The Winter Soldier spent over a week gathering intelligence. Unfortunately, the land surrounding Rogers' home was very open and the tree line was quite far from the property so all he could do during the day was observe.
He noticed that Rogers has a husband and two small children and that her neighbors are a married couple with one child. They seem to visit a lot so they assume they have somewhat of a relationship with the neighbors.
He can never get close enough to see their faces but he can tell the men are quite large. The men never leave the home which makes it impossible to scope out the houses. He was told no witnesses so he cannot get caught. He must be a ghost.
He knows that his only opportunity to get some answers will be to enter the house at night. He needs to find a way to lure the girl out so he can find out what she knows. He worries that she'll be difficult but he can tell that one well placed threat to her family and she'll tell him anything he wants to know. A second threat and she'll never breathe a word of it again.
Through watching the windows at night, he notices that when the babies cry, Rogers is usually the one to go in to feed them. He knows that this will be his opportunity.
He waits until the couple is asleep for a couple hours before slipping through the nursery window silently. The children are asleep and he has a vague interest in them. It's been years since he's last seen a child up close. He can't even really remember a time where he has seen a child.
He looks at one of the children and it is obvious he carries the resemblance of Rogers. He has blond waves that cover his head and her dainty nose and full lips. He tries to look for something that belongs to the father in the infants face but he never got a close enough look at the husband to identify it.
He looks at the second child and freezes. It's impossible but the second child looks like him. He has his same exact shade of brown hair but with curls that he inherited from Rogers. The shape of his mouth and chin are similar to his own. If he didn't know any better, he would say that this child is his because the resemblance is so off-putting. He even has the exact shade of blue eyes that he himself has.
That's when he realizes that the child's eyes are open. He waits for him to cry to alert his parents that there is a stranger in his room but it makes no noise. The baby looks up at him with almost trust. He looks at him in familiarity which seems extremely strange to him.
He however doesn't really understand children so maybe that kind of behavior is normal. He thought babies cried at everything.
The boy stands in the crib while holding the bars and opens and closes his fists towards him. It looks like the baby wants him to pick him up but there is no way he'll do that. The baby doesn't cry when it looks at him but begins to cry when all he does is stare at it.
Lizzie hears JJ start to cry and figured it was time to feed him. Bucky had a panic attack earlier that day and he was completely wiped out so he didn't even stir when JJ started crying or when Lizzie got out of bed. She placed a quick kiss to Bucky's bare shoulder before quickly getting out of bed and walking down the hall.
When she walks into the nursery, JJ is standing while holding the bars of his crib. He started doing that a few months after he started crawling. She still can't believe how fast the babies are growing. She notices Steven is now sitting up and crying because his brother woke him up.
Steven usually only cries when he's hungry or when JJ is upset. However, JJ cries a lot so therefore Steven cries a lot. She goes to grab JJ first because she figures that if she calms him down then Steven will settle too.
The Winter Soldier stays in the shadows. He decides to let the mother get the children back to sleep before enacting his plan because if the children keep crying, it is sure to alert the father.
He averts his eyes when she feeds both babies but his eyes snap back to her when he hears her begin to sing.
"Stars shining bright above you
Night breezes seem to whisper ' I love you'
Birds singing in the sycamore tree
Dream a little dream of me"
The song seems familiar but he can't place how he knows it. The Winter Soldier gets a very brief image of a blond headed girl leaning against his chest while he held her in his arms. It's gone as soon as it came but it was strange because it seemed almost like a memory. He knows it can't be a memory because he's never held a woman intimately before. He doesn't really have any contact with women at all.
He never really thought about women and attraction but as he looks at Elizabeth Rogers, he can't help but think about how beautiful she is. He doesn't see many beautiful things in his life so he takes a minute to just take her in.
He knows that she is his mission and he will do what needs to be done but he just wants a moment to be a human and not a machine.
Eventually, she puts the sleeping boys into their cribs and presses a soft kiss to both of their heads. He knew it was time to enact the plan.
Lizzie feels her body pulled back against a hard chest. She is about to scream when a hand clamps over her mouth. She watches as another hand reaches around her body. She notices there is a gun in the hand and it is directed towards JJ.
"If you scream, I kill both of them here and now. Nod if you understand," a voice demands.
She nods sharply because she will do anything to get that gun away from her son.
"Good, now you are going to walk out of the house and we are going to get in your car where you will drive us to the location I direct us to. I have placed an explosive device in the house that will trigger one of two ways, if I detonate it or my heart stops. Nod if you understand," he says.
