"I DON'T see why we have to run," KillSwitch said. She and the Soldier ran through the trees that lined the Potomac, their clothing riddled with gashes and bullet holes. The legs of KillSwitch's waterlogged pants sagged and rubbed against her skin as she moved, causing her to slow down. The Soldier kept moving, turning around when he noticed her lagging behind.
"Hydra is gone," he called back. "There's nowhere for us to go, and the government will be looking for us. We can't stay here."
"But..."
"What?"
"That girl. Sasha. What she said...I wasn't always Hydra. I wasn't always KillSwitch. I used to have a name, and so did you."
"You're going to trust a kid you've known for two days? She was trying to kill you. She was just trying to mess with your head. That isn't who you are."
KillSwitch came to a stop.
"And how would you know?" She crosses her arms. "You were a prisoner for years, just like me. This—" She gestured to her clothes, then to his, "This isn't who we are. We were somewhere else first. You heard that blonde man call you...what was it? Stucky?"
The Soldier laughed gruffly.
"Bucky," he murmured. "Bucky Barnes."
"Don't you remember anything?" KillSwitch asked, her voice pleading. She wanted the fantasy of her life before Hydra to be true so badly. Little pictures—images of a brunette woman in red lipstick, a small boy with dark hair, a man propped up on crutches—flashed through her brain, a film reel of Alexandra Carter's existence playing on the silver screen for the first time. The second time, really, she supposed, if it was all real.
"So what if I remember?" The Soldier put a hand on KillSwitch's shoulder. "Whoever I was when Hydra found me, I'm not him anymore. I've done a lot of bad things, and so have you. Now stop wasting time, unless you want to go to jail."
He began walking again, beads of water on his metal arm glistening in the sun. KillSwitch didn't move. When the Soldier had gone another twenty feet, and she still hadn't joined him, he turned around.
"I'm not kidding. Now."
"You go." KillSwitch shook her head. "Use that as an excuse to run away from yourself. See how far it gets you. But I'm not going anywhere, Bucky Barnes."
"I can't just leave you." The Soldier furrowed his eyebrows. "I'm not going to leave you. You're coming with me."
KillSwitch took a deep breath. She jogged over to the Soldier and stared up at him, their eyes meeting. His pale eyes seemed to ripple in the sun, an expanse of sea stretching into his soul. He was hesitant, she noticed, afraid of the unknown that extended in every direction. She hugged him tightly, pressing her face into the crook of his neck. The Soldier patted her back awkwardly. After a few moments of silence, KillSwitch pulled away.
"Go," she ordered. "I'm staying here. I need to figure out who I am, and the answers to my questions are right here."
"But—"
"Go!"
A frown tugged at the corners of the Soldier's lips.
"Take care of yourself, kid," he said. Without another word, he turned on his heels and kept running, never looking back. On her own now, KillSwitch sighed. In retrospect, it probably would have been a good idea to come up with a plan before she encouraged her only ally to abandon her.
Or...maybe he wasn't her only ally.
She took off in the direction they'd come from, tearing through bushes and piles of twigs until she came to the riverbank. When the clearing came into sight, her heart dropped right into her stomach; they were gone.
"No!" she yelled out onto the water. "God damnit!"
The Soldier was probably halfway to a port by now. He would forget about her soon enough, not that she could blame him. As for Sasha and friends, they had disappeared forever, and why wouldn't they? She was worth nothing to them, and they had no reason to hang around to help her. But someone had the answers, and whoever that was, KillSwitch was going to track them down. She just had to figure out how.