a lion among wolves, bucky barnes (hiatus)

twenty.

SIBERIA, RUSSIA
2005

BLOOD was pounding in June's ears.

A man was knelt at her feet. Long tendrils of dark hair fell across his eyes, the suit he wore rumpled and stained with dirt and grime. A gun was heavy in June's hand.

"Kill him," her handler commanded. "Shoot him."

"I don't want to," June said, her voice quaking. "Please don't make me."

The handler—a tall woman with hair pinned up meticulously and eyes like smoldering coal—clucked her tongue. "We do not give a damn what you want. This man is a traitor and a liar. He blackened Hydra's name and betrayed secrets to our enemies. Kill him."

"But it's wrong," June's voice was reduced to a desperate whine.

The clacking of heels advancing toward her momentarily drowned out her own pounding pulse; the next moment a bony hand with wickedly sharp nails was wrapped around June's throat.

"You useless, useless girl," the woman hissed, "you've no idea the honor and expectations that you are responsible for. You serve Hydra. Your master is Hydra. Your god is Hydra. Strucker is your creator. You do nothing but make him look like a miserable failure." The handler's talons dug into June's skin and tears began to blur her vision. "There are two bullets in this gun. One for the man, and one for you. Shoot him, and you use just the one. Fail, and I put the pair in either of your heads."

Agonized by indecision, June struggled not to let her terror show on her face. Fighting to keep her chin raised and arm steady, she lifted the gun.

June took aim at the handler and pulled the trigger. There was nothing but a hollow click.

"Exactly as I thought," the woman growled. She wrenched the pistol from June's hand and beat her across the face with it, once, twice, over and over until June's blood was spattering the floor and red poured over her eyes like water. The handler tossed the glock aside, then produced a second from her belt and fired fourteen rounds into the air around June, one bullet whizzing close enough to nick her ear. The woman grabbed June by the roots of her hair and forced her to meet her eyes.

"One shot," she seethed, shaking with rage, "you or him. Do it, or I'll show you what a real agent is like."

She shoved the gun into June's hand. Trembling, June turned back to the cowering traitor at her feet. The righteousness in her told her to shoot the handler. By all rights, one bullet should have been enough at close range. But June knew the punishments she would receive for murdering a superior were not a price she could pay. Phantom pain bloomed all over her body.

"P-please," the man sputtered suddenly, shaking like a leaf. "Please have mercy. You don't—you don't want to do this, please. Please, I'm begging you, I'm begging you, don't kill me. My children—please—my children—I'll do anything, I'll do anything. Pay you anything, just please—"

June could not take hearing anymore. Eyes pouring torrents of tears, she pulled the trigger.

She was aiming for the man's head, but in her anguish missed and shot him in the heart instead. He let out a shout of pain and crumpled onto his back, blank gaze finding June's as his head rolled back.

"You're like the rest of them," he moaned, blood pooling in his mouth. "Coward . . . coward . . . ."

The man died swiftly. June's handler was at her shoulder in an instant, a vulture seduced by a corpse.