in its safe houses, so if the soldiers are in the place for a while they manage to live. She told him they can use that money and exchange it to the currency of the country they're traveling to.

They also agreed on a country with a lot of immigrants in it, so they won't stand between them and be able to be found by HYDRA.

M decided to take her journals with her, because her work was there, and she couldn't let HYDRA find it. (She told him they may try to make the serum without her, using whatever the two scientists who were working with her know, but they won't make it the same without the small details that she has in the journal).

After setting everything, they got down the stairs (because M told him no normal person will enter or exit a place through a window). She made him translate her thanks to the nun who made her live in the church for days then they got out.

They were heading for the car he came with and which parked away when he heard a small, soft meow.

Bucky looked and found the small white cat already walking to M and rubbing her head on M's legs while doing purrs. “Hey there,” she bent down a little and scratched its head. “Sorry, I didn't come out to feed you. In fact, I'm leaving.”

M talked to the cat like she was a human and not an animal, she did the same with her guinea pig. When the cat let out another meow M apologized again with an extra scratch behind the ears.

“Why don't we take her with us?” Asked Bucky.

“What?” M furrowed her brows at him.

He pointed at the cat. “Why not take her?”

“You want us to take a small stray cat when we're trying to run from not just HYDRA, but whoever else was trying to kidnap me while we don't even know where we're going?”

M was being a little dramatic, they knew where they were going, they had a plan, in detail because she made sure of it, but he just shrugged at her.

“Why not?”

She threw her hands up. “Ok, fine. We'll take her. Here.” She picked the cat up and gave it to him. “You'll take care of her.”

The thing is, he can see through this act of her. Bucky knows she doesn't mind bringing the cat, he just saw the way she talked with it.

So they drove first to where he was staying, then they drove for hours—or rather he drove since he was the person who knew the road—to one of HYDRA's places, to where they kept a helicopter.

Frankly, Bucky somehow knew how to pilot it, so they took it and traveled away from their captors.

They exchanged the money and it paid them two months in a small apartment. It was one room only, the kitchen is just a few meters away from the bed. It also contained a small bathroom.

(The landlord said no animals, so they smuggled Alpine—he was the one to name her—there, telling her to keep quiet).

The walls were thin and you can hear the couple above them fighting most of the time, or having sex. It was a shitty apartment, but they managed in it.

The first two weeks were very hard on M, while he found his job at this storage stock, she stayed at the apartment with Alpine, doing nothing.

But with the small money he made, she bought for herself used books on the country's language and spent her time learning it.

In just a little more than two weeks, she became fluent enough to have a decent conversation.

Bucky was really impressed at that (he doesn't know also how, but he found himself talking with the new language without even trying. It must have been one of HYDRA's work). And when he expressed his feelings to her, she just made a gesture with her hand like she was waving the compliment away.

“Try staying in this apartment for two weeks without nothing but these books, you'll learn it fast too.” M had said to him.

Bucky doubted it, but he said nothing.

With her new knowledge of the language, she started working as a private language tutor, teaching people in different ages English, Spanish or French. Whatever they ask for.

(This work too, didn't need some official papers. M told him she just had to be friendly and make some ‘friends’ here and there to get her work).

Because of that, they were able to stay in the apartment and pay for groceries and cat food for Alpine.

M makes the most money of the two of them, and that was because she has a lot of people to teach, going from this person to the next, and the next, and the next until it becomes late and she gets back home.

Remembering home, Bucky missed her a lot, Alpine too. In these five months, he learned more about himself and her. She told him where originally was from, and how she left her home, traveling to another country for work. M told him about her childhood, and how she discovered that she was bisexual (she had to explain it a lot to him because he asked a lot about that), and what happened when she came out.

After telling him what it's like to be a bisexual, he started doubting himself, not knowing if he was one too.

But one day when they were laying on the bed, ready to sleep, he whispered to her after making up his mind.

“M, are you awake?” Bucky had asked her.

“Mmm. What do you want?” M murmured to him without opening her eyes.

Bucky paused again before he gathered his courage to continue. “I think…,” he bit his lip. “I think I'm not entirely straight. I feel like—maybe I'm bisexual too? I don't know. Sorry.” For some reason, this was so hard and embarrassing for him to say.

His girlfriend cracked one eye open. “I know.” Then she closed her eye again.

What??????

“What do you mean ‘I know’?” Bucky asked her, very confused.

“I saw how you looked in the ‘40s.” She answered him.

He waited, thinking she'll offer more explanation but she didn't. “That's it? You don't mind it?”

Still closing her eyes, she replied. “No, I don't. You're still attracted to me though, right?”

He nodded, she didn't see it, but she must have felt it because she continued. “Then I still don't mind. I always had a thing for queer men—also, all the men I dated before were queer, don't worry, this is nothing new to me.”

Then M went to sleep like she didn't say something meant a lot to him, like she didn't just accept who he was in just mere seconds.

But she always does that, she kisses his scars, asking him about how he got it. If Bucky remembers, he tells her, and he sees no judgement in her eyes at all. She'll just keep tracing them with her fingers, listening to his story with a hum, showing him that she's listening, that she cares.

Bucky looked at his watch, it was still 06:00 p.m, still two hours to finish work and go home.

He can't wait for these two hours to pass by.

Putting her key on the lock and twisting, M opened the door to their apartment.

She was met with her boyfriend and their cat sitting on the floor near the door, likely waiting for her.

Once she stepped inside and closed the door behind her, Bucky came closer and immediately took her in a hug.

“I'm home,” M said with a big smile on her face that he couldn't see.

“Welcome home,” Bucky drew back, both hands squashing her cheeks before he leaned and kissed her forehead. “You're—” here he pressed a kiss to her left eyelid. “—late.” Another kiss in her right eyelid this time. “I missed you.” He next kissed her cheeks.

M felt the weight of her exhaustion settle on her. She felt so tired and wanted to just bury her face in his chest and not think for a while, giving her body and mind a break.

Bucky finally went to her lips for a sweet kiss that made her melt. If she wasn't this tired she'd have let him take her here and right now, on the floor or against the door, she doesn't mind. M can already feel how this brief sweet kiss turned her on.

When he broke it, his gaze was so full of love but also concern. “Are you ok?”

M felt guilty at this, he was clearly worrying about her because she was getting home very late these days, and they don't have phones (they don't have enough money for them, they're luxury at the moment) so she can send him a message saying she'll be late.

It was 10 p.m and something, and Bucky must have been so worried, sitting on the floor with Alpine waiting for her, not knowing when exactly she'll come.

“Sorry Buck,” M placed her hand over his. “I'm totally ok, don't worry.”

She started calling him Bucky because “Winter” doesn't seem right anymore, because he was more Bucky Barnes than The Winter Soldier since he got some of his memories back in the last five months.

(Actually, she started calling him “James” first, but she kept saying to him that “Bucky” was a stupid nickname. So whenever she wanted to tease him, she called him that.

Maybe she shouldn't have done that, because now she got used to it and it was the name she kept moaning in pleasure after making fun of it. The tables have really turned on her).

Bucky also started calling her just “M” after she discovered that he was calling her in his head “Dr. M” all these months she had known him.

Bucky opened his mouth to say something, but M heard a demanding meow before she felt Alpine climbing her.

“Oh, someone's jealous, huh?” M chuckled as she let Alpine climb her until she's now between her arms.

Her boyfriend looked at the cat fondly, sighing a little. “I think she got bored of me, so she missed you.”

“Well, I miss her too. And I wouldn't blame her really for getting bored of you, because I'd have felt the sa—ow!” Bucky flicked her nose, cutting her off. She made a fake pouting face to him while she touched her nose.

“Wait there for a second,” Bucky said before he went to the kitchen.

M put Alpine down for a little so she can take something from her bag, hanging it after and picking Alpine again.

She took more steps into the room before Bucky stood in front of her again, holding a bouquet of flowers to her with a smile, his face tinted a little with pink.

