Miles and miles away in a second-rate hotel with squeaking banisters and a less than sublime cuisine, the oldest woman finally gained control of the questionably working remote to turn off the TV that still used flimsy antennas to pick up a few channels. Zerina sighed, firmly stating once again, "Absolutely not."
Layla Renning's wet hair was wrapped in a towel, but she was fully dressed in traveling clothes as she packed together her suitcase. She didn't meet Sprouse's eyes, "You don't have to go with me, but, you know, it'd be great if you did."
"No."
"C'mon!"
"No!"
"You can't tell me you would just let SHIELD fall apart." The blonde looked up to the former agent, standing and going across the room to fetch a hairbrush, "Especially when it's literally launching three huge helicarriers into the sky tomorrow?"
"The only reason you want to go back to the Triskelion is for Firman and her friends." Zerina set the remote down on top of the TV that's screen was now black after showcasing a news report from earlier that day about the successful capture of Captain America, Black Widow, and two unidentified criminals. It was easy to tell from the footage one was a battered Sienna, but the other man was a stranger. None the less, the report had charged Layla with a new idea that returning to DC was a good one.
"Yes. And you have to add the fact I have empathy for a couple million people." She went back to pack a few more essentials, "So, I'm going."
"We could do something else, anything else. You'll be caught before you even set foot in the building."
"I'm a genius. I'll find a way to get around their facial recognition software."
"How?"
"I don't know."
"So you have no plan?"
"Do I have to resay the genius part again? I'll come up with something."
"Resay isn't even a word."
Layla's head dropped down while she sighed, taking in another deep breath to stop her racing pulse from jumping even higher despite the exhaustion. She was drained and tired from the events of the morning, but she was sure the hotel's complimentary coffee that probably cost a few cents per packet would kick in soon enough, "Look, I can see where you're coming from. You and Sienna aren't the best of sisters, but you've got to be playing at some terrible joke if you're telling me you don't want to help your last living relative."
Zerina's jaw set upon her bringing up the topic, "Firman's a big reason why I don't have any family left. Sure, she's not a double agent like I thought, I'll give her that. Doesn't mean I'll risk my own life for her, or let you give yours. There's got to be a better option."
"How can you say that?" Layla's forehead scrunched together as her shock displayed itself.
"You want to do something? We could get a hold of someone, someone with the power to stop whatever the hell is going on. Homeland Security maybe-"
The blonde shook her head, "That's not going to work. The minute we reach out and mention SHIELD, everyone in DC will come for us. That's only if the government isn't already in on this!"
"If you're so sure of that, then we have no chance." Zerina reiterated, gesturing in front of herself, "If a few agencies full of thousands of trained agents can't stop whatever HYDRA is doing, then what makes you think we can?"
Layla really didn't have an answer to that question. She didn't know if she could do anything to prevent the catastrophe looming. She just knew she couldn't leave Sienna and her sister, with possibly a million more, to die, "I can't believe you. You're telling me you're going to let everything fall apart? Even after they gave you a job?"
Sprouse gritted her teeth, momentarily reliving Nya's dead body sprawled out on the floor and Bradley's betrayal, "Look, I thought SHIELD was my only option when I joined. All it's given me is more stupid pain and a superior officer that tried to frame as a traitor. Yes, if there was a legitimate way to stop it, I'd do what I could, but I'm not risking my life on some Mission Impossible crap for that organization or Sienna Firman."
The younger's mouth had formed a tight line and out of habit, her fingers had begun to play with the end of her sweater. Knots of fear twisted up in her gut while she swallowed. She thought of Colton, a wonderful, kind man who she could've loved, something she never thought herself capable of. He had revealed himself to be not only a terrible person who had used her, but a literal Nazi that was part of the infection swallowing SHIELD whole.
What could she do against a threat like that?
