The Hunt For Bucky Barnes

Kiana the Brave (Or Soft-Hearted, as her sisters teasingly called her. Kiana hated this monicker, even if it was in teasing. It was terrible for a Valkyrie, but not only was it true, her sisters had a wicked sense of humor. Come to think about it, so did she.) silently snuck up behind the man, sword drawn. How he got his arm stuck into the vise, she didn't know, nor cared. It just made the kill easier.

Nix the Ever-Knowing, the Valkyrie soothsayer, had sent her here on this kill mission.

Since Valkyrie loved to hunt vampires, all in a day's work.

Just as she brought her sword up and, though she didn't make a sound, he must have somehow sensed her and lifted his head. His hair was long and dark and fell around a handsome face that had just enough stubble to be devastatingly sexy.

But it was the look in his beautiful blue eyes that stayed her hand even before he spoke.

"Go ahead. Do it." he said calmly.

Kiana, who never hesitated over a kill, though she was teased unmercifully by other Valkyrie for her too kind nature, was momentarily taken aback.

Kiana's sisters didn't call her Soft-Hearted for nothing. Any street urchin or poor beggar she passed immediately earned her undying sympathy.

Not to mention her money.

And her sisters threatened to invite the vampires for a feast of Kiana if she brought home one more stray animal.

She could just hear them now, ragging her for crumbling under a pair of sad blue eyes. Eyes that were also, unexpectedly, kind, but lost and sad. Though she had been dispatched here to kill him, she sensed an innate goodness in him.

"You WANT to die, creature?" she asked, knowing he was OTHER, wasn't a creature of the Lore but wasn't quite human, either.

Strange things had been happening, men in steel suites, preternaturally strong men, gods coming to the earth. For the Valkyrie to stand up and take notice of this was something, indeed. Then again, strange things happened during an Accession.

She had seen his metal arm and had concluded that he was what the Valkyrie currently called semi-immortals. After all, most had immortal like powers and some aged VERY slowly. The jury was still out on whether they would be accepted into the Lore. After all, most used to be human and the Lore was kept under wraps from humans as much as possible.

The Valkyrie weren't optimistic about their chances.

"I've done terrible things." this one told her now.

"Like what?" she heard herself asking.

"Kill people." he confessed. "Almost killed my best friend. Though I didn't. .." he trailed off.

A thought occurred to Kiana.

"That's why you trapped yourself here, wasn't it? So you won't hurt anyone." she said, knowing she was right and, with a crash of thunder, though the sky was cloudless, her heart just...melted.

Valkyrie received fuel from the electrical energy of the earth and gave it back in the form of lightning when they felt strong emotion.

Valhall, where she lived with her sisters, was a creepy Victorian structure surrounded by lightning poles and scorched oaks.

Shaken, refusing to admit she felt anything for her PREY, of all things, she focused her attention back to him.

He didn't answer, just stared at her.

This was answer enough.

Then he gave her a look and looked her up and down as if really seeing her for the first time.

Kiana was dressed to kill.

Litterally.

As she always did, she wore a tight tee, a mini skirt, and knee high, sexy boots. She had raided Nix's closet and her t-shirt said 'I Play With My Prey'.

Valkyrie loved to shop, buying pricey clothes extravagantly. Most had lived for centuries and each coven received a stipend from their investments. Each cut was usually very generous.

Contrary to legend, Valkyrie were not tall, Amazon like women. Rather, they were all petite, tiny fey-looking women who could bench press Buicks, were lightning quick and wicked smart.

They also had pointed ears, slight fangs and elegant claws.

Not to mention they were the daughters of gods.

Odin and Freya to be precise.

This thought reminded her that she had a job here and it wasn't to be chatting up the prey.

Despite this, unable to help herself, she looked down at his chest, muscles defined but not heavy, more like a big cat's, smooth and sexy, rippled under his red shirt. The muscles in his legs were well defined and mouthwatering, as well.

Then Kiana looked up and caught him raising a brow.

Caught ogling the prey!

How humiliating!

"What are you?" he asked.

"Pussy Cat Doll?" she answered.

At his confused look, she said "No?"

Suddenly, her ear twiched.

Then she heard it. Scuffling feet outside.

