THIRTEEN
The old mountain road is just how she remembers it, but Siberia's not quite as cold. Still freezing, with a thin layer of snow coating the stiff peaks, yet not to the level of ice covering the roads, the same ice that caused their tires to skid and their car to crash straight into the tree.
"It's alright, мой маленький кролик. We're almost there."
That car was one of the only things they had. It was an old family car from the more wealthy days, and their only tie to what once was. Growing up, Evelyn never knew wealth. Everything went with the Great Depression, her parents told her. Everything except that damn car.
"Mama. I'm scared. I want to go home."
It was old, the tires were bound to give up some day. Yet she kept it, used it when she could. They spent their last money on getting a ticket to come to Russia, Adelina having to say goodbye to the only home she ever knew. Evelyn was American, but Alexei was Russian, and that's where his camp was based.
"America is too far away, мой маленький кролик. We'll just have to make our way back to the hotel."
Perhaps, if only they moved, they could've seen him more. He'd be sent home rather than them keeping him on because they couldn't afford to send him back to America to be with his family.
"Still in Siberia?"
Life was always unfair, and the memories all jumble in Evelyn's head, a cascading waterfall of emotion overcoming her by force, to the point her legs falter.
"I'm afraid so."
The tree's right there. Just meters away, standing tall and proud, as if it has any right to boast after cursing two lives.
After everything, after all Adelina's suffering, after her missing her father to the point she cried at night for him, all Evelyn wanted was for her to be happy. She wanted to take her to see the mountains, the beautiful mountains. The place where Alexei proposed, the place Evelyn wanted to share with her daughter.
But the storm came so suddenly that winter, far too early, and there was no chance of them getting out. She should have known that, but she was far too desperate to go.
Then James Buchanan Barnes standing in the middle of the road. The car crashing. Him dragging a screaming Adelina out.
It was only then that he realised Evelyn was still breathing in the driver's seat. Barely breathing, barely holding on, but still breathing. Her will to survive, for her daughter not to see her pass, was far too strong, and he brought them both back to the base. He brought them both back to hell.
The screaming was the first thing to reach her ears. It was like chalk screeching against a blackboard, digging straight into her aching skull. She couldn't feel anything, completely numb, but then it hit her like a train.
Evelyn Grace was dying.
At least, that's what it felt like, when the receptors in her body could feel pain again, when she was no longer blind to the agony in her body, the fire burning in her veins. But there was a pain greater than that.
Tears leaked out of her eyes, sneaking down the sides of her face, when all she wanted was to yell, to jump out of the restraining metal bed she was in, to run, because that was her daughter screaming.
Adelina.
Immediately she started writhing her body from side to side, the restrictions around her neck, her waist, her arms and legs, all of it digging into the skin, threatening to cut through. Yet despite it all, despite every effort she could muster, every bit of strength, nothing happened. Nothing could.
Then she saw her. Evelyn's head turned to the side frantically, seeing nothing but red, when the colours gradually became sharper, darker, and she catches sight of a flash of red curls on a similar metal bed.
"Adelina." The name escaped her lips in a breathless whisper, but the moment it reached the little girl's ears her head whipped around, eyes pleading, begging, lips moving in a silent plea for help. Except it wasn't so silent, but in the form of relentless screams that tore out her throat, growing hoarser and hoarser with each passing second.
"Adelina, it's okay! It's okay, мой маленький кролик! We'll be okay!"
"It hurts!" the little girl sobbed, tears rolling down her cheeks, her eyes glistening. "Mama, it hurts! Make it stop hurting! Please..."
It hurts to walk past the entrance to the HYDRA base Evelyn stayed at so long, continuously in action, continuously going on missions, with nothing but a gun and an empty brain with her every single time.
Maybe it would have made it easier to remember everything, but at the same time, she knows she never would have been able to do that. She wouldn't have been able to kill all those people, knowing exactly how grief felt like.
She knows how grief feels like now.
So why is it so easy to kill? To switch back into the person HYDRA made her?