Even now, she could feel anxiety crawling inside her and pathetic tears waiting to throw her into another fit of sobs. Every cell in her screamed to collapse right there and fear threatened to overtake any thought reckless enough to dream of anything else. She hated it. She hated it and at the same time wished to side with her own turmoil.
No. No. No. Bad thought. No no.
Layla had done enough of that; now she was angry. Her anger was the only thing keeping her standing because right now, the superheroes were all locked up and no one else appeared to be coming to the rescue. No one else was going to save her friends and defeat HYDRA.
She had courage, at least she thought it was courage. Maybe stupidity. Maybe stupid self-endangerment. Maybe it was craziness. Of course it was craziness, she was going to die-
Shut up self. Shut up shut up shut up
Probably die
sHUT UP
"Are you coming or not?" The blonde was grateful when her voice sounded more confident than first anticipated, "Because I'm going no matter what you say."
Zerina had come to that conclusion as well, knowing that this communications officer wasn't going to listen to her. She tried another method after a pause, "I can't let that happen. Okay, fine, I don't like Firman, but we did agree to keep you safe. She wanted us to stay away from DC and that means staying away from SHIELD. It's what she asked me to do."
"But-"
"I'm trying to keep you safe-"
"What about my sister?" Layla's tone raised and she pulled the wet towel off of her drying hair when it fell lopsided. The stained carpet floor awkwardly creeked under her as she continued, "So you don't care about Sienna. You don't care about SHIELD. You probably don't care about Meredith either."
The opposer's speech stopped when the usually cherubic's girls face go red, but she didn't miss it when her eyes began to shimmer, "What?"
"My older sister, Mere, was taken by SHIELD. She's not even an agent!" Don't quiver voice c'mon don't fail me now, "She's a doctor, she's really uptight, she's engaged to this guy who's completely loaded, and she's the only sibling I got. I love her, I love Si, the rest of SHIELD is okay, and I'm going to go get them."
This is stupid this is stupid you're going to die
Layla took a shaky breath in, raking a hand through her wet hair. She adjusted her glasses, looking back up once she exhaled, "And it'd be really cool if I got someone who can throw punch to help me. Please."
~~~~~~~~
DC Facility
It's surreal experience to have a truth you so desperately wanted to know be revealed in such a harsh manner. Here it is, it changed your entire perception of your existence. Now deal with it, because you wanted it.
Lies are meant to cover said truths. Lies are subjective. We tell lies because we can control their falsehoods and shape them into anything we please. We tell lies to ourselves for comfort, to others to fool them, and profess them to have a say in what is brought into the light and what is not. Honesty has no time to consider these things. Real, raw truth is cold, hard, and unchanging. Lies only exist to hide the brutality of fact.
The truth was I had been lied. The Tesseract had been in me much longer than I could have ever theorized. Because of that, my whole life consisted of covering up the existence of the anomaly, either to abstain from punishment or to hide it from those who wanted to exploit the potential of alien power living in a human. I never knew.
I now laid on a cot in some darkened room within the concrete facility. My dry eyes stared into the blackness with my knees pulled into chest, a blanket draped over my curled form. I had found sleep for a few hours only to awoken by dreams of a glass prison I can't escape. That was followed by a suffocating panic that lasted too long. My trapped mentality had yet to leave me.
For a time after, it felt like I was unraveling, as if my skin was turning to ribbons and revealing the something I really am; if I am even someone anymore. Whoever I thought I was had been stripped away in pieces throughout the past few days with every lie tearing at one part of my imagined identity or another. The Sienna Firman I had thought myself to be was a product of everything she didn't know. Now I was aware.
My whole existence had been orchestrated around this 'power' in me.
My father damned me to a life as a living science experiment, accidentally or not. My mother abused me for it. SHIELD hid me, lied to me, and wanted me for it. My friends and colleagues lied to me for it. HYDRA took me for it and tried to turn me into a brainwashed living weapon, if what Caris said was truly accurate. If Operation Phantom proves anything, at one point I couldn't deal with the knowledge of it and it's destruction.
