•Sorry for the late update!! Anyway, the song I added ^^ really adds emotion for a portion of the chapter (i'm sure you can guess which part), i also added Nadya's new suit in the picture! enjoy!•
I step onto the driveway leading up to the quaint apartment complex in Brooklyn. It's quiet, only the wind whistling through the trees ring in my ears as I await further instructions. The building is small, only a few windows lit up by different colored lights. Some warm white, some the glow from a TV screen and others are black. The breeze is warm as it blows through my ponytail, which makes my brows knit together.
How long have I been gone?
Through the cover of night I was able to walk the streets freely instead of sneaking from place to place. "He's in apartment four B." A voice rings in my ear. I'm being watched surely, just from a distance. I close my eyes and visualize the interior of the complex, the fourth floor. I step onto the burgundy carpeted floors, and scan the doors seeing four A, four C, and four B.
I stand in front of the door in the poorly lit hallway, listening for thoughts of any kind. I twist my hand out, tangling my fingers in the web of blue waves coming from them until I hear the distinct click of the door being unlocked. I open the door to a dark living area, dimly lit up by a small television in the center of the far wall. Laying on the couch across from it is the man I've come to kill. He looks similar to the Austin I thought I knew, the salt and pepper hair, sparse facial hair. For a second, a split second, I wonder where I would be if he was the one I met first.
I step around the clutter on the ground and make my way over to the couch. I watch him for a moment, seeing the light from the TV cast shadows over his sleeping face. He looks very peaceful, and part of me feels an element of guilt for having to interrupt it. I gently grab his wrist, soft enough not to wake him and shut my eyes.
A cry of pain startles everyone in the restaurant I used to work at. Turns out, everyone who was working there along with me was part of the whole scheme. How dumb I had been to think people would actually be kind and help me.
"Who the hell are you people?" Austin exclaims, trying to crawl away when I drop his wrist. His voice echoes around the bright kitchen, making him disoriented.
I gesture to him, seeing the man whom I thought was Austin staring at me with wide eyes. "Go on, then," he gleams with a proud smile covering his face.
Somewhere inside of me there's a voice, screaming for me to stop, to spare this man's life. But the voice is too small for me to acknowledge it. I turn to the man on the ground, trembling with fear and tilt my head at him. I raise my hand, closing it just a bit, making him gasp as he loses his breath.
"Stop!" He begs and I close my fingers a bit more. I could have this done in an instant. I would rather it be that than slow like this. Though, I was instructed to be slow. To take my time in hurting him. "Please!" He wheezes and I feel my hand begin to falter at the pain in his pleas. I don't feel guilt. I feel annoyance.
I grit my teeth and close my fist, screams begin echoing around the room. He rolls around, trying to break free of my hold but it doesn't help him one bit. I know, with one clench of my fist, he'll be dead. Everything seems to slow, his screams are louder, more fright induced, even.
"We do not have all day, Miss Ivanov." A low voice jeers beside me and my lip twitches in irritation.
I watch the man writhing on the ground, pleading, begging for help. And I'm reminded of a memory, buried deep within my mind. I begin tightening my fist slowly, hearing the thoughts coming from him. The pleas for a miracle. It's pitiful.
He's deeply confused. He doesn't know any of us or how he got here. He just knows that he's seconds away from death. Images of a little girl start flashing through his mind. His daughter. In his last seconds of life, he's thinking about his child.
"Nadya." My eyes drop at the sound of a deep voice echoing behind me. Everyone around me draws guns from their belts, aiming them at the person behind me. I drop my hand and ignore Austin's wheezing and coughing as I turn on my heel, meeting Sam Wilson's eyes. It's funny actually, he has the same look of disdain as the night I met him.
I stay quiet, hearing nothing but the thoughts coming from everyone in the crowded kitchen. Sam has the shield on one arm and a gun in the other, wearing his new Captain America suit like he was the last time I saw him. His eyes narrow at me and I fight a smile at the confused thoughts running through his head. He's now realizing this isn't a rescue mission, I'm not being held, not anymore. "What did you do to her?" He sneers to the many people behind me.
"I think you mean; what did we do for her." The man behind me says. Sam holds his stance as he waits for an explanation. The man walks around me, holstering his gun when he gets to my side. "You see, we worked out all the previous kinks of the former Winter Soldier program," he says as he pushes my face to the side and back, like I'm on display.
"No memory wipes, no super soldier serum. She's fully conscious, she remembers everything. She's the perfect weapon." I feel his hand slide down my hair, smoothing it out and combing his fingers through it.
