"Are the days of winter sunshine just as sad for you, too? When it is misty, in the evenings, and I am not walking by myself, it seems to me that the rain is falling through my heart and causing it to crumble into ruins." -Gustave Elaubert
***
Harley lands hard on her knees with a disgruntled groan of pain and also relief. She's away from Bucky...for now. That's something she never thought she'd be happy to think of.
She'd managed to escape out of pure luck. In the very beginning of her days as a Hydra agent, they'd taught her how to transform herself into a flame, therefore teleporting herself from one place to another via the oxygen of the fire. She became a master of it, but until now she hadn't done it in almost a century. Going for it was a shot in the dark; she could've failed and killed herself if it was executed incorrectly.
Struggling to her feet, Harley takes a precious moment to catch her breath and gather her wits.
As much as she doesn't want to be afraid of Bucky, she can't help but feel paranoid that he'll find her again. He's a great fighter, and Harley doesn't know how much longer she can hold him off before she has no choice but to burn him enough for him to stop. Killing him is definitely out of the question, no doubt, and hurting him is going to be tough, but to survive, Harley recognizes that she has to be willing to wound him. If he comes back to his senses to find out he killed her...it's almost unbearable to think of what he'd do.
Harley rests her forehead against the cool cement of the wall. She doesn't know where she landed, but she's still in Hydra headquarters, and she's still safe.
I have to get to Steve.
If she finds Steve then she can free him, and he can help bring Bucky back to the light.
Taking a final breath, Harley sets out to find Steve. She barely makes it three steps before she has to stop again, this time because the cruel reality of her situation kicks in.
Tears flow before she can stop them and she collapses to her knees again, sobs racking her body. Bucky is lost again. She just got him back to where he needed to be, and he fell right back down because of the savageness of an awful organization's hunger for power. The man she loves has become the monster he fears, and she knows that when he snaps back into it, it'll be worse than before by tenfold.
The agony turns to rage quicker than an assassins killing blow. Hydra did this. They ruined their lives. Twice. It's their turn to feel the wrath of their own creations, to taste the blood on their ledgers. They all need to pay in nothing but blood and gore.
Wiping the tears away stubbornly, Harley gets up, stronger than ever, letting malevolence do its worst.
***
Harley creeps along a narrow corridor, searching for the stairwell again. At this point she's fairly certain Steve is down there somewhere. Where else would he be?
He better be unharmed, Harley thinks as she turns another corner after inspecting it for guards or Bucky. She sees the freezer door lying on the ground and cold puffs of air coming out of the freezer itself. She remembers the stairwell being past the freezer some way and steps over the door carefully so as not to step on the ice.
She reaches the cellar door again, flinching when it creaks loudly as she opens it. Stepping through, she lets it fall shut behind her with a soft click. She makes it three flights down before a voice stops her.
"Harley?" The voice is instantly recognizable: Bucky. Harley spins around on the platform to see Bucky following her. "I thought I'd never find you!"
"Bucky?" she asks, relieved and worried at the same time.
"Yeah, it's me." He reaches the platform she stood on. "Are you alright?" he asks when he sees her back away slightly.
"Fine, I think," she says. "Where have you been?" Harley isn't sure if Bucky remembers any of their fight scene, so she decides to keep it to herself for now.
"I was looking for you, but I found Steve instead! C'mon you have to help me get him free," Bucky says. "Are you sure you're alright?" Bucky reaches a hand up to stroke her cheek. "You look awfully pale." Bucky closes the gap between them, pressing his lips to hers. Harley instantly knows that this isn't the real Bucky. The real Bucky would've wanted to find Steve first, no distractions. He wouldn't waste time talking and being affectionate.
Harley pulls away quickly, darting to the side.
"Harley..." Bucky reaches his hand out, but Harley is focusing on the knife in his belt.
"Stop the charade," she snarls. "I know it's not my Bucky."
Bucky takes her word for it, letting the nice guy act fade away at sonic speed. He pins Harley up against the stone wall, the cold of his metal arm against her neck making her shiver. The knife comes up with no hesitation.
"Pity," he breathes. "You're one of the beautiful ones." The knife slashes across her cheek just as she lets out a burst of flames, sending both of them to the floor. Harley clutches her bleeding face and scrambles for the knife, but Bucky is quicker. He gets it first and cuts the back of her hand deeply.
Harley cries out in pain as blood pours out of her hand like a small waterfall. "Bucky-"
"I make sure my victims suffer," he hisses, picking her up by her hair and slamming her against the wall again. "Suffer like me."
This round of Bucky seems more animated, more willing to play around then finish the job in a jiffy like he could.
Gusts of fire shoot out of both of Harley's hands; the hand with the cut throbs painfully when she does so, making the blood flow faster and thicker. Alright, can't use that hand.
Bucky dodges her defense, laughing. "I know you can do better. Prove that you can."
Harley's epinephrine levels escalate as high as Stark's and she loses herself for a moment, sending a forest fire of blue sparks Bucky's way, causing him to have to leap up the stairs to avoid them. Harley takes this chance to run down the rest of the stairs to the basement landing, vaguely aware of Bucky following her. She doesn't care what he does to her anymore; she has to find Steve. Bucky could slit her throat and throw her body in the ocean, and she wouldn't care as long as Steve made it out alive.
Holding her bleeding hand to her chest, Harley darts underneath the staircase; a weak spot to conceal herself, but all she's got right now.
Harley holds back a moan of pain. The blue sparks made her wound open even wider, the gash now almost across her whole hand. She watches as Bucky runs into the cellar and to the right, the opposite way that Harley wants to go.
Waiting a few moments before revealing herself, Harley checks both ways for any signs of Bucky. She can't hear a thing other than her own heavy breathing and the jingle of chains...chains...Steve was in chains in the picture! The sound is coming from the direction Bucky went in, so Harley is extra careful as she sneaks along the edge of the wall towards a dimly lit room.
Footsteps make her breath fall short and she freezes, only to realize that they're coming from above her.
She finally makes it into the room and almost cries in relief. Steve is in the corner of the room, chained to the wall, but still very alive. His head perks up as she enters and a smile spreads across his face. "Harley?"
"It's me." She crosses the room. "Are you hurt?"
Steve shakes his head wearily. "My arms kind of hurt, but I've been down here the whole time."
"Let's get you free," Harley says as she examines the manacles.
"Can you melt them?" Steve asks hopefully.
"I think so, but I only have one hand. The other has a nasty cut on it," Harley explains. She starts melting the metal like a blacksmith, trying to keep the sparks from flying towards Steve.
"Is that an engagement ring I spy?" Steve asks merrily. Harley grins. Even in the worst case scenario, Steve can make it into something worth smiling about.
"Yes it is," she says proudly. "Isn't it pretty?"
"I know it is. I helped pick it out," Steve admits.
"Well, you have excellent taste." Harley spots a flash of red, white, and blue in the adjacent corner. "I'm surprised they left your shield."
"Me too," Steve says. "I never lose that thing."
Harley laughs as one of the manacles drops to the ground in a gooey mess. The smell of burnt metal fills the small room.
Harley focuses on the other manacle. The next time Steve speaks, her body goes frigid and her eyes widen.
"Hey, Bucky!"