Lizzie can feel herself trembling in fear and there are already tears rolling down her face. She nods against his hand and he drops the gun from JJ. She lets out a light sob against her will and he tightens his hand against her mouth.
"Be quiet. Now walk," he hisses.
She begins walking towards the door but he keeps a hand on the back of her neck and she can feel the barrel of the gun pressed against her back. She very carefully removes her wedding band from beside her engagement ring and lets it silently drop to the carpeted floor.
She knows that Jaime will find this and know that she was taken.
As Lizzie walks through the house she tries to think of any more clues she could leave but anything else she could try may alert the man behind her.
They exit the house and the man leads her to the passenger door and orders her to get in. She slide across to the driver's seat and he keeps his gun trained on her.
When he gets in the car, she finally gets a good look at him. His mouth and nose are covered with a black mask and his long hair hides his face slightly. With the shadows, he is hard to make out but all she knows is he is terrifying to her.
"Drive," he demands in an icy tone.
He directs her to an abandoned warehouse and her fear skyrockets. This is so much worse than she originally thought. She always thought that if someone came after her family, they'd try to take Bucky or the twins but she never considered she might be the one they are after. She's just a scientist with no special abilities of any kind. She prefers it this way though. If they are after her then her family is safe and that's all that matters.
However, another thought hits her that they may be using her to get to Bucky. She now regrets dropping her ring because he'll stop at nothing to find her. Well, to be honest, even if she didn't give a hint, Bucky would still scour the earth trying to find her.
He has her pull the car directly into an abandoned loading dock and then marches her inside. He pushes her down into a seat and sits across from her with his gun still trained on her.
"I will ask you exactly one time. What are you working on with Howard Stark?" He asks.
She freezes because she thought her and Howard were being subtle. They only worked in Howard's secret labs and never mentioned the topic outside of them. They thought that even if people knew they were working on something they would assume it was something for her department because she has publicly shown her distaste for weapons in the past.
The man placed an object on the table in front of them. There is a plastic case covering a button. This is obviously a detonator and Lizzie has a strong feeling on what it'll detonate. She doesn't have time to think of a convincing lie because she won't risk anything with her family's lives on the line.
"We are developing a new Super Soldier Serum," Lizzie admits.
The Winter Soldier can tell she is telling the truth. He was told that he needed evidence that she was developing something of the sort before taking her and now he has. He knows that she won't cooperate if he threatens her but he has found that threatening her family is a strong motivator.
"Here is what is going to happen, we are going to get on a plane and you aren't going to try anything or your family will pay the price. Do you understand?" He asks.
She nods quickly because she does understand the situation. She knows that once they leave New York, it is likely she will never see her family again.
She will never see her babies grow or take their first steps or teach them to read. She won't get to see them grow into amazing men and fall in love. She'll miss their weddings and won't get to meet their kids.
She will never see Steve's smile or Peggy's tenacity. She will never get to see her brother and best friend raise Sarah. She'll never get to spend the rest of her years with her twin.
She'll never get to see her Jaime again. She'll never get to hold him or kiss him. She'll never get to tell him that she loves him. She'll never get to dance or read with him again. She'll never get to grow old by his side.
This will destroy him. It's always been him doing the leaving but never the other way around. She knows that he'll pull himself together for the babies. He loves them so much that she knows he won't let them suffer in his grief.
She briefly wonders if they'll ever find a body. She doesn't know if she hopes they will or not. If they do, they'll have closure but she doesn't know what condition her body will be in at that point so maybe it's best that they don't see her like that. She knows that she will probably be in for some torcher . She won't work for them and she knows that they probably won't ask nicely.
It is still dark outside and she knows it's only been an hour since they left. It will probably be a couple more hours until the twins wake Bucky up and he realizes that she's not in bed. At that point, she'll be long gone. She knows her husband is skilled but she doesn't know how he'd be able to track her down. They drive to a landing strip where a single plane is waiting for them.
She has yet to see a clear look at her abductor's face which makes the whole situation all the more terrifying for some reason.
They enter the aircraft and he pushes her down in the passenger seat and straps her in. He places a lock on the strap so she can't get up.
He quickly takes off and they begin their flight to who knows where.
Dawn is finally breaking so she is able to see a lot better. She looks over at her captor and she finally is able to properly see his face. He glances over at her when he feels her staring. She can only see his eyes and forehead but that's enough because she knows those eyes.
She saw those eyes for the first time over 20 years ago. She fell in love with those eyes. She looked into those eyes as she made her vows. She's seen those eyes filled with both tears and laughter. She's seen them filled with so much love that it's nearly knocked her off her feet.
They were her husband's eyes. They were her son's eyes.
They were also The Winter Soldier's eyes.