“Here,” he pushed the bouquet closer to her chest so she had to let Alpine down again, making her go to do whatever she wanted around the room.

“Oh,” she felt heat in her face and she noticed how her heart started beating faster.

“I, uh, also got some food from a restaurant for dinner.” Bucky said.

Oh fuck, this was so sweet of him that she might just crouch down and cry over it. She never got used to how he was such a sweetheart.

But this was unnecessary, and she didn't want to be a bitch and say it. But she didn't need to, because Bucky knew what she was thinking about exactly.

“Don't worry, my boss gave me a bonus today for my hard work. That's how I bought this.” he said to her silent thoughts.

She couldn't help but wince at herself. “Sorry, you know that—sorry.” The last thing M wanted to do now was talking about spending money with Bucky, so she felt ashamed about that.

“It's ok,” Bucky came once again closer, kissing her forehead while wrapping an arm on her waist.

(Yeah, she would have definitely let him take her on the kitchen table if her body wasn't so tired).

“I also have something for you, here.” M gave him the envelope she took out of her bag and went to put the flowers in a vase.

Whenever Bucky can afford it, he buys her flowers so she had to buy a vase, always placing it in the nightstand drawer.

She heard him settle on a chair at the kitchen table then open the envelope. “Are these…?”

“Yes. These are our fake papers, I had to take them before I came home.” M said to him.

With these papers, most things will become easier for them now, that's why they paid a lot on them. Fake IDs, fake names, fake passports and whatever they need.

Bucky was still checking them when she took a seat beside him. “Bucky,” M said slowly to him. “I was looking in the newspapers and even online—I had to go to the library for that—for a job. You still remember what the internet is, right?”

M had to teach Bucky what he had missed all these years and that took a lot of time and a lot of wondering questions from him to just grasp the meaning of it.

Bucky nodded his head at her question.

“So I found a job online, but it's in another city. I haven't applied yet, but if they take me I'll have a stable incoming and we can afford a better apartment.” M placed her hand over his. “The problem is, as I said, it's in another city, so we'll have to start over again. But if I took that job—it’s in a chemical lab—maybe I'll be able to get my hands on whatever I need to make a new S word so I can find a solution for you.”

Bucky hasn't been The Winter Soldier in a long time. He was definitely more human now than when she first met him, also he gets his memories back sometimes. But they weren't all good ones.

If HYDRA even caught him again and said the words, he'll become The Winter Soldier once again, every trace of humanity wiped out completely. So M had promised to find a solution to that, even if it wasn't her field and she doesn't have the faintest idea from where to start even.

But she won't just sit still, she'll try to help him in any possible way she could.

But the expression on Bucky's face made the smile and hope inside her vanish. M quickly drew her hand back to her and spoke first before he did. “Look Bucky, I love you. I love you and I don't want to argue about this with you now, you deserve to have that conversation when I'm less tired.” Then she stood up. “You can eat if you like, I don't really want to. I'll just take a shower.” And before she could hear his response, she turned and walked to the bathroom.

M felt every muscle of her body ache, so she took just a quick shower, emerging from it with a towel, going through her clothes to find her pajamas.

From the corner of her eyes when she was changing, she saw Bucky laying on the bed, Alpine sitting over his head on the pillow. It was hard not to notice him when the apartment was literally a one room with the kitchen connected to it.

She put on her pajamas then laid on the bed too, her elbow brushing his. M can hear how Alpine was purring above their head in the silence even though no one was touching her.

Suddenly, Bucky snuggled his face on her neck. “I'm sorry,” his words were muffled against her skin.

“What?” M was confused at this. “Why are you apologizing?”

She wasn't mad at him, this wasn't a fight. They had done a lot of those but this time it isn't.

Bucky continued speaking against the side of her neck, making his body press more closer to hers. “I'm sorry because you always have to take care of me. I'm sorry you work so hard for us. I'm sorry I can't give you the life you want. I'm sorry that because of me, you can't even have a normal life and work in a job you love.”

That was a lot to take in.

“Bucky, stop and look at me.” M said to him, and like always without any flicker of hesitation he did.

At first, she thought he always obeyed her because he was used to being ordered around and obeying. But when The Winter Soldier started to slightly dissolve and Bucky replaced him, he still does it.

He still does whatever she asks for, and M realized that it's just how he tells her he listens to her, how he loves her and it has nothing to do with him being used to obey. Because he does whatever she wants, even when she requests it not order it.

M cupped Bucky's face with her palms. “Stop apologizing, I told you before, I chose this life. I chose it and I'm happy with it, I don't care about anything else.”

After a while when they started living here, Bucky came to her and told her that she can leave, that she doesn't have to stay with him, that she's now away from whoever wants to kidnap her and she can be free, she can abandon him.

At that, M held his chin and spoke her words firmly. “No, I told you I'm with you, I told you I'll be by your side. So forever Winter, I'll be a pain in the ass to you forever.”

And M still feels like this, so she pressed her forehead to Bucky's, murmuring to him in a low voice. “Forever Bucky, I'll be a pain in the ass to you forever.”

“But, don't you want to—” he started but she cut him off.

“Shhhh. Never speak of this again or I'll get really, really, really mad at you and I won't speak to you for days. Maybe a whole week. Just to be clear for the last time, I chose you, I chose this life and I love you so shut up and respect my decision bitch.”

Bucky let out a chuckle and M was proud that she was the one who made him feel like that.

Bucky intertwined their fingers together and squeezed. “I love you too.” They sank into silence before he spoke again. “You should apply, you're the smartest person I've ever met.”

“Oh, how I wish I had a phone to record this so you could never deny you said it.” She teased him with a smirk.

Like this, they went out from being very tense to making out, and this is how Bucky ended up being on top of her, pressing his hips against hers while he was kissing her collarbone.

M let him bite and suck one more time on her skin before she spoke. “Buck, I'm too tired for sex.”

Bucky made a fake—she knows it's fake—pout at her. “Even if I did the whole work?”

“Yeah, even for that. Sorry babe.” Then she planted a kiss on his nose.

Reluctantly, Bucky got away from her, rolling off bed. “Fine, no sex. But you're going to eat—and no, that wasn't a request.” He added when he saw her scrunch her nose.

M took Alpine and sat on the kitchen table, eating food with Bucky while Alpine was on her lap.

“I'm going to take a day off tomorrow,” Bucky said.

“What? Why?”

“Tomorrow is your only day off in the week, and we haven't spent much time together lately. So,” he shrugged.

True, Sunday is the only day she doesn't teach lessons because no one wants to study on Sunday. M swallowed her food first before speaking. “But, what are you going to tell your boss?”

He smirked. “That I had an emergency.”

She raised one eyebrow at him. “Really? And what's that emergency?”

“I'll make something up, I don't care. I just want to spend time with you.”

M can't believe that her heart was still doing stupid shit whenever Bucky says or does something sweet like this, she had been dating him for five months and still she isn't used to it. He was still making her blush.

She can't help but feel the ache in her heart. She never felt like this ever, a year ago when she came everyday to an empty apartment, with no friends because she was in a foreign country, away from her home, and no one to care about her.

But now when M gets back home from work, she finds her adorable boyfriend and cat waiting for her with a lot of hugging and kissing and rubbing head against her leg.

She found her place, she belongs here with the two of them, she'll do whatever it takes to take care of them and to protect them. That's why she'll try to apply for the job, so she can erase the last trace of HYDRA in Bucky's mind, to make him free entirely, to prevent him from having nightmares about being The Winter Soldier again.

That's how they'll take revenge from HYDRA, by living their lives.

“Maybe we go on a date tomorrow?” She asked Bucky with tears gathering behind her eyelids, he took her hand in his and nodded his head with a soft smile.

M never felt what family and love meant before she had Bucky and Alpine in her life, and she was grateful to the both of them for making her know what it feels like.

