Return | Bucky Barnes | Book Two | Marvel Cinematic Universe

Chapter 58

She needed to separate him from that gun before she tried anything, she thought as she clumsily used the head of the Sceptre to shield her face as he fired again, the shock of the bullet's strike vibrating down the shaft to her hands. She couldn't do that with his focus like this, so singular-

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes you stand down now!"

Her yell came with more fire than she knew she had, thrown so thoughtlessly as he raised the gun again, mere feet from where she stood trapped at the end of the hallway – and hesitated.

It was all she needed.

Spinning to sweep the blunt side of the Sceptre in a wide arc, she brought it down hard on his outstretched right arm, knocking the gun from his grasp, but giving his left arm an opening at close range.

Gasping, she felt her body jerk back before her mind could process her mistake, as his left hand reached over her to grasp the Sceptre, using the way she held it across her body to drag her off her feet. Kat could hear the whirr of the plates in his arm contracting as her back slammed into his chest, the rigid shaft of the Sceptre trapping her in place. And iron bar that he gripped just as tightly as she did, crushing her body against his.

Her cry of pain was lost to the air being squeezed from her lungs, her legs kicking frantically as she tried to move, to push her arms forward to overcome his monumental strength – but she couldn't. She couldn't even get her feet to the floor to give herself any purchase, he had lifted her off her ground with the crushing pressure of his arms.

"Bucky-" She wheezed, her knuckles white around the Sceptre, her teeth gritting against the pain flaring in her ribs as he waited for them to crack. "Bucky please..."

Her words didn't touch him this time, not in the way she needed them to.

You know how to get out of this.

No I don't. She cried to the voice in her head. The voice of the man she loved. The man who was about to kill her years before they got the chance to love one another.

It didn't make sense. It wasn't fair.

It wasn't fair that he was trying to stop her from saving his own goddamn life.

You know how to get out of this.

Again, she heard him. An echo of a day he had been going easy on her. When he had let her twist and slip out of his hold because it wasn't real that day. It was just a game, a way to get her to practice the motions it would take to deactivate his arm-

Abruptly, she gathered her strength to glance up and shift her grip on the Sceptre, pulling it up towards her chest with a painful jerk – but sending the cutting edge of the blade driving down into the plates of his left bicep.

She didn't know what the Sceptre was made of, but it sliced through the titanium alloy like butter.

The sudden release of pressure sent her crashing to the floor, her body landing heavily atop the Sceptre as he released her, staggering back as she coughed through the blinding rush of oxygen that flooded into her lungs.

She didn't have time to recover, bracing her shaking arms against the Sceptre she forced herself up, driving the end of the staff into the ground to help her balance as she watched the Winter Soldier attempt to regain control of his spasming arm, staring down at the deep gauge she had left in the sculpted plates.

She was lucky, an inch higher and she'd have missed the internal control panel.

Clenching her jaw as he raised his head, she tried not to crumple under the quiver in his expression. The minute flex of his muscles that betrayed the depths beneath his blank obedience. She couldn't identify what it was, but she had caused a reaction. Rage, fury, determination, fear... Whatever it was, it wasn't strong enough to overcome his orders.