Evelyn didn't come to see the base. It's not a place she ever wants to be at again. Even then, it's part of her. It's tied in with her history, and with other parts of her she'll never be able to forget. It was necessary to come here.
That's what she keeps telling herself as she makes her way behind the building, cold sinking into her bones, settling in her stiff limbs, before she collapses on her knees. Before her is a small mound of dirt covered by a thin, untouched sheet of snow, yet something new.
It was six years ago Evelyn was last here, but the gravestone wasn't there before. Alexei said he paid for it to be there, and she can see it. The English and the Russian carved out into the stone, their daughter's name etched upon it.
This is where she stayed for sixty years, and this is where she'll stay for the rest of time.
Adelina's skin was illuminated, cold just by sight, and there was something under her skin. Evelyn could tell that much, her heart beating wildly, her own pain forgotten with the sight of her daughter's constant antagonised yells.
She was in such pain and blood was coming out of her ears and Evelyn knew she wouldn't survive and she was screaming, crying, and Evelyn realised they weren't alone in the room.
By the door, there was a man. That same man that was in the middle of the road, that pulled them out of the destroyed car. The dim light swinging from the centre of the ceiling glinted off his metal arm, the light catching in her eyes, but she barely hesitated for a second before calling out.
"Please."
Her voice was hoarse, clearly from her own screaming, but there was a determination behind her words. A begging. Hope. "Please. Save her."
He did nothing. He didn't even move, and it was mere seconds before her cheeks were soaked with tears, unable to stand the sound drilling into her skull. Her voice rose, pleading, begging. "Please, please, just do something! Save her! Help her! Don't just stand there, do something!"
The man's eyes finally turned towards her, just for a moment, but something flashed in them. Evelyn's mind moved effortlessly slowly to process it, but that's when she realised what it was with a gasp.
Pain.
He was in pain.
But no sooner than she thought it did it disappear, leaving her no time to question whether she imagined it in the first place when the screaming reached her ears once more.
It only lasted another minute. A whole minute, where Evelyn couldn't bear to watch. Her eyes were glued to the girl, but she couldn't see it. Everything was blank. Everything was numb. She couldn't even hold Adelina's hand.
It was only when the screaming finally stopped that Evelyn's swimming sight flashed back to her daughter's limp form on the bed, blood trailing down from her ears, her eyes, her mouth. Her gaze was glued towards the woman on the bed beside her, the woman that was meant to be her mother, the woman who let her down.
He finally moved away from the door, as if he was just waiting patiently, ripping the restraints off with his metal arm and flinging the girl over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
The numbness in Evelyn's body faded very quickly at the sight, her eyes going wide, and immediately she started screaming and thrashing against her restraints, started sobbing, begging for her back, begging to hug her, to say goodbye, to do something. But no. It didn't happen, and he left, slamming the door behind him, leaving her alone with her tears and her conscience cursing her.
Evelyn hasn't cried in six years.
She remembers the last time she did so vividly. It wasn't when she escaped HYDRA, or even when she found her husband once more. It was when she was with Nagel, when she was pleading for a new life, for the serum to be gone from her blood. He saw her at that low, mocked her for it, but she couldn't stop the tears.
Perhaps there was some part of her that begged for retribution, but it wasn't in the way she got it.
She wished that maybe, just maybe, if she could get rid of the serum in her veins, her daughter would come back to her. The daughter she'd forgotten about. The daughter buried deep in the mountains of Siberia where nobody looked and nobody cared.
Nagel told her he couldn't do it, and it hit her so suddenly then. She could never get her daughter back. She could never get her old life back. She could never get herself back.
The tears are hot on her face despite the cold biting at her cheeks, but despite it all she's still on alert, the same alert she's been since the crash in 1955. It's how she hears the crunch of footsteps in the snow, then the rustling of clothes as Bucky slowly crouches beside her. She doesn't move, doesn't even look at him.