★THE END★

If ur reading this, than thank u for reading my words! I started writing this with no knowledge of what to come (something very unlike me) but i enjoyed it sm. I love every character here, even the guinea pig. I just wanted to show u how i see The Winter Soldier, how i see Bucky. This has been such a wonderful journey.

Thx again for reading, xxx.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky x reader #bucky x you #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #ao3 fanfic #bucky fanfic #james bucky buchanan barnes

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rome-ii6 · 11 days ago

Text

★ Forever Winter ★

Ch 16

★The Winter Soldier × fem!original character

★WORD COUNT: 6.3k

★MASTERLIST

★SERIES MASTERLIST

★Read it on Ao3

Dr. M

M registered the pain in the back of her head before anything else.

She opened her eyes then closed them quickly after taking a glance.

She waited for someone to say something, to see if someone was aware of her being awake, but thank God, it looks like they didn't notice yet.

M opened her eyes slowly again. Her view was limited to her hands in her lap, cuffed. And two pairs of thighs on both sides.

From the motion and what little she saw, she was in a car, two guards sitting by her sides and making her in the middle.

Closing her eyes back and making her body relax like she was still asleep, M tried to think of something.

Taking a quick glance of the lap of the person on her left side, she found her solution.

With her wrists cuffed, she tried to grab the gun on the leg holster quickly from the person to her left, snatching it with both hands and she made sure to take the safety off before she aimed up as far as the cuffs allowed her in this position.

She heard a bang! Then blood splattered on the car's window, the body slumping.

Before hesitating she twisted the gun to her right and shot without looking, shooting the man on her right in his thigh. M then drove her head to his, making his head lowered a little before she twisted the gun again with her both hands in an awkward position before she shot, twice.

The man in the front held up his gun, but before he can do anything with it she aimed her gun at his head and pulled the trigger twice again, it was impossible to miss him in from this far but just to make sure since her aim was shit and she was told that her aim was shit by two people.

Next, she aimed it at the driver's head from behind. “Don't do anything stupid or I'll shoot you like them.” M said in a harsh voice.

“Can you understand what I'm saying?” She asked him in English.

The driver nodded his head very quickly.

“Good. Now, I need you to jump out of the car.”

M can't exactly see what kind of expression he has on his face at the moment, but she can guess. “Did you hear me?” She pressed the gun more firmly against the back of his head. “Jump. Out. Of. The. Car.”

“But, it's movi—” he started but she cut him off.

“I don't give a fuck.” Her voice was very pissed. “Don't make me shoot you, I'd rather not, but that doesn't mean I won't. So do it. Slow the car a little if you have to so you won't die. Jump.”

The car slowed down a little before the man hurled his body out of the car while it was moving. M let out a sigh of relief when he did, she doesn't want to add more dead people's blood on her hand.

She quickly sat on the driver's seat, closing the car's door then trying awkwardly to grab the wheel with her cuffed hands. She took a glance at the side mirror and saw the man was already on his feet, still alive.

M pressed more on the gas and glanced back ahead of her.

She tried to drive away as fast as possible, but away from what? She doesn't exactly know. But at least she's getting away.

The view she's now seeing was only a very long and abandoned area filled with lots of trees with no sign for anything alive but her.

She doesn't know who these men were, or for whom they worked, but it was clear they tried to kidnap her too.

If they had asked nicely she would have walked with them without a fight, but they had to make things hard.

M doesn't know if they were bad guys or good ones, but they were very clearly working against HYDRA since they tried to kidnap her from them.

She tried to check up on herself while still trying to drive the car with cuffed hands. M looked down at herself and she felt…nothing. She was well, not mentioning the pain on the back of her head.

Letting off the wheel for two seconds so she can touch her right side, she felt her journals still there. They might be very cramped, but at least they were still there.

She must have been out for hours, because the mission was in the dead night, but now the sun is rising and casting orange and pink shadows on the sky.

M tried to drive for hours without stopping (good thing the men had a good sense and they filled up the gas), but she was so exhausted. The last thing she ate was lunch in that shitty apartment. She also needed a good night's sleep, but there was no time for this.

After four hours of driving (as the car's clock shined in green light) she stopped the car a little on the side road.

Looking at the hands on her lap, M took a deep breath and exhaled it. Then she did that again, and again, and again.

She took a look at her company in the car, the three dead bodies. She let out a huff then she started to search them up for the key to her cuffs. She patted the man in the passenger seat and got out with nothing, she went next to the first guy she killed and also found nothing. M started feeling nervous and worried about not finding the keys. If she didn't, she'll have to break her thumb, and she did not like this choice.

Searching the last man's body while praying, she found the keys and let out a high squeak of joy. M tried to twist the keys on the lock, and it was nearly impossible. But good thing she had good teeth.

She tried not to think about how many germs were on the keys that are now between her teeth, and tried not to imagine how disgusting this is. She shut her mind and focused on finding the right key to free her.

When she put on a certain key and twisted her head a clunk sounded, then the pressure on her wrists was less.

She let them fall on the car's floor then held them up in the air. “I'm free! I'm finally free!” M said out loud to herself.

She rubbed both of her wrists, seeing that they were already red.

She may be free of the handcuffs, but she wasn't free free entirely. At least not yet.

M huffed out a breath before she got out of the car, opening the door of the passenger’s seat. She tried to drag the body out in the woods but it was very heavy and painful to her non-existing muscles.

She had to drag the three dead bodies and leave them there out in the woods, not buried or anything.

M didn't even look back at them once when she walked away and got in the car, bringing the engine back to life.

Standing on the side of the road, M raised up her thumb and hoped that racism isn't still quite as popular as it was.

She also hoped for a not a creep person.

M had driven on the dead road until she came to a crossroads, she thought about it for a second before she twisted the wheel and drove to a different road, hoping it'll get her somewhere else from that dead area.

It led her to a not quite dead road that cars pass by it from time to time. She stopped the car on the side and abandoned it with her vest, cuffs, knee caps and tactical belt inside, walking only with a jacket she took from one of the corpses. (At least blood didn't get into it).

She let out everything that might give the impression of her not being a normal person who lives a normal life.

M put a far distance from her and the vehicle as much as she could, walking away from where she left it for an hour or so.

The sun had come long ago, now she guessed it was a little past mid-day. She really had been driving and walking for a long time, trying to escape whoever they wanted to kidnap her, trying to escape HYDRA in this unknown place.

Another car drove closer, so M raised her thumb up again, hoping they'll stop.

For her luck, the car came to a slow down near her, stopping. The window rolled down, a man in his mid thirties with a black hair that was slid back neatly and looked at her, a cigarette between his lips. He was also wearing a suit that matched the colour of his hair.

M didn't come closer to be cautious, she just talked from where she stood. “Hello, sir. Do you understand English?”

He took a drag from his cigarette before he opened his mouth to answer her and to blow the smoke out. “Hello, and yes, I can understand you.”

His voice has a thick Russian accent (that suddenly made her remember Kate), but at least he understands her.

“I need a ride, sir.” M said, not giving him much details.

“Where are you going?” The man asked her in a deep voice.

“Um, where are you going?"

The man took his time thinking after that, blowing out the smoke. Then he told her he's going further two cities from the nearest one which was only 15 kilometers away.

M hoped once again for him not to be a creep, then she got in with him.

Surprisingly, he didn't ask her anything, he didn't ask where her stuff was, or how a foreigner ended up on the side of a country road like that. Nothing.

He turned the radio on and it played some classical music, he even asked her if she didn't like it she could turn it off.

M shook her head and told him it was ok. The man next asked her if it was ok for him to smoke, and she told him she doesn't have a problem with that. And that was true.

He didn't speak with her after this for the entire journey, just drove in silence, letting her look out the window and see the view shift from countryside to small towns.

After an hour or so of driving, he tapped his cigarette's ash then pointed to the back seat, M looked behind to find a plastic bag so she took it, putting it on her lap to see what was inside.