"That's never been what she wanted!" Sam yells. "You don't own her, she's not a weapon for you or anyone to yield."
"That may be true," the man says next to me, agreeing with Sam. "I apologize, Mr. Wilson. But your friend is not coming back." At this, Sam's stance falters a bit, his fingers tightening around the trigger of the gun in his hand. I tilt my head to the side, just a bit and send the gun flying to the back of the room, whizzing past my head. "Our very own Sapphire Sorceress."
"She's not a weapon," Sam grits out through his teeth.
"She wasn't," the man agrees with him. "But, she is now." He taps my arm and I tilt my head again, inconspicuously sending the other gun strapped to his thigh flying to the other side of the room. I smile a bit when I see Sam's confused face, how unprepared he looks.
Heavy footsteps thud around Sam and I feel my breath stop in my throat, The Winter Soldier appears next to him with his head lowered a bit. My entire body wants to recoil at his presence but I keep my face neutral, frozen in my glare.
"Nadya," he says in a soft voice, lifting his head and I grit my teeth, feeling my stomach drop to the ground at him saying my name. His big eyes are red, swollen a bit. The circles around his eyes look darker and a saddened expression paints his face.
It's pathetic.
"You don't need to be this way." He shakes his head, keeping his voice steady. I block the thoughts from him, I don't want to hear a word from him.
I don't respond, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing me speak to him just yet. The hatred running through my veins is terrifying, even to me. I've never felt this kind of addiction to hatred, to revenge.
"We can fix this," he says, looking through his lashes at me.
A smile breaks through my cheeks at his words and I decide I'm ready to speak. "Oh, I know you think you can." My words come out a breathy chuckle at the perseverance he seems to have. The accent I have learned to leave out has also come back to my words. Making me sound more threatening.
"We can."
"Yes, we have seen the little romance you have brewed with Miss Ivanov," the man beside me says, "we've seen everything. I'm afraid that it's gone now, best to let it go."
The muscle in the soldier's jaw ticks. "Is that right?" He tilts his head to the side and the veins protrude in his neck, clearly he's holding himself back.
My eyes break from his and look to Sam. I tilt my head and grin. "Did you solve that problem with the Flag Smashers?" I jeer, remembering in the not too distant past the fight I thought would solidify my place with the Avengers.
"Yeah," he responds and shakes his head a bit. "Nadya, that was four months ago."
My eyes widen a bit at his words and my breathing hitches. I grit my teeth, thinking that that fight wasn't more than a week ago. It's quiet for a moment and everyone is locked in their place, my eyes have found their way back to the Soldier's and everyone still has guns trained on the two men.
I sift through Sam's thoughts, finding his statement to be true. I really have been gone that long. "Shame Karli couldn't be saved. I know how much you love to be a hero, Sam." I smirk when his body stiffens at my words.
"As much as we'd like to continue talking about this," Sam says, pulling up his forearm and tapping on the screen. "We'd like to get you out of this place." I grunt when a plate hits my neck, making me jump with the electricity flowing through my body. I fall to the ground and bring my hand up to my neck, relentlessly trying to pull it from my skin.
Grunts and cries of pain echo around the room, making me grow restless. I groan when I feel the sharp metal edges finally releasing their hold on my skin. I pull the disk from my neck and throw it onto the ground, feeling the anger swim inside of me. Sam darts towards me, making me whip my hands up and throw them to the side, sending him stumbling over one of the many tables in the kitchen.
"Nadya." I whip my head to the side, feeling my breathing stop when the cold blue eyes bore into mine again. "You know this is wrong," his voice is soft as he looks down to me.
I scan the room, seeing everyone either unconscious or injured other than Sam and the soldier. I turn back to him. "Stop talking to me like you know me," I seethe, bawling both of my fists up and colliding them with his chest. He falls on his back against the tiled floor, making it crack beneath him.
He coughs upon impact and wheezes. "I do know you," he groans.
My eyes dart up when I hear the thought coming from Sam. Seeing the disk flying through the air, heading straight for me, I push both my hands out under me. Hurdling me into the air. I flip backward and land on the ground quietly, using my palm to absorb the shock. I look back to Sam and nod slightly at him. "You missed," I taunt him. My brows pull together in confusion when Sam smirks at me, looking proud of himself, but his thoughts are blank.
"Did he?" A scruff voice hits my ear as an arm wraps around my chest, holding me close so that I can't move. I grunt when the disk is forced into my skin again, locking it in place.