The irony? This whole, elaborate plot woven through my life was engineered on the idea one day this anomaly in me would make me something powerful. All I've amounted to is another assassin with a tragic backstory that can happen to heal faster now and then.
How could it all have come to this?
I can't fully process or digest it. I keep going over everything in my head; what Fury said, what Caris said, the splinters of memories from the five months. The truth of it all, that lion I'm trapped with inside of this aching body, gnaws at my stomach and carves out the rest of what I thought I was. At the same time, my muscles seize and make me so, so much smaller. It feels like I might wake up tomorrow and all that will be left of me is just what everyone wanted: the anomaly.
Keep it together
Somewhere between all of the disarray unfolding through my emotions, I remind myself of that. I remind myself of what I should be doing, which is keeping my composure. I have to keep it together. I have to keep it together. I need not let this hurt hinder me: I got the truth I wanted, now to punish those who had tried to exploit the energy in me.
Once I fully calmed myself and my heart rate slowed, I began to retreat from recollecting this story that feels like it was never mine. I began to remind myself of my mission, my only foreseeable purpose at the moment. I now knew who had taken me for those five months; HYDRA. Despite the experiments, despite Fury's lies and everything else that had tampered with me, it was ultimately that parasite that had tortured me for months on end. If what Caris said was true, they were aiming to brainwash me like they had with the Winter Soldier. To take my mind and make it their's.
That explained the string of words Barnes said to me while we escaped Bradley's cabin. Those words had brought such an intense terror to me even if nothing cans of them. Perhaps a sequence to try and activate some 'sleeper' protocol like Fury suggested.
I prayed to every possible saint in existence that wasn't true.
A sound startles me. I hear feet approaching my room from the hallway outside. It's followed by a knock that echoed throughout the small structure. I already know who it is as I get off of my makeshift bed and attempt to pull whatever's left of my appearance together. Another ache in my gut threatens to devour me and before I let it consume anymore, I open the door.
Outside light pours from behind Steve's tall stature and I squint my eyes. I accompany the action with some guise of a grin to make sure my face doesn't stretch into a tired scowl. His gaze immediately finds our feet while a weight finds a resting place inside of my chest. He clears his throat before glancing back to me, "Did I wake you?"
It's a second before I shake my head, "No, no. I've been up for awhile."
It's hard to keep consistent eye contact with more heaviness seeming to fall on me when I realize this is the first time we've spoken since I revealed I knew about Barnes. I notice the fine lines of fatigue etched into his features, his own exhaustion prominent. He hasn't slept at all, "Fury and Hill have finished calibrating the chips. They're ready to present a plan."
I nod slightly, folding my arms in hopes of finding a more comfortable standing, "Okay. How's Nat?"
"Renning's done with her. Romanoff says she's ready to fight."
I nod again and shift to lean against the doorframe. Still not comfortable. Something is lodged in my throat and I can't tell if it's an apology or adding uneasiness with the tension that has been built. More tangible silence passes and nothing comes of it while we both wait for some sign of where to take the conversation, if you could call this exchange that.
"Are you-" He starts, but I've decided the object blocking my air intake is in fact a repentance.
"I'm sorry about Barnes." I blurt out the statement and Steve stops mid-sentence. He doesn't finish it once my shoulders sag down in a sigh.
He's abandoned the disappointed expression he wore previously and I have yet to decided if the pained one that replaces it is worse. Blue eyes burn through me with such a raw grief that I feel my heart ache for him a thousand times over, "I had no intention of keeping him from you. Not for your safety or some excuse like that. I should have told you the second I saw you, I just......"
I don't know how to explain remembering a glass prison I'd been trapped in and how it affected my mental state. I can only articulate the next thought that comes to my head, "During the time HYDRA had me, he was there. I didn't realize that until yesterday."