She found some foiled food and snacks, M looked at him again to confirm and the man just nodded his head while his eyes were still on the road.

They didn't look suspicious to M, so she accepted the food because she was starving and she didn't eat or drink anything in a long time. She tore from one snack to the next, not bothering to act more politely and take just one, she was past politeness now.

The man extended his hand and took a bar of chocolate but nothing more, leaving her the rest of the food and snacks.

M was starting to feel sleepy when the car came to a stop after hours of driving. The sun is setting off already.

She looked outside the window to see where they stopped, then she looked at the man.

“We're here.” He said to her with his thick accent.

“Why here exactly?” M asked him.

He nodded with his chin. “They'll help you if you ask. They're good people too.”

She let that sink into her mind for a couple seconds before she opened her door, getting out of the car. M then bent a little so he could see her from the window. “Thank you, you don't know how much you helped me.” Truly, he put between HYDRA and her a huge distance, and offered her silence and food.

The man shook his head. “I didn't do anything.” Then he went off, leaving her.

M turned and looked at the church, letting out a big sigh before she went inside.

For her luck, there wasn't anyone here, it was empty, candles were burning and casting orange light, making it look more holy.

M sat on a pew, not knowing what she's going to do now. Should she pray since she's already in the church?

But before she settled on doing something someone came in, and it was a nun. The nun's eyes fell upon her, then unexpectedly, her face broke into a smile.

The nun came closer to M and sat beside her, letting some space between them that M was grateful for.

“Um, hello?” M tried to start the conversation. She doesn't even know what to say or ask for.

The nun replied to her, but in Russian.

“Sorry, I don't really speak Russian.” She felt sheepish a little at that for some reason.

At least, the nun seemed to understand her because she nodded her head. Then her eyes traveled all over her body like she was assisting her.

M really didn't know what to say or do, but the man in the car told her that they'll help her, so maybe she just ask for help.

She reached the sleeves of her jacket and rolled them over a little, making the bruises the cuffs left visible. M pointed at them, and then held her hands together, mimicking to the nun that she was being cuffed.

Then she made a gesture with her thumb like her throat was being cut, then she shaped with her hand a gun. Lastly, she pointed to herself, “Me,” she told the nun and made two of her fingers move in the air like they were legs walking.

This was so random and it was so hard to communicate when you don't have the same language, but she hoped the nun understood her, understood that she needed help.

The nun's hand came to gently take one of M's hand, squeezing it while nodding and saying something in Russian.

M was a little surprised when the nun took her hand and stood up, forcing her to do the same. She led them in the church, behind to the stairs.

Of course M had watched a lot of horror films, and if she was in one now, she'd be stupid if she climbed up the stairs with a nun she just met, but she wasn't in a horror film (or she hoped), so she followed her.

The nun made them climb all the stairs, coming to a stop when they reached the attic. She opened the door and gestured for M to get inside, so she did.

It was a small room, with a lot of boxes and a small bed. When M turned around from inspecting the room to the nun who was standing in the door, she was giving her a big smile.

The nun spoke once again in her mother language, then she made an eating gesture, then a sleeping one.

M wasn't about to turn down food at the moment, so she nodded her head.

The nun gave her one last smile before she closed the door behind her, letting M alone in this small space.

She inspected the room more closely again, looking into the boxes and finding some worthless things like some lambs, pictures of Jesus, some bible books and whatever church might put in a normal attic.

After that, M sat on the small bed slowly, touching it with her finger to make herself feel it was real.

The nun came back and gave her hot food then left her alone once again. Good thing she left her to herself, because she was eating the food with tears gathered in her eyes, not remembering when was the last time she ate a decent food instead of the food they had in HYDRA bases or just some snacks.

When M laid in bed and gazed at the ceiling, it all came crushing back suddenly. The bodies she saw them kill, the three bodies she killed and left in the woods, the face of the first man she killed. How she escaped only by miracle, by being kidnapped and by some reckless soldier who didn't think she'd take the gun on his leg holster.

M laid there not able to do anything when her thoughts consumed her, when they made her remember she left her guinea pig to an unknown fate, when they told her that maybe she escaped, but Winter didn't. Winter, her sweet Winter.

Winter, Winter, my Winter—James, James Buchanan Barnes. His name is James.

She left him there, she vowed to help him, to be there with him and yet she isn't. And yet M is laying on a bed after having a good meal when he was still HYDRA's puppet. She left him alone with his broken brain, confused by the memories he sees.

She had vowed to make them pay for what they did to her and The Winter Soldier, but yet here she is, while HYDRA kept doing whatever they liked with Winter.

M curled on the bed and let out broken sobs, the only thing she knew how to do at that moment until sleep claimed her.

M was in the basement, doing the laundry.

The nun let her stay here as much as she wanted, so she wanted to repay her back.

Her first days here were weird and a little awkward, but then Sister Liliya (that was her name) came to the attic with a 14 years old boy with her to translate.

The boy (Isaak) listened to Sister Liliya before he tried to translate to her with whatever vocabulary a 14 years old would have.

“Sister is asking you if you feel comfortable here, and um, asking if—if you need anything.” Isaak said.

“Oh, I'm very comfortable. Thanks for asking.” M tried to keep her words simple and not complicated for him to translate. “Tell her I don't need anything.” She then considered it for a second. “Well, nothing besides keeping me secret. I don't want to be found. Can you please translate that?”

Isaak nodded with his head and started to speak to Sister Liliya again.

“She's saying—she said she won't tell anyone.” M looked at the nun to find her nodding, hand on her heart and the other was up in the air, like she was swearing. “And that I'm not going to tell anyone too.”

M was very grateful for what they had offered to her, a complete stranger. She felt a little bad that she was just eating their food and sleeping here with the clothes they gave her without doing anything, so she started to do some chores.

(Also, there wasn't much she can do when she's all day locked in the room she's staying in, so doing some chores wasn't a bad idea compared to either that or staying in bed doing nothing, letting her thoughts drive her crazy).

So M started to wash the dishes, mob the floor, or do laundry just like now.

It was already her sixth day here and she was getting a little used to it.

M went upstairs after she dried the clothes, hanging them outside, but before she asked Sister Liliya if she needed anything and the nun shook her head.

When she reached the attic, she took in a deep breath because she was still far away from fit, so the stairs always get her. She took in another breath before she opened the door and went utterly still, frozen in place, even her lungs seemed to stop working.

M found someone was already inside the attic, sitting on her bed.

The Winter Soldier.

“Just tell me real quick, are you here to kill me?” M said to The Winter Soldier who was sitting at the edge of her small bed from the door, not wanting to come any closer just in case.

Winter shook his head. “No.”

At that, she finally let out her breath, feeling her shoulders slumping.

M walked closer to him, finding one of her journals between his hands. He must have searched around the room. Since when he was here without her knowledge?

“I didn't know you knew how to draw." Winter said.

Uh-Oh, the worst case scenario that she didn't expect to happen happened. “Well, you couldn't have known that.” M tried to keep her voice calm. “I didn't tell you.”

Winter flipped through the pages. “They're…beautiful,” he said to her in a low voice. “There are drawings of your friends and some other people I didn't recognize, and of that small guinea pig.” He then looked up at her with those blue eyes of his. That was really unfair of him, because he looks so innocent, enjoying seeing her secret drawings.

M came closer to him at the edge of the bed, then she kneeled down and looked at his mesmerizing eyes. “I know, I drew them.”

“There are also drawings of…me.”

She really struggled to keep her face neutral, instead of letting it flush in utter embarrassment. “I know.”

“Like, there are drawings of me in clothes I never wore,” Winter still kept talking about the fucking drawings in such a lovely voice, like he was amazed at that. “And even some with bare chest.”

That was the last straw of shame, M took the journal from between his hands And threw it behind her. “You saw nothing Winter. That was nothing.”

