A N N A ' S P O V
The van came to a sudden stop and I jolted awake from the half-asleep state I had been in for the past 20 hours. My cell and I were taken out of the van and the bright lights from the storage room nearly blinded me.
I looked around and saw Steve, his flying companion, and the man from the cat-suit stepping out of a different van. The person who followed them, made my heart drop. It was Bucky, and he looked beyond worried. His eyes found mine and I could see the sympathy and anger. I tried to smile, but I knew it looked horribly heartbroken. "It'll be okay," he mouthed before he was taken away.
They walked up to a grey-haired man and a blonde woman. A few seconds later, a brunette girl joined them. They talked for a short moment before they were escorted out of the room. Before they left, both Steve and Bucky looked at me over their shoulder.
I was taken, in my cell, to a confined room with concrete walls. There was no way out of this one. Even though it was the last thing I wanted to do, I accepted whatever they planned on doing to me and rested my head against the seat, closing my eyes.
"Hello, Miss Rogers," a voice spoke up and I opened my eyes again. It was a man, and judging by his accent, he was German. "I've been sent by the United Nations to evaluate you. Do you mind if I sit?"
I didn't reply. I just stared him down with a cold, empty glare.
He sat down anyway. "Your first name is Anna?"
I kept my mouth tightly shut and turned my eyes to the ground, where I firmly focused them on a stain on the floor to keep my mind at ease.
"I'm not here to judge you. I just want to ask you a few questions," he continued. "Do you know where you are, Anna?"
When I didn't say anything, he continued, "I can't help you if you don't talk to me, Anna."
"Where is Bucky?" I asked, my voice hoarse from the past 20 hours of not speaking.
He didn't answer. Instead, he said, "Tell me, Anna, you've seen a great deal, haven't you?"
I looked up. "I don't wanna talk about it."
"You feel that... if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop," he said. "Don't worry. We only have to talk about one."
Suddenly, all the lights in the room turned off. In the distance, I heard an alarm blaring. The electricity in my arm disappeared and I regained control again.
"What the hell is this?" I asked the man.
"Why don't we discuss your home?" he said. "Not Romania. Certainly not Brooklyn, no." He took something from his bag. "I mean your real home."
My heart dropped. It was the red, leather-bound book that contained what I most feared. Twelve words that could turn me into the monster I had been forced to be for so many times. Ten simple words that could turn me into the Winter Warrior.
"No..." I whispered.
The man rose up, flicking on a flashlight to read the words on the page.
"Astray."
"Decayed."
"Stop."
"Twenty-two."
My metal hand began to tremble. "Stop!"
"Dawning," he snarled at me and I let out a scream as my head felt as if it were put in a blender. The metal clamps were broken when I ripped my arm from them and broke free from the tight hold.
"Descent."
I began to land powerful punches on the unbreakable glass in front of me, and slowly but surely, the glass started to crack.
"Nine."
"Truce."
The crack grew and grew with every punch and my memories started to fade. I wanted him to stop talking. I wanted to be me.
"Homebound."
"Two."
With a final punch, the door was blown from its hinges. I was free.
"Convoy."
My mind turned off, and I instantly stilled. Gone was Steve. Gone was Romania. Gone was Brooklyn. Gone was Bucky. And gone was Anna Rogers. All that was left, was the Winter Warrior.
I rose to my feet. "Warrior?" the man asked.
"Ready to comply," I answered on auto-pilot.
"Mission report," he said. "December 16, 1991."
What happened next was a blur. Words were pouring out of my mouth that I couldn't understand. It was as if someone took over and talked for me. I told the man things I never intended to say to anyone, and yet, I told him everything.
My mind slowly returned when I heard the many footsteps in the distance. I patiently waited for them to arrive before easily fighting through them. The Winter Warrior had way more strength than Anna did and I was not afraid to use that strength. After not even a minute, the army of men that had come at me was unconscious on the ground.
I heard more footsteps coming, and I hid around the corner. "Who are you?" a man's voice asked. "What do you want?"
"To see an empire fall," were the last words I heard before I was dragged back to my mission. A dark-skinned man passed the corner and I launched my fist at him. He was in time to duck and my fist collided with the wall. He was no match for me, so I easily grabbed a hold of his face and flung him through the room.
The blond man from the bridge came at me and landed several punches that I all blocked. I kicked him in the chest and he stumbled backwards. He fended off my attacks until his back hit the doors of the elevator. My fist collided with it and left a large dent before the man grabbed my fist that he pushed away from himself, but I just pressed harder and slammed him through the doors and into the elevator shaft. He tumbled down and left my view.
I turned around and saw a brunet man standing across from me in the hallway. I stopped.
"Anna, it's me. It's Bucky," he said and I shook my head before charging at him. He dodged my first punch but wasn't quick enough to dodge the second. My fist struck his jaw and he was knocked unconscious as he fell to the ground.
I jogged down the hallway and ended up in the cafeteria of the building. Two men in uniforms came at me and I beat them down without breaking a sweat.
A sudden sonic blast stopped my movements and I scrunched my eyes shut as my brain shook in my skull. A man with dark hair and a goatee came toward me before he sent another blast my way. He skillfully fended off my attacks and when I shot a bullet at him, he stopped it with his hand. Something metal was wrapped around his palm and judging by the red colour, this had to be the famous Iron Man.
In my short moment of distraction, he whacked me across the face and I responded by punching him in the eyesocket and kicking him away from me. He skidded across a table and dropped to the ground with a grunt.
A gush of wind blew past me and pulled out my legs from underneath me. I hit the ground with a thud and pushed myself up again. A girl with brown hair hovered over me, her balled fists raised. "Don't make me do this," she said.
My hardened stare scared her, I could see, and I took advantage of that. I moved to land a punch with my human hand, and while she was distracted by dodging that blow, I kicked her in the abdomen. She was sent flying through the air and landed a few feet away from me where she remained fully still.
A blonde woman approached me from the back and aimed a kick that I dodged. Then a red-haired woman kicked me in the chest before the blonde kicked me in the face. She wanted to land another kick, but I grabbed her leg and slammed her into a table.
Redhead came back and wrapped her thighs around my head. She sat down on my shoulders and I stumbled under her weight. She smashed her elbows into the top of my head repeatedly before I could smash her into a table. As I wrapped my hand around her throat, she uttered, "You could at least recognise me."
Then I was shoved to the side. I looked up and found Cat-Man. Without a suit, this time.
He began landing kicks and punches. A few reached me, but they barely caused any damage. I kicked him away from me and as he rolled over the ground, I stomped up the stairwell.