I retreat from my messy spiel and let Steve piece together what he can from it. I watch as his jaw sets while reviewing the information. His friend had been dead for years. His friend was now a brainwashed assassin. Bucky was very much alive and hunting him while seemingly had no idea who he was. The distress my partner feels from those glaring facts is conveyed too easily through his body language when he goes back to study the floor.
"I don't blame you." The soft utterance brings a small relief. He finds my eyes again, "I'm sorry that I put more on you. There were better ways of handling that."
"You were hurt and still processing it. It's natural." I shrug to let him know I don't hold anything against him. It's not everyday you're dead best friend and the Nazi organization you fought seventy years ago are resurrected.
There's another stretch of quiet as we both recognize that there are more things to be said. Something is still stuck in my throat, but it's not guilt. It's too many things; my sympathy for his situation, my anger that even now as he looks at me I can't stop his pain, and my gratitude that in the middle of all this, he still managed to let me know it wasn't my fault. I'm leaving too many bite marks on my tongue because I know there isn't time. I just wish I could offer him something more than an apology.
"Yeah, still processing it." Steve's voice is quiet, his thoughts most likely reliving the highway. There's a slight pull in his lips that leaves a morose expression that I can't stop, "And you?"
It's the same question he always asks eventually, just slightly altered. Are you okay? It's obvious he overheard me losing my temper with Fury and the outpour if information that had come from that conversation. At just the mention, I am reminded of the trepidation pushing under my skin that I can't seem to rid myself of.
No, no I'm not okay. Not at all, but there's no time to be okay. Not if we all have to stop the murder of millions.
"I'll work though it."
~~~~~~~
Though I had become painfully aware of many things, I found out more hideous truths as soon as I sat down in front of Fury and Maria again. I learned that HYDRA had always been part of SHIELD since it's founding. Dr. Zola, another figure from my partner's past, had been downloaded into a computer (still confused on that one) and preserved. He had revealed to Natasha and Steve the plot to use Project Insight carriers to eliminate anyone HYDRA saw as a potential threat based on an algorithm.
Out of all of the fantastic and far-fetched evil plans I had thwarted over the years, this one reserved a relatively high spot. SHIELD, the agency I had devoted every aspect of my life to, had been poisoned in its beginning stages by a homicidal group of fascists. I worked for fascists. I had killed and lied for some reasons I couldn't justify, but I always thought the cause was ultimately righteous. SHIELD was supposed to protect people. Now huge helicarriers made in the name of security were going to commit a massacre.
"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting chips with our own." Nick continued to layout a rather complex plan, making sure we all knew the consequential nature.
"One or two won't cut it." Hill emphasized, swiveling the silver briefcase that held the chips and a screen showcasing where our target location would be, "We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die."
Millions. Millions will die based on nothing more than calculations and the only way to stop it is fighting the people who bear the same insignia as me.
"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA." The director's words weighed heavily, "We need to get pass them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left-"
The interjection from Steve is abrupt and clear cut, "We're not salvaging anything."
A now familiar ache stirs up in me. My lungs constrain themselves while I shift my position, clenching my teeth.
"We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."
I understand his reasoning and the anger pacing his tone, but the words invoke my own frustration. This isn't SHIELD's fault. Yes, HYDRA has grown into critical parts of it to take power so this entire mess could unfold, but there had to be thousands of agents loyal to the agency's original ideals.
"SHIELD had nothing to do with it." Fury was quick with a rebuttal to the Captain's interruption.
"You gave me this mission, this is how it ends." He didn't even consider the director's response, "SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."
"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed."
"How many paid the price before you did?"
I swallowed as the leadened statement echoed through the facility, reminding me of how much it felt like a tomb. A quiet enveloped us all as I observed Natasha tense beside me. Wilson had yet to say anything on the matter. It took one glance in Fury's direction to know the prolonged silence would not last.
"Look, I didn't know about Barnes." Nick's previous hostility had lessened with the mention of the Winter Soldier, but I didn't mistake the gesture for sympathy.