He looked confused at her. “But, I saw—”

“Nothing. You didn't see anything in that journal. In fact, there isn't any journal, it doesn't exist.”

Silence hung between them after this, she took this chance to let her eyes check up on him, seeing if he was well without new injuries.

Winter was wearing his whole suit, with his small knives, guns and everything. But she didn't care about these, she trusted him. M cared more on what was on his face—the mask. Her hand raised up, fingertips about to touch the mask before she asked in a low voice. “Can I?”

She saw how hesitant he was in the motel’s room when he was about to put it on his face, which was weird, because The Winter Soldier never hesitates about anything.

Winter caught her eyes, then he closed it. M took that as a green light, so very gentle and slowly, she took the mask off, putting it on the floor.

Winter's face was beautiful as ever, almost perfect. “Can I touch your face?” When she asked him this, he dipped his chin a little, nodding.

M let her fingers touch his cheeks first, then his stubbled jaw. She felt him stiffen under her touch, sucking in a ragged breath.

She can't believe this is real, she was kneeling in front of The Winter Soldier who was letting her touch his face for the first time ever. M took the opportunity and touched his lips, then she passed her fingers on his nose.

She had drawn this face before, the features, but touching them and being this close to him was far more better way to study his face for a drawing. But she wasn't studying his face for that right now, she just wanted to touch that beautiful face of his and see how he'd react.

M ran her fingers through his brown locks, swiping them away from his face.

Winter was very patient with her and let her do whatever she wanted, he even tilted his head, leaning towards her touch. When M saw his eyes, they were dilated and looking at her own lips before they flickered to her own eyes.

“I think…I think I tried to run away before.” Winter was the one who broke the silence. “From HYDRA, I mean.”

She let that hang in the air for seconds while biting her lip, thinking. “Yes,” she said after she made her decision. “Yes, you ran before. A lot.”

He drew his brows closer, looking at her in confusion. “How do you know that?”

M let out a deep sigh before she stood up and sat beside him on the bed, legs tugged closer to her. “Look Winter, I need you to be calm while hearing this, ok?”

She was the one who needed to be calm, because she already felt the sweat on her body forming even in this cold temperature. M decided to tell him what she knows, but not all of it with details, that will be too much and will break his fragile mind.

“Can I hold your hands while saying the next—yes, thanks.” Winter offered his hands without hesitation for her, making her heart beat faster.

M wanted to hold his hand while telling him, no, she needed it. She needs to make him know that she's here, to ground him in the moment and let her touch be reassuring.

“Two months ago, I read a file. A file about the super soldiers' serum.” She took a deep breath, she started, so now she has to finish it. “The file had information about how to make that serum and a lot of other chemical stuff. It also had information about the test subjects—you were one of them.”

So far, Winter didn't give any reaction, but she was just starting. “I read what they had about you. I read how they captured you and how they started doing experiments on you to be like this, a super soldier.” One hand left his, gesturing to his body before M took his hand again. “I also read about how they brainwashed you to be ‘the perfect weapon’, about how many times you resisted and got your memories back to be wiped out again, about how many times you ran away when you got your memories back for them to catch you again.” Tears already started to roll down her cheeks, her voice breaking about what she was about to say. “The first task they gave me when they kidnapped me was brainwashing you because you remembered something. They gave me instructions about how to do it,” M took her hands from The Winter Soldier and pressed the heel of them on her eyes, trying to get the words between sobs. “And I was a coward, I was a fucking c-coward so I did it. I brainwashed you, I hurt you, I stood by while I personally caused you pain.”

This was in her chest for half a year now, and it really was choking. M can't believe saying the words out loud for him will make her feel this lighter, or this much bad at the same time.

She was sniffing when she felt fingers raising her chin gently, making her meet his eyes again.

“It's ok,” Winter said to her in a low voice.

“It's not ok, I hurt you.” M said back.

“You didn't have a choice,”

“I did, but I was so much of a coward and chose to hurt you and be selfish.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I'm not mad at you. You were just trying to survive, that's not wrong.”

“What?” Ok, now she felt a spark of anger, so she wiped her tears away with her sleeve. “Don't you dare make this about me Winter, you're the one who was hurt, you're the one who was trying to survive.”

Winter tugged a strand of hair behind her ear, making her blush a little in one of the most bad times to do that. “I'm still not mad at you,” his hand stayed on her face. “You're not like them, like HYDRA. You clearly didn't want to hurt me but you had to. You said it yourself, I'm the one who was trying to survive, so I totally understand what you've done.”

What? Is Winter finally out of his mind? Is he really saying he's not mad at her after all what she had done?

M opened her mouth to say something but it looks like Winter is in the mood for talking because he spoke before her.

“Do you know any other information about my past?”

She sniffed again before she answered him. “Yes. Your name was James Buchanan Barnes, you were a soldier in WWII.”

“Bucky.” Winter said.

M blinked. “What?”

“My friends, they used to call me ‘Bucky’.”

“How did you know?”

“I don't know, it just came to my mind when you said my name.”

“You also were an American,” M said to him while she tried to figure what to do with her hands now. “Imagine losing your memories and then someone tells you were an American, I'd rather stay without my memories in that case.”

M winced as soon as the words were out of her mouth, it was supposed to be some kind of joke, but it came all wrong. “Sorry, shouldn't have said that. I know it's too soon.”

Now she wanted to disappear into thin air. She just got nervous, and what she does when she gets nervous is blurt out stupid jokes.

“It's ok,” Winter let his thumb slowly stroke her cheek. “It was funny.” That was said with one of the most neutral faces ever.

She raised her eyebrows. “Really now?”

He nodded. “Yeah,”

“Your face says otherwise.”

“That's because I found it funny on the inside.”

“So you do laugh at my joke deep inside you!”

“Maybe,” that was all what Winter offered for her, but she took it because it was so sweet.

Since it was Winter's turn now to inspect her face, she gave him some time before she asked him. “How did you find me?”

“I had to go back to the base after the mission failed,” Winter started. “I was the only one who made it. I needed to report to Supervisor. He sent me and a lot of soldiers back to the city, looking for you. We found the three bodies—” here M flinched so he took her hand between his. “—then we found the car. We didn't know where you went, so we separated into three teams, looking in three cities. Me and some soldiers were looking for you here for three days now.”

M had to gulp before she asked her question, voice quivering a little. “And the other soldiers, where are they now?”

He squeezed her hand gently, reassuringly. “Not near here. I was assigned to this area alone because I'll be more efficient like this.”

At that, she let out a sigh of relief. “And how did you find me here, in a church attic?”

“There aren't any empty houses here, or any place to hide. So I assumed maybe you'll be in a church so I started looking into them until I found your journals in this attic.”

“Ok, that's clever of you, I admit.” She nodded her head, proud of him.

“Also, I ran into a small cat while I was entering through the window.” Winter said casually. Far too casually, like people get through the windows all the time.

“You got through the—what the fuck Winter? How?” M was so startled by him, he always managed to catch her off guard.

“You left it open,” he said.

“Of course I'll leave the window in the attic open, because there isn't a sane person who'll consider—you know what? Not important. Forget it.”

Perhaps that was normal for him, the assassin, but it definitely wasn't for her. The window is far too high from the ground and surely no one but him will enter this attic like that except him.

“What was the cat's colour?” M asked to try to change the subject.

“White with blue eyes.” Winter paused for seconds, then in a low wondering voice, “It was so small.”

M recognized the cat immediately. “Oh yes, it's one of the stray cats that come here from time to time. She's an adorable little cat, I feed her whenever I see her.”

Winter silently looked at their hands, so she did the same. He intertwined their fingers together. “I'm sorry,”

That was so out of the blue it took her time to respond. “For what?”

