You ran, your muscles burning and aching fiercely as you sprinted headlong into the dense Wakandan jungle, steadfastly ignoring the flora and fauna that stingingly slapped at the exposed skin of your lean calves and arms, the pain the plants caused a mere shadow of the agony that would befall you if your captors got ahold of you again. HYDRA wasn't notorious for its mercy. You'd escaped from their clutches just days ago and had been fleeing ever since. Your tattered prison clothes barely clung to your weary body, your battered form was racked constantly by nausea and exhaustion. You trembled as sweat dripped down your back and beaded on your forehead; and yet your stride never slowed, your stamina strengthened by years of experimentation and torture. After your felicitous escape you had clumsily ripped at the tracker implanted in your inner thigh, desperately trying to disable it so that you weren't followed. It had been a bloody, painful affair, and you weren't even totally sure you'd succeeded, but your eagerness for escape and practiced surgical precision had aided your frenzied efforts.

You ran until your lungs burned and your breaths were ripped raggedly from your throat, but you paid the fickle sensations no mind. In fact, nothing mattered to you but him. You could feel him close to you, closer than you had in years, so damned near that you wanted to weep with relief. His presence whispered in your mind, fluttering urgently through your consciousness and teasing you with unbearably sweet surges of blessed relief.

While you had been a prisoner of HYDRA he'd always served as an unfailing source of solace for you, and you had suspected that you were the same for him. Well you'd hoped; you could do scarcely more than wish. It was hard to tell even as you watched him raptly through the bars of your Siberian prison cell, his intense stormy eyes locked on yours as he anxiously awaited his impending torture, or as you gently unstrapped his rickety form from that infernal chair after his mind had been toyed with and his gaze was glossy with confusion, tarnished by the torturous instruments that HYDRA had mercilessly employed on him.

During World War II you'd been a SHIELD agent with advanced medical training and you'd made the mistake of trusting the wrong people with classified espionage intel that you'd covertly collected from various patients. HYDRA's agents had captured you because of your medical expertise and advanced surgical technique. Their capture of you hadn't been smooth by any definition of the word, and in your efforts against them you'd suffered a few severe injuries, making the HYDRA agents that took you use some of the technology that would later go into his bionic arm to repair the damages done. After you'd recovered they'd forced you to attend to their winter soldiers, providing medical aid, and on occasion, euthanasia. If you proved reluctant to comply they wouldn't hesitate to test their mock super soldier serums on you, forcing the wicked sludge into your veins and watching gleefully as you writhed in agony on the dank floor of your cell.

Little did they know that their cruel experiments had made you strong, had slowed your aging and endowed you with powers you couldn't even imagine and hadn't fully discovered yet. You'd kept your new found abilities as secret from them as you could, waiting until just the right moment to break out of their control, which apparently had been 48 hours ago. To say that the HYDRA agents that had been transferring you to a new facility had been surprised at your powers was a devastating understatement.

You'd shamelessly bashed in the skulls of any who'd gotten in your way and had started running. You hadn't stopped or even slowed, your feet guided by a potent mixture of instinct, skill and pure longing, further spurned by the knowledge that this might very well be your last chance at escape. During your internment with HYRDA you'd learned many languages, chief among them being Russian, and in the days preceding your escape you'd heard small whispers of him. Your brave soldier. Your only confidant in the darkest hours of your life. You latched onto them like a dying man to the elixir of life, desperation and desire fueling your hurried plans of escape. Of reconciliation with him.

In hindsight you'd shared only fleeting moments with each other, just the barest glimpses of achingly sweet human contact, but for your soldier clarity was a rare prize to be treasured, protected. You didn't know if he ever thought of you, if he even remembered you, but he'd certainly been the one that you had thought of as you paced for long hours in your cell, desperately clasping onto any possible distraction before the HYDRA agents had come for you again. And again. And again. Always with their sharp smiles and their cruel, capricious pain.

You weren't sure why they had kept you alive for all these years, but now, as your bare feet pounded against the damp earth and the rich, cloying scents of the jungle erupted around all you, you were immensely glad that they hadn't. You'd never felt more alive, and despite the fact that you were a fugitive, an escaped prisoner and a woman thrown harshly out of time, you felt an undeniable thrill of pure joy flood your veins, fueling your muscles to pump harder, your legs to move faster, to carry you more quickly to the only person you trusted in the entire world.

To your Winter Soldier.

Steve stared out into the balmy African night, his brow furrowed as he contemplated his markedly complicated current predicament. He had yet to face Stark, or the consequences of his actions, namely breaking his friends out of prison, and honestly, hiding just wasn't in his nature. It went against everything in him to stay here, under T'Challa's admittedly generous hospitality and protection, safe from the repercussions of the recent past. He felt as though he was on the edge of a precipice, dangling precariously above a yawning abyss by a mere thread. Steve was no stranger to stressful situations, but this one was personal. In this matter his conscience was crystal clear, his intended course of action unflinching. The only problem was that he seemed to be among a select few who saw it the same. He sighed, running a hand through his hair and pinching the bridge of his nose. The action did virtually nothing for his stress headache, bit it was mildly comforting nonetheless. It was moments like this that made Steve Rogers almost want a buzz.

At that moment a disturbance near the tree line caught Steve's attention, his enhanced senses going on alert in the space of a heartbeat. He stood up straighter, uncrossing his arms and shifting his weight, preparing to attack if need be. To his immense surprise, the battered, stumbling form of a small woman broke through the dense trees, your sure steps slowing just enough so that you could leap over thirty feet up to land rather gracefully on the balcony Steve was currently standing on. Your intense, imploring gaze was focused and sharp as it scanned your surroundings and you took in the sprawling mansion that stretched before you. After a moment of awed study your gaze fell on Steve and he just barely suppressed a shudder. You were a woman on a mission, and somehow he could tell that you would not hesitate to try and take him down if you deemed him a threat. That would be regrettable; he really didn't want to hurt a woman, especially not one as seemingly fragile as you.

You took one measured step towards him and Steve tensed, watchful. For the first time your body wavered and you leaned onto the railing for support, closing your eyes as some unpleasant sensation roiled over you. Stunned, Steve studied the torn thread of your clothes, the lank fall of your comely hair and the fierce, dated beauty of your features. His curiosity only deepened when you stumbled closer and held out a small shaking hand to him, your fingers reaching and your palm flexing towards him.

"My soldier," your husky voice cut the still night air, your perplexing words echoing through Steve's mind as your eyes shimmered with unshed tears, the corners of your mouth upturning into a heartbreaking smile, "My winter soldier, my Bucky," Your voice was a mere whisper, though your words carried enough strength to dumbfound Steve, giving him almost no time to catch you as you passed out, exhausted and shaking in his arms.

He stood stunned, his headache effectively forgotten, for long moments before he drew in an immense breath to call for T'Challa. They had a new situation on their already burdened hands.

I've been interested in writing a Bucky x reader/Winter Soldier x reader fic for awhile and as I've just recently seen Civil War I have sooo many new ideas for a fic! Please let me know if you liked this chapter, if you would like to see more, any ideas or imagines you might have, etc. Thank you for reading!

Mood Board for this chapter, if you're interested: post/144083007184/reader-is-a-recently-escaped-hydra-prisoner-who-is