I didn't have to see Steve's face to know the resentment his expression took on, "Even if you did, would you have told me? Or would you have compartmentalized that too, like you did with Firman?"
I was forcefully reminded of the conversation that had brought on an descent of information that I had every right to have known but never did. Consternation twisted my insides without warning and all that dominated my thoughts was the anomaly and all that had come with it. That had been SHIELD's method of protection; using me as an agent while lying about anything that could deter my from that course. I had no doubt I wasn't the first to be deceived by them in this way.
While I could condemn Fury for such manipulation, it was hard to side with burning down the organization that I would give everything to defend.
"SHIELD, HYDRA......" There was a pause before the finality of Steve's declaration, "It all goes."
My lips formed around words I had yet to conjure to offer some alternative, but nothing came to mind. SHIELD was all I had left. Maybe it was all I ever really had. The fact that it was part of a fascist plan was a terror to think in it of itself, but I couldn't fight my own colleagues. Yet no other possible plan proposed itself. In simple terms, it was strike back at the people who took me or risk the lives of millions.
"He's right." Maria Hill agreed, which caught my surprise. Fury gave her nothing but a discontent countenance before turning to see the reactions of Natasha, Wilson, and myself.
Romanoff didn't offer him anything. From directly behind me, Wilson sided with my partner, "Don't look at me. I do what he does, just slower."
The director's eyes lingered on me and I met them with a bitter glare for the first time since waking up. There was no other choice, even if I desperately opposed the end result, "If ending HYDRA means ending SHIELD, I'll do it."
The sharp sigh that indicated his loss was not one that was easy to admit, but Nick found himself resigning. That didn't stop resenting tone directed at Steve, "Well, looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."
I finally allowed myself to cast a glance over my shoulder. My partner directed a nod towards the director before he began to stalk off to the left corridor, presumably going to the outside. I didn't dare to follow yet as Wilson and Hill dispersed several different ways to prepare.
I saw Natasha begin to do the same. She stood up from her chair and I hastily commented, "So matching scars?"
She inclined her head up to fully see my face and judge my mood. Once she deduced I didn't have an aggressive nature, the corners of her mouth found their usual smirk, "Yeah. Yours is still bigger, but I'm not that envious."
Out of habit, I reached up to touch my own heavily marked shoulder. Right now, it was one of the only parts of my body that didn't immediately pain me, "Still think bracelets would've been a better idea. Less bloody."
She kept a grim smile that became infected by her own apprehension. Neither of us had discussed the fact she had lied and observed me under orders from Fury for the better part of five years. There hadn't been a right moment for me to express my frustration. Part of me was still working on believing everything.
Our relationship was one I cherished. For Lord's sake, when we had 'met' nine years, she shot me in the stomach multiple times. The fact we even became field partners was a miracle. She had become someone who I trusted with my life over and over again. In the current circumstances and upon further recollection, a deep fear in me suggested that was all a charade. If she had lied about the anomaly for years, could she be faking even being my friend?
I didn't wish to contemplate the subject further, though it was a relief when the morose grin she showed was genuine, "Don't die out there, okay? I've already gone to one of your funerals."
"No promises." I teased, but the playfulness in my tone dwindled, "But I'll see what I can do. Same goes for you."
"Then we'll see each other at the end of this."
~~~~~~
I forgot how much I missed trees.
It's a small thing really, but I've come to realize that I hadn't seen a forest in nearly seven months until Layla took me to Bradley's cabin. I had never been an overly avid lover of nature, but I now found a new appreciation for the scenery in front of me. The noon light emerged through the green leaves to contrast against the cerulean sky that backed the woods. The vista was complimented by the creeks underneath that flooded into one confluence.
Stepping out of the facility had alleviated some tension from my muscles. The fresh air diminished the overpowering feeling of being trapped because I wasn't surrounded by towering walls. I hadn't come to be eased, but was surprised at the effect it had on me.