“I'm sorry I didn't save you. It was clear that the mission was an ambush to catch you, yet I didn't protect you like I was supposed to…”

“Winter,” M shook her head with a huff. “Look at me Winter,” he obeyed her like always, without hesitation. “I'm fine. I saved myself, and I'm perfectly well and not injured. I didn't need you to save me.” Then she tried giving him a little reassuring smile.

“Still, I failed in protecting you.” Winter said under his breath, like he was grumbling.

Cute.

“I told you not to make this about me, I'm fine can't you see?”

At that, he let his gaze roam over her body in a slowly agonizing way, as if he forgot to check it and see if there was any visible injury. His eyes traveled all over her, then at one point they started looking at her body differently, she saw it with the way his eyes darkened. That made M’s face feel hot.

The Winter Soldier brought his face closer to her, one hand went to cradle the back of her neck. M tilted her head to the side, looking at his lips just like he was looking at hers.

Winter took in a deep breath and she felt it when he released it on her lips. His blue eyes were half-lidded

M let him take the first step, let him make his mind about this. And thank God he didn't disappoint her. He brought his lips more closer to her until she felt it pressing on hers, making her eyes flatter shut.

She kissed him back, pressing her lips more firmly, and God, she can't believe this is happening right now. She can't believe his lips are softer than she thought they'll be, she can't believe she's making out with The Winter Soldier.

But when M was kissing him in a confident way, Winter was hesitant, like this was his first kiss (she's sure it isn't, she saw how he looked back in the ‘40s), like he wasn't sure.

M broke the kiss and put a hand on his chest. “Winter, if you aren't sure then it's ok if—” he cut her off by sealing her lips with his.

This time, he was more confident, like he remembered how to kiss finally. Winter tightened his grip on the back of her neck, making her lean closer to him. His tongue licked her lower lip, asking her silently for permission that she gladly granted it to him.

M's put both of her hands on his face. Winter started kissing her more passionately, tilting his head so he can kiss her more deeply.

This kiss was full of emotions, full of lust, desperation, passion, want, and she even might dare and say maybe a little love too.

She was very aware of his hands, very aware of how they went from the back of her neck to her back, then down, roaming her body until he planted them on her waist.

M was also very aware of the way her body was reacting to him, of how a shiver ran down her spine, of the knot in her stomach and the heat coiling in her core.

She tugged at Winter's hair and he made a sound that she swallowed it. He started gently laying her on her back, placing himself on top of her. With one of his legs he parted her thighs, making his knee rub against her clothed core. M let out a moan at that, Winter seemed to enjoy it because he rubbed more, making her arch her back.

His fingers came to the bottons of her cardigan, undoing them. “Winter—wait—” but she let out a sigh of pleasure when his mouth latched on her jaw, teeth scratching there before he sucked on the skin.

“Winter,” M tried again, but her voice came so pathetically breathless. “Winter, stop.” She tried again, hands taking his broad shoulders.

At that, he stopped and looked at her with worry. “What? Are you ok?”

M had to bite her lip, she was very turned on right now, she didn't want to stop but they had to. “Yeah, I'm ok. Just—first, we're literally in a church. Second, we don't have protection. I can't take a risk.”

Winter's face became a little buzzled. “You aren't on anything?”

She had to let out a scoff at that. “Are you serious? Do you think HYDRA will supply me with something like that? And even if they did, I wouldn't have taken it because I usually sleep with other women and we don't need pills for that. And the men I slept with in the past I made sure we used some kind of protection. Which we don't have now.”

The Winter Soldier let out a huff and planted his hands beside her head, holding his weight . “Ok, fine.” He clearly wasn't satisfied with the way his lips were pursed.

“What now then?” Winter asked her.

The last time he asked her this, she didn't have an answer for him. But this time, she did.

She gently put both of her palms on his face, bringing it closer so she's murmuring against his lips. “You don't need to save me Winter,” M's lips twisted into a big smirk. “But would you run away with me?”

Winter's face broke into a big grin, making his whole face lit up, even his eyes seemed to hold a small spark on them, this was the first time she saw him smile.

That smile was an answer enough for M.

★Next chapter

So... thoughts? This is the last chapter before the epilogue.

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fluff #bucky x reader #bucky x you #james buchanan barnes #james bucky barnes #ao3 fanfic #bucky fanfic #james bucky buchanan barnes

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rome-ii6 · 11 days ago

Text

★ Forever Winter ★

Ch 15

★The Winter Soldier × fem!original character

★WORD COUNT: 4.5k

★MASTERLIST

★SERIES MASTERLIST

★Read it on Ao3

Dr. M

M thinks she looks good in this attire.

After the nearly-kiss scene yesterday, when the soldiers came from their shift they told them the mission will be tomorrow, which is today.

They gave her specific clothes for this mission, black cargo pants, a vest, kneecaps, a belt and boots (she was in love with the boots). It was all in black, but she liked it, loved it.

M thinks she must definitely look sexy right now with these clothes and her hair up in a ponytail, she wishes that there were some girls to see her, so she can take the opportunity and flirt with them.

But unfortunately, her only possible admirer was The Winter Soldier, which wasn't entirely unfortunate. It's just that the problem is, he wasn't looking at her at all.

M stripped down to her underwear so she could put on this combat suit, but Winter didn't even glance at her, she knows it because she kept dressing up while her gaze was locked at him.

The room was empty except for the two of them putting on their gear, yet he still acted like she wasn't a few meters away from him in her underwear. And that actually made her feel annoyed at him.

M wanted to see him flustered, to see him blush at least a little, or feel surprised or anything! Anything so she won't be the only one who gets worked up. But Winter gave her none of this.

She doesn't even know what would have happened if he saw and made some kind of reaction, but maybe it's better that way.

The Winter Soldier stripped down to his underwear too, and not like him, M took a long look at his body, trying to memorize every part of it so she can draw it when she gets the chance.

She saw those thighs of him—and God, what thighs he had. They were muscular like his whole body. M already memorized his back and the scars on it when he was shaving, so she took her time memorizing other parts, abs, biceps and that tiny waist.

Maybe Winter acted like she wasn't there and didn't look at her, but she? She leaned on her elbows on her bed, in full gear looking at it shamelessly.

M watched him in every move, putting his pants on, his boots, his own vest, his kneecaps, waist belt, fingerless gloves ( God, fingerless gloves) and leg hostel.

She knows he knows that she's watching him, but he's still in his I'm-not-seeing-you role, so she let him be.

Maybe Winter was being avoidant because of what happened yesterday. Or the lack of what happened, because she was the one who ruined it, the one who got away from the kiss. Yeah, probably more than maybe.

A soldier opened the room's door, saying something in Russian to Winter, and then he looked at her and said in English, “Hurry.”

M gave him a mocking salute with her hand, then he disappeared back.

(At least now after four days with them, they say basic English words for her to understand, and that is actually better).

M looked at The Winter Soldier again, seeing him holding his mask, looking at it.

After a long moment of just looking, he—seems reluctantly—put it on his face. Now, he was in full gear too.

Finally, finally, Winter's gaze met hers (which is a little ironic, because she was the one who usually avoids his gaze and he's the one seeking her) and let her know what he's saying without him voicing it out loud.

Winter basically told her to get her ass up, so M did.

They exit the room, seeing Commander and the rest of the soldiers are already gathering around the coffee table, looking at the map on it and probably going through the plan one more last time.

(They had gone through it like five times already, she can recite it from memory if you asked her, so she wasn't exactly excited to hear it one more time, or hear the S word—serum—again).

When Commander saw her, he extended his hand to her, so M got closer and took what was on it to see it was a radio.

“We'll communicate through this if anything happens,” Commander told her then he went back to the map.

“Wait,” M said to get his attention back, putting the radio in her belt. “That's it? Where are my weapons?”

Commander raised his eyebrows at her. “You don't have any weapons.”

“So what? I'll go on a mission without something to help me fight?”

“You aren't going to fight. That's not part of the plan.”