He can't help but notice how she's sitting on her knees, how her trousers must be soaked, how frozen she must be. The cold is something they've both grown to hate, with everything, but she's still completely willing to endure it, just to be close to her daughter, someone she loves. If that's not love... he doesn't know what is.
He took it away from her.
She watched her daughter die on that metal bed, and the Winter Soldier fling her out, but maybe that's just it. She blamed him for it even though it wasn't his fault, and she knows that, because the loss of a daughter isn't easy and when it came to Adelina she just flung responsibility at anyone in her way. But it's her own fault. It's Evelyn's fault, and she knew it from the start. She just tried not to believe it.
"She was always full of energy," Evelyn mumbles, lips clumsy and loose, exhaustion pouring out in her words. "Always excited and jumping around. It's why I called her мой маленький кролик. My little bunny. And she was so excited to see those mountains. She wanted to yell to the sky." A sigh escapes her lips. "It was my fault for not seeing the storm coming. It wasn't yours, and I always blamed you when I never should have. I'm sorry."
He doesn't reply. At first, anyway. Slow seconds drag out with the pair of them in the cold, kneeling before a child's grave, and that's when it escapes Bucky's lips. Soft and heavy at the same time, all his thoughts finally loose.
"I keep saying that it wasn't my fault because I was under HYDRA's control... but the truth is, it was my fault. I still feel that guilt every day, because maybe... just maybe... if I was strong enough, I– I could have stopped it from happening."
For a moment, he catches himself, the memories flashing behind his eyes once more in rapid succession. "There are so many things I regret, so many people I hurt, so I wrote their names in that book. Your name would have been first, but... I didn't write it. I couldn't bring myself to. I came to your apartment years ago, wanting to make things right, but you turned me away. I thought that would be it, and I could try let things go. But..."
He lets out a quivering breath, gritting his teeth. "But I'm always getting nightmares. Nightmares about everyone I hurt, but you especially. Nightmares about that crash, about her death when they trialed the serum on both of you."
Evelyn remembers the explanation. It was after her daughter died that HYDRA told her about the Super Soldier serum, about how they needed test subjects, and how it would've kept her and Adelina alive. It didn't. But she had no time to grieve before they wiped her mind and threw her under.
"I know there's no way to make it right," he whispers, bringing her back to the present. "I know that you say it wasn't my fault but I'll keep blaming myself, just how I can tell you that it wasn't yours but you'll keep blaming yourself. It's just our nature. But... I know what it's like to be lost in a world you don't recognise... and I had Steve. So you'll have me."
The silence falls over them like a thick blanket, but it's not suffocating. Instead, it's strange, but it feels like they've never understood each other better than now. Not a lot of words were said, but an odd kind of peace settles itself in Evelyn's chest, because she's not going through this alone. She will always have her partner.
Move on.
Finally, she turns to glance at him, his own eyes mirroring hers. Haunted. But it's a moment before she asks in a flicker of a voice, "How'd you know where I was?"
Bucky turns to her, realising she's already looking at him, but the corner of his lips twitch with a tugging sadness. "I know you, Lyn."
She meets his eyes, just for a second, then glances away again before taking a deep breath. Her voice is stronger now. "So, you turned Zemo in to the Wakandans?"
It's his turn to be surprised. "How do you know?"
That's when she lets herself smile a little, a true smile, and turns back to him before adding teasingly, "'I know you, James'." His lips break out into a smile then, a quiet laugh from her lips before she momentarily glances back at the snow. "No, it's... it's because of that case you left back there." She nods her head behind them, where there's some sort of box. "Looks Wakandan, and you're not a killer."
"Neither are you."
His words catch her off-guard, and she sucks in a sharp breath. But maybe... maybe that's just it. She doesn't want to be a killer. She wants to change, be someone her daughter will be proud of.
She pushes the thought to the back of her mind, instead jokingly nudging Bucky beside her. "Your turn – tell me how you really knew I was here."
That's when Bucky just lets the smile flicker onto his face, and his words have so much meaning, then. "Zemo told me you're going home."