Steve appeared as if he hadn't moved for a considerable time. His stare stayed fixed upon the view ahead of him. I walked forward, stopping a few feet away before turning my back to the scene and leaning against the barrier. I crossed my arms when he finally glanced in my direction, features heavily burdened despite his attempt to keep a placid face.
He spoke before I had the chance to articulate, "So you're getting some memories back."
I pressed my lips together, taking a deep breath while nodding, "Pieces. Some don't make sense, some do."
My partner listened, but I knew he sought a specific response, to which I obliged, "I think I met Barnes twice, though it wasn't really a meeting. When I first saw him, I didn't believe it. Same face I'd seen in your file, but that's where the similarities end."
The was a hesitation before he asked the next question with despondency, "Do you know what happened to him?"
Brief, inconsistent shards of images wandered through my head as I tried to recall what had come back to my memory these past few days along with Caris' information, "Brainwashing. There's this metal contraption....and it hurts. Didn't work on me, but it sure did on him."
"They tried to brainwash you?" Steve's brows creased in a deep worry, pulling himself out of his own thoughts.
That was still something I was trying to wrap my head around. I swallowed dryly, trying not to think of HYDRA trying to remake me into another assassin like the Soldier, "Tried. I don't know why it didn't work. When I was escaping from the safe house yesterday, when Barnes caught up to us, he told me a bunch of words. I think it was a command sequence. It had no effect on me."
Sleeper agent, was one of Fury's excuses to not telling me about the anomaly after I was found near-death on the Lumerian Star. The concept of being used as a vessel to carry out the deeds of those I hated was a frightening one. To have no control over my actions was a fear that stirred resonating horror inside of me. The dread that had accompanied me for weeks without end festered in my lungs. I would be powerless.
It made me pity the Winter Soldier, finding some forlorn compassion for the enemy. He was what HYDRA wished me to be.
Steve still wore an expression that caused my heart to ache with both anguish and an anger I was soon sure to remedy because a slightly crazy thought came to mind, "I have an idea."
Though distress still remained, I managed a half smile from him, "Is this one of those ideas where you tell me not to do something stupid, but then you do the stupid thing instead?"
"Probably." I admitted honestly, uncrossing my arms to gesture, "HYDRA wants me alive. Unless that's changed, the Winter Soldier won't kill me. Maybe if I tried to get him to remember you, if you were close by-"
"I can do that on my own." His gaze had taken on an intensity and surprise once I proposed the plan, not even a ghost small amusement he'd shown present.
But you didn't. Before yesterday, I had never seen Steve surrender. I had never seen Captain America give up hope so swiftly after realizing that someone from his past, a time that brought him so much pain when discussed, was alive. He had already hesitated; Barnes wouldn't.
"Steve," I made sure the gravity in my tone was tangible, "if it hadn't been for Natasha, he would've shot you in the chest. I know you won't let all those people die, but I don't know if you can fight him. I'm more than willingly and he won't kill me."
"I can't ask you to do that."
"Thats why you didn't. Look, my first priority is stopping Project Insight. That takes precedent over Barnes." I clearly stated, "But he will be there and HYDRA will have given him orders to eliminate you. Now besides choking and a few bruises, he hasn't seriously hurt me-"
"What if his orders change? What if Bucky's authorized to kill you?" He sharply injected, angling towards me with a serious manner, "Sienna, you just got out of the hospital months before you should have and you're not up to full strength-"
"I've got Tesseract energy in me that begs to differ." I set my jaw sternly. My statement took him by surprise, and he stuttered on whatever words he was going to choose next. He had known about the anomaly, but if he hadn't overheard all of what was said last night, this was news to him.
Confusion quickly clouded his features, "How?"
The question brought back the violent juxtaposition of emotions I had fought to ignore the last few hours. My muscles tightened as the revelations flooded back into my present thoughts; the experiments, my parents, and Operation Phantom. My throat constricted and I grappled to keep ahold of my composure, "It's been in me for years."