“And what if I needed a weapon to protect myself?” M raised her two eyebrows too at him.

Commander pinched the bridge of his nose. “There are seven of the best soldiers with you, not mentioning one of them is a super soldier. You won't need to protect yourself.”

“Yeah, but what if I had to?” M pressed more. “You'd rather risk me than give me a weapon just in case? What will you tell HYDRA later? ‘oh sorry she died, I couldn't ignore my ego for a second and—’”

“Ok, ok, just shut up.” Commander let out a big huff ( a lot of people do this when she's around, maybe she just has this influence) and reached into a bag to give her small knives.

“What? That's it?” M protested. “What about a gun?”

“I won't give you a gun, I'm not stupid. You'll get just these knives. Do you even know how to use them?”

“I know how to not get stabbed—I took a class, but how to be the one who's doing the stabbing? Nope.”

Commander just huffed again and got back to the map, so she guessed he's done with her.

At least M got two small knives out of him. She put them on her tactical belt.

M saw a figure a little far from the table move and she found it was Winter. The one never knows where he's with his deadly—literally—silent footsteps. He has a habit of not being seen or heard unless he wants you to (which she sees as creepy).

She saw him come closer until he was standing in front of her, making her crane her neck a little to look at him like usual.

Winter pointed with his fingers to her belt—or rather one of her small knives. She doesn't know what he wants but she took it out.

M offered it to him, but he just shook his head and took her wrist with his flesh fingers, making her hand raise up a fraction.

With so much gentleness like when he cupped her jaw but with his metal fingers yesterday, he brought her hand that was holding the knife closer to his body, down to the right side of his spine, then to the left side. Winter pointed with his fingers there, making her understand that they were vital spots to stab.

He seems not in the mood to talk today.

Also, wasn't he just ignoring her existence? What changed his mind?

(Why touch her that gently? Why make a simple touch like his fingers on her wrist this intimate? Winter made M’s skin hot by just that, she felt like if he touched her somewhere else, it wouldn't feel intimate like this, and she hated him for it).

Winter took the knife from her then he made her fingers wrapped around the wrist of the hand that was holding the knife. He made a move—a slight one—to move his hand, but he couldn't because M was holding it in its place. So The Winter Soldier dropped the knife, holding it with his other hand and making the job of pointing it to her side.

Next, Winter gave her back the knife and redirected her hand so it was pointed a little under his heart, then directly at his heart. He made her switch the knife to the other hand before he took it and tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck. Taking her fingers, he put them on his neck—on his pulse point.

M felt his heartbeats, she didn't know much really about the body, so she doesn't know if his heart was beating fast like hers is doing right now by that touch, she wished she could know.

(Kate will know about that. Ugh, she missed her).

Winter took the hand with the knife again, pointing its sharp edge on where her fingers just were, his pulse point. Even though he was the one holding her wrist determining how close the knife to his skin is, M tried to put a space between it and his flesh.

All those times he pointed the sharp knife at his vital spots, his skin was shielded with his combat suit, making no direct danger to him. But she didn't like the idea of him getting hurt by accident, even if she knows he's more skilled than that.

The Winter Soldier watched when M put her knife back to her belt, still not saying anything.

She was aware there were other people in the room talking, but in the moments Winter was teaching her where to stab, she didn't hear their voices, it's like they weren't few meters away from them. But M didn't mind if they saw what Winter was just teaching her, this was nothing, just innocent touches. Plus: there wasn't something scream romantic in teaching how to kill.

“Thanks,” M muttered to The Winter Soldier, turning already to the group of soldiers around the table.

The Winter Soldier

“Ok, now.” Commander said to the soldier who was holding a small screen.

The soldier touched the screen, then he nodded at Commander. All of them took a few steps back in caution.

The lock on the door quietly melted, making the door now available to be opened, and that's exactly what they had done.

Commander gave them a silent sign to go inside and be careful, and like that, they entered the building.

They only took a few steps before a guard appeared, but before he could do anything one soldier shot him dead, the body hitting the floor with a thud.

The Winter Soldier took a glance at the woman with hair—that was currently in a high ponytail—that made him think of mahogany. Dr. M's face was twisted, and she was looking at the dead man like the rest of the team. That's why they didn't see the next guard coming with a gun clutched to his hands, but in less than a second, he shot the man, dropping him dead.

Dr. M looked at the new body, and she looked like she didn't want to be here, like she might vomit. (The Winter Soldier really does hope she doesn't do that right now, he'll appreciate it if she kept the contents of her stomach inside it).

That guard wasn't supposed to pass this place until after two minutes, he came earlier than the schedule they knew so he had them by surprise, but good thing he took care of it.

(A slight shiver down his spine).

Commander nodded to him when he saw the body, then signaled for part of the team to go in the other direction, making them divide to two teams that will meet again at the staircase like the plan said.

The other team went, guns raised. The Winter Soldier, Commander, a soldier and Dr. M were in this team. Dr. M was kind of in the middle, since she was the most important part of this plan, and they were to guard her no matter what, to keep her safe and sound without a scratch.

He glanced at her again, making sure she was okay so far.

Confirmed.

Now glancing back ahead of him.

This level has four guards, and they just killed two, leaving another two. That wasn't a big number, but he still doesn't want to test the chances.

(A slight shiver. He has bad feelings for some reason).

They walked cautiously, all guns raised except Dr. M since she doesn't have one.

When they reached the stairs, the other teams joined them after seconds, only nodding their heads to tell them it's all clear. The Winter Soldier glanced once again at Dr. M, checking on her.

They took the stairs carefully and almost without a sound. They made Dr. M be in the middle so if there are any kind of threats on the front or the back she'll be safe, he even was climbing the stairs with her shoulder to shoulder.

The Winter Soldier looked at her from the corner of his eyes.

“Oh for fuck's sake Winter,” Dr. M kept her gaze ahead, talking to him in a low hiss. “Stop looking at me every now and then like I'm something made of glass and you're waiting for it to shatter. I'm fine.”

He opened his mouth to answer but he heard a shot rang from the front.

They reached the second level, two dead bodies already on the ground, a pool of blood started forming around their head.

He nearly blocked Dr. M's view when she came by and looked at them, but she averted her gaze away in another direction in the moments he took to think of that.

Footsteps, then more guards appeared. The second level had a large number of guards, so this is where they need to be more careful, and by more careful meaning they—he—needs to protect Dr. M.

The Winter Soldier aimed his raised gun and shot, dropping the men dead. But more came in, and that made more bullets fly by from both sides. Not taking any risk, he jerked Dr. M by her arm, making them both cover behind a wall, letting his fellow soldiers take care of it.

“Oh God,” she grumbled beside him. “I told you, I'm fine. Or as fine as I could be right now.” In a fast move, Dr. M took the gun on his leg holster. “I'm not going to panic, I'm not going to do anything because I'm fine, I can hold it, I know it's not the time for this. I feel the panic slowly gathering behind my ribs but I can get my shit together for the time, so can yo—”

A guard came in front of them, Dr. M raised up the gun quickly at the same time The Winter raised his and she fired, shooting the man in the shoulder. He shot too, but on his forehead and he got it right.

“Your aim is bad.” He said to her.

She rolled her eyes at him. “I know!” She shouted over the sounds of guns going off behind them. “I trained for some time but never got to keep training when I got to the new base. But this is better than me cowering behind you all. I don't need you to protect me Winter! I'm capable of taking care of myself!”

The thing is, she was just seconds away from getting killed by this man laying on the ground with this terrible aim if not for him being here. But was he going to issue that for her, making her more pissed at him? No.

Also, all what was going through his mind while she shouted over the sound of bullets was: her hair, it's in a ponytail. Should I touch it? I want to feel its texture on my fingertips. I want to tug it down. What a lovely shade of colour, you never get used to it.

The Winter Soldier was distracted by her, so he had to blink and focus on what's important now, the mission and protecting her (even if she doesn't want to).