I push a breath out, trying to break free from the Soldier's hold to no success. "Let go of me," I breathe, my anger so strong I feel as if I could black out.
Sam walks around the table to meet my eyes but he looks behind me instead for a moment. I watch him bend down to the man lying unconscious on the ground whom I was supposed to murder, and place his fingers on his neck. He comes back up and sharply nods his head to the Soldier.
I feel a brief movement behind my head, a nod maybe. And watch as Sam clicks the screen on his forearm, making my body still with the electric currents doubling through my body. I fight as hard as I can to keep myself awake, but my eyes drift shut as my body is lifted into strong arms before I fall against the tile.
✪ ✪ ✪ ✪
"We don't know how deep the damage is," a low voice echoes in my head.
"Damage? We don't even know what they did to her!" My brows pull together at the alertness in the tone.
"I should be able to find out eventually." A voice I don't recognize clouds into my ears.
My eyes blink open to a brightly lit room. Panic begins coursing through me when I don't recognize my surroundings immediately. The blue comforter, the soft lighting coming from the lamp next to me. "You're not doing that to her," a deep voice hisses and my eyes dart to the door of the room. Seeing three men; Sam, the Soldier, and someone I don't know. I'm in the Avengers Compound.
Is this real?
"Do you have any better ideas?" The man asks in a snarky voice, a flash of maroon catches my eye before my head falls back against the pillows.
I try and lift my head further, finding I can't. I look down and see I'm covered in what looks like a big yellow hologram, holding me down but not suffocating me. I feel my body break out in a cold sweat, anxiety brewing inside of me at what's lying on top of me. Though it looks penetrable, my fingers feel like they're pressing against glass, preventing me from moving. A shaky breath escapes me and I begin to notice the silence, they're not speaking anymore.
"You're awake." I watch Sam sit down at the chair placed beside the bed and fold his arms over his chest. He looks over me with narrow eyes. "I don't know how this thing works- is it like when you went unconscious and were yourself again?"
I squeeze my eyes shut, knowing who he's speaking to. It's quiet for a moment and I hear a deep sigh. "I don't know what they did or how they did it, it seems different."
They think I'm me.
I let my breath out, forcing tears to my eyes before I open them. I cringe internally when I hear the whimper come from my lips. "What happened?" I ask in a small voice and look back to Sam. "Sam?"
His brows furrow but he nods. "Is that really you?"
I nod frantically under whatever is pinning me down, forcing tears to fall down my cheeks. "I think so," I whisper, making it appear that I'm searching through my own mind.
Footsteps thud around the room until the Soldier's face comes into view of mine. Sam's stare stays on me as he leaves the chair, letting him take it. He knots his hands together as he sits down, staring at me intently. "It's really you?" He questions with a rasp in his voice.
"Yes," I breathe and force a smile on my face, trying to appear happy to see him.
He leans forward and I have to force myself not to recoil from his presence. "Nadya, what did they do to you?" His brows knit together and a deep frown etches on his face.
"I don't," I take a shaky breath. "I don't know, I don't remember anything, Bucky." I purse my lips upon saying his name, feeling like I just swallowed a tub of acid. More tears fall down my cheeks but the emotion behind them doesn't register in my body, they're just empty tears.
He looks above me for a moment. "Take that off of her," he growls and looks back to me. "I'm so sorry we didn't find you in time," he says and reaches out to brush his hand against my cheek.
Before I can stop myself, I rip my head away from his reach as far as I can go. I let my breath out and close my eyes, shit.
"That's not her," that same snarky voice says and I'm beginning to wonder who the hell it is.
The Soldier looks back to me with disappointed eyes and I raise my eyebrows at him. I sniffle and wipe the tears from my eyes before grinning at him. "I didn't think you'd be so gullible," I scoff, wiping the last tear away from my neck.
"Gullible?" He grits out and I hold back a laugh when he gets up from the chair, breaking his eyes away from mine.
I let a breath out and rest my head against the pillow, annoyed that I let myself fail at my facade. "Miss Ivanov?" My eyes dart to, what I thought was an empty chair, and see the man I didn't recognize. The grey streaks on both sides of his dark hair catch my eyes first but my eyes soon wander down to the deep scars on both of his hands. He clears his throat and I look back up to his eyes. He's smiling, like this is a routine visit from a doctor.
"My name is Doctor Stephen Strange and I think I can help you with your little..." he trails off and looks to, who I can only guess, Sam and the Soldier until his eyes trail back to mine. He smiles when he sees my glare focused on him. "Predicament."
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•New character has come to the story!! I hope you guys are as excited as I am!!•