Keep it together
"New York?" Steve wondered, but became more perplexed when I shook my head.
"Longer. Practically since I was born. I didn't know about that until last night."
Thick silence was crowded with unspoken questions, but he decided on the one that loosely explained my prior anger with the director, "And Fury didn't tell you?"
Contempt caused one side of my mouth to raise at the mention of Nick's lies, "No, he didn't."
The frustration with my physical well-being made me resist the urge to curl a fist. The steady build up of aggravation compressed against every cell in my body and complimented the anxious energy buzzing under the layers of my skin. Somewhere in that mess, there was the dread of knowing that I might not come out alive.
Keep it together
"I know I'm not up to my usual ability, but either way I'm still fighting HYDRA. It doesn't matter if it's regular agents or the Winter Soldier." My stare had temporarily shifted to the scenery behind Steve's shoulder, an action I corrected when I realized it would only reveal my unease.
"Only one has a metal arm." His eyes darted to different points of my face and it became clear my attempts to appear stoic were wasted, "You've already gone through so much. You don't need to do this."
I battled the impulse to tear my gaze away. Since when had it been so hard to look into the face of a friend? I found the task growing trickier as silence ensued between, neither daring to break eye contact. My stomach, still sick with every revelation I'd ingested in the last few days, became even more wrought and my lungs decided oxygen would be limited.
"If the situation was reversed, you'd do the same for me."
Steve's inability to conjure another reason why I shouldn't fight Barnes was enough to tell me my claim was true. If it came down it, he would face up to an opponent that could compromise me.
That small fact meant something. People I'd known for much longer had betrayed me for years, under order or choice. The agency I'd given every part of my being to had been something terribly evil all along. What I always assumed myself to be, my identity, had even been stripped from me. It was more than a mere reassurance that at least one thing had remained constant throughout the process of life as I knew it imploding.
Warmth gathered in my chest and even tainted the elements of me that had been in a constant state of dismay for weeks on end. My regular breathing pattern still had yet to come back to me when another realization stole it away; Steve cared for me.
I did as well. I cared for him very much.
That scared me.
Keep it together
Keep it together
Focus on the mission
I found feigned interest in the ground while several unnecessary trains of thought continued. Of course I cared for my partner of two years. That's not what mattered now. What did was stopping HYDRA's massacre, seeking revenge on the people who tortured me for months, and if possible, bringing back Bucky Barnes.
"HYDRA wanted me to become a Winter Soldier, or something like that." My eyes looked back up to Steve, finding another authentic reason to go against the assassin, "I've experienced a fraction of what he has. If he is everything you say he is, then he never deserved that."
A waning creak disturbed the atmosphere of the wood as the door opened. I threw a look over my shoulder to see one of the facility's door open and Sam Wilson joined us on the bridge. He stopped short once he saw both of us, "Am I interrupting anything?"
I instinctively turned to face the newcomer who I still had little information on. My lips pressed into a straight line, not particularly minding the interruption. I shot a quick look to Steve while answering Wilson, "I don't think so."
I raised one eyebrow expectantly towards my partner, subtly nudging my head in his friend's direction. He nodded, and I deduced he wished to have talk privately with the man. I offered a gentle smile his way before directing it towards Sam, "I'll go get my gear together."
I began to breathe normally again, shrugging off previous intrusive thoughts to walk past them both and enter the all too small facility once more. I had a fight to focus on.
heyo my lovelies
y'all missed siogers content? hear i am feeding the shippers by having si only begin to realize her feelings after everything she believed kinda blew up
and then she immediately repressed those feelings
sO this chapter took forever to write but it's long so hopefully that compensates
but layla and zerina! colton bradley still being out there! the squad going to stop insight! sienna getting ready to strike back at nazis! the finale of this longgggg book is upon us and it only gets more exciting and heartbreaking
(also for all those who are rooting for a friendship between sam and si; they are going to be a great brotp just wait)
i loveeeee you guys and will see you next time!!