(The problem is, The Winter Soldier has a feeling that he was going to protect her whether or not it was part of the mission. He just looks at Dr. M and feels that tingling sensation, the one he gets when a memory surfaces back or after he gets a feeling that he had done something like what he was doing at the moment before. And right now, he feels that he needs to protect her, he feels like he had that feeling before, but towards someone else that he can't remember).

A final bullet went off before he slightly looked back, seeing their team was still standing there and alive. Two soldiers got scratched but they were fine, no one of the team members died. Yet.

Taking the opportunity of the place being safe for now, Commander gestured for one of the soldiers to come with him, and he gestured also for Dr. M.

The next phase of the plan is on, they were taking her to the labs before the reinforcement come.

(Another shiver and little tingling in his mind).

Lastly, Commander nodded to him, a signal to keep following the plan.

But before Commander passed by, The Winter Soldier grabbed his arm. “I have a bad feeling.”

“Noted.” That was all what Commander offered to him, and it was enough.

He saw Dr. M's face in confusion to what they just said in Russian before he turned back.

The Winter Soldier was already a few steps away when he heard behind him the voice of Commander.

“Where did you get that from? You know what—I don't care, just point it away from me.”

He doesn't know if Dr. M gave him a response, but he knows if she did, it would have been one of her sarcastic jokes.

Dr. M

They navigated through the corridors, going further and further from where Winter—and the other unimportant soldiers—was. (Honestly, how can she look at some other soldier while Winter fought like that? While he looks so good in his suit, fighting.

Ok, maybe she was a little sick for seeing that as hot, but whatever).

The further they went, the dullest the sound of shooting became.

“Are we not there yet?” M panted, asking Commander.

She was trying to keep up with how fast Commander and the other soldier were running, making her lungs ache. M was definitely not built for this, thank God the work she chose contained using your head instead of muscles, because she would have been long gone if she was in a job requiring physical effort, even if a little.

(Despite that, the work she got into—chemistry—was the sole reason for her being kidnapped by HYDRA and being here at this moment. But that's not the point right now).

Finally, they stopped running and entered through doors, kicking them open.

Two scientists were in the lab, and upon seeing them and their big guns they quickly raised their hand in the air, surrendering.

M was also raising her gun, just being cautious, it wasn't like she knows how to aim, but still, she can't let them know that.

She took another step before she heard two shots followed by two bodies dropping dead.

“What the fuck?! Why did you do that?!” M shouted at Commander.

“None of your business.” Commander hissed at her.

They just killed two unarmed men who surrendered to them. God, this night needs at least two weeks to process what's happening on it.

M felt sorry for the two scientists, but she bit her tongue and went further into the lab, trying her hardest not to look at the dead bodies.

How many dead bodies she saw tonight, how many times she had to force the contents of her stomach down?

Winter wasn't wrong about being worried about her, she too, was worried about herself. Because to get through this night she had to reach for the emotions switch inside her and turn it off. She had to not look at the bodies, she had to just focus on the mission. If she gets her shit together, this night will end up faster. She can process what happened later.

“Now, do your job.” Commander did what was his job, commanded her.

With a little huff under her breath she went to one of the test benches, looking at the files that were placed on its surface.

“Fuck,” M muttered to herself when she opened the two first files. But it looks like Commander heard her.

“What?”

“It's written in Russian.”

He gestured for the other soldier to come closer to where they stood. “What are we looking for?”

“I think it'll be a file with the words—” (here she mimicked gagging inside her head at the word she's going to say) “‘serum’, ‘mind’, and maybe even something like ‘genius’.”

Commander repeated her words to the soldier in Russian this time, and the soldier just nodded his head.

M kept looking for files urgently, placing them on the lab table for the soldiers to read and see through.

She asked them if there was anything they found similar to what she said but they shook their heads, so she went to another test bench, looking through the files and giving it to them to get back to continue searching.

This place was full of them, and she doesn't know if they have the time for finding wh—

The soldier shouted something in Russian, but she understood what it was because in his raised hand was a file. M quickly got back to them, taking the file and placing herself in the center.

“Here,” M pointed with her finger to a paragraph, asking them to translate it to her.

Commander tried to translate what she was pointing at, it wasn't really a good translation since the file had a lot of chemical and scientific words that were hard to translate.

But she got the whiff. And oh boy, what a shock she felt when she saw the chemical equations that didn't need to be translated, they were obvious.

This—here comes the S word again—serum was made of her formula, of the one she first made before she knew of the super soldiers serum and got inspired by it. This was the first formula she made, with all the small details, so how did it make it to here?

M only wrote the formula in her journal, which she took everywhere with her, always by her side. She lightly touched the right side of her waist, feeling her two journals there under all this gear. They weren't going back to that motel, so she had to take it with her but there was nowhere else to put it but there.

And it wasn't just that they managed somehow at getting her work, but they also had the audacity to make improvements on her formula and make a serum out of it.

The worst of all of this? They tested it. They tested it on humans. Humans.

She asked Commander to translate how it went for the test subjects, but he said there was no time and they needed to leave since they got what they wanted. There wasn't a sight of a sample of any serum here, so they'll just take the file.

But M insisted for him to read for her, and stood in her place and told them they'll have to literally drag her—which they very well can since they were very muscular soldiers—out of here.

At her stubborn, Commander looked at the ceiling like he was asking it for patience. Then, he quickly read what happened to one of the test subjects.

“When they injected it his veins turned deep blue and he started to shake then a black something came out of his ears and mouth so he died.” Commander told her all the words in a rush without stopping for air.

Now M was speechless.

It's ok, not the time. It's not the time to vomit and feel dizzy. Stop feeling the panic gathering behind your ribs, stop focusing on it—forget it.

She tried to wield herself to calm down and act like she wasn't on the verge of having a fucking panic attack.

“Now can we go? We nee—”

Everything happened so fast, M wasn't even sure if she saw it.

She just heard two shots ring loudly and she instantly crouched down, covering her head with her hands. The second thing she registered was Commander and the other soldier were dead.

Their bodies were on both of her sides, eyes empty and looking at nothing. They were dead.

Dead, dead, dead.

This was not good for her panic at all, this was so bad.

M quickly forced herself to take her gun and focus, sitting on the floor while trying to deal with the unknown threat.

She heard footsteps so she raised her head, shooting her gun without looking then covered back with the laboratory bench behind her. No voices came out in pain, so she must have shot at nothing.

Fuck, she wished that she knew how to aim—or better, she wished to not be here at all.

M heard more footsteps coming closer, then someone appeared at her left side from nowhere and she had to jerk to that side and shoot.

The guard dodged it and raised his own gun at her, but before M could try to shoot again a hand from behind came and twisted the hand she was holding the gun with, making her drop it in pain.

The silent guard who came behind her twisted both her arms behind her back, holding them in a strong grip.

M would have found this deja vu funny if she wasn't in this situation.

Last time someone held her like this, she drove her head back breaking his nose when he was trying to kidnap her for HYDRA. And this is looking far too much like that scene.

So doing the same, M tried to break this man's nose with her head but the feeling of bone breaking didn't happen when she threw her head back.

Well, fuck.

The man in front of her said something to her but she didn't understand him, she still doesn't fucking speak Russian. Why do they assume she speaks it? She was a woman with a fucking bronze skin here, she looked far away from a Russian person.

The man who was holding her said something to the one in front of her which made him shake his head and reply back.

M struggled in the captor’s grip, trying to do anything but stand still while she was probably being kidnapped, again.

Seriously, what makes kidnapers attracted to her?

While she was jerking and struggling, she saw a space in the wall to her left that wasn't there before. It looks like a hidden door, and by it there were more guards.

That's where they came from, that's why Commander and the other soldier didn't see them coming.

The grip on her arms loosened a little, but before M took use of it, she felt something collide hard with the back of her head, making her drown into total darkness.

★Next chapter

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