"Someone comes." she whispered.

Then she found herself standing between him and the door, sword ready, legs spread in a fighting stance.

What was she doing?

Guarding the prey?

Before she could consider this, though, two figures appeared from different doors.

Immediately, she recognized the taller one.

"Well, if it isn't Miss America." she said, using the term she and her sisters used for him.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Your worst nightmare?" she asked, only half joking, left eyebrow lifted.

"Damn, Cap, wherever your friend got her, I want one." said the guy with him.

Kiana hissed.

"You wish, mortal."

"She came to kill me." said the man behind her.

"He didn't seem to mind." she told them.

"And are you still going to?" he asked.

"Duh. That's what I came here to do." she said flippantly, though she might have felt she was lying.

"I'm sorry. I can't allow that."

"Such a gentleman." she said with a smirk right before attacking.

A girl had to attack before she was attacked.

The Captain immediately went on the defensive while the other guy tried to grab ahold of her.

She put him through the wall.

"Buck. Do you remember me?" the Captain asked.

This tripped a memory, but she was too busy trying to find a place around his shield to follow it.

"Your Mom's name is Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes." he answered, sounding distressed and maybe as if he were straining himself.

Just then, Kiana got a punch in and put the Captain into the ceiling.

There was the sound of grinding metal and she turned to make sure her prey wasn't escaping.

Just as a metal arm wrapped around her waist.

She struggled.

He held out his other hand.

She froze.

A huge diamond, flawless, sparkled in his hand.

She snatched it.

Bucky stared at the unbelievably gorgeous woman he held. She was still now and seemed to be in a trance as she stared at the diamond in her hand. Her red and gold curls were draped over his metal arm, looking unbelievably soft, her lovely green eyes sparkling.

"What the hell IS she?" asked the man with his best friend Steve, both crawling up off the floor.

Bucky, staring at her as much as she stared at the stone, answered honestly, "I don't know. She wouldn't tell me. Some kind of assassin. She said something about a pussy cat doll."

For some reason, the other guy snorted.

"So pretty." she breathed.

"Not unlike you." he thought, gently taking the sword out of her hand.

It was light and extremely sharp. Made for quick kills and not battle.

"How did you know to show her the diamond, Buck?" Steve asked, drawing near.

"A woman approached me. Said if I wanted to stop the woman that comes after me, to show her the diamond she gave me." he explained.

"Guess it worked. Though I wouldn't mind this one coming after me." said the other man.

Bucky tightened his hold on her.

Not only was she beyond beautiful, but her small form had curves in all the right places. Not only that, but she had looked at him like, well, like Steve looked at him, like she saw the decent, good man he was and not the monster they had made him.

"We don't have time for this. Bucky, people are coming for you and they don't mean to take you alive." he told him.

"We can't leave her here like this." he said.

He hadn't missed the fact that, though she claimed to be here to kill him, not only hadn't she, but she had stood between him and possible danger.

It was his turn.

"He's right." the other man said.

"We'll cover you while you run out the back." Steve told him. "Take her with you."

And that's when the lights went out.

Kiana blinked.

Feeling like she was coming out of a dream, she looked around.

Valkyrie could see perfectly fine in the dark and without the light to sparkle in the diamond, bye bye trance.

Valkyrie had few weaknesses but had inherited Freya's acquisitiveness and, without intensive training, were easily entranced by what they called shiny. These were things like precious stones and gems.

So finding her prey with his metal arm now wrapped around her waist infuriated her. Valkyrie were the ones who got the drop on their prey. Not the other way around.

"How dare you touch me! I am a daughter of gods!" she yelled, wrenching his arm away and, at the same time bringing her elbow up to his face in a hard hit. She then turned and punched out at him, at the last minute deciding not to break his sternum.

He crashed into the machine.

She dropped the diamond in her boot (She wasn't stupid.) and, grabbing her sword, crouched down for attack

That's when the lights came back on.

Then she was battling his friends.

And winning, of course.

Valkyrie liked to fight.

It was fun.

Suddenly, her ear twitched.

"Mortals." she sniffed.

They were coming.

Lots of them.

AND she smelled gunpowder.

They meant business, then.

"Get out of here, Bucky!" the Captain yelled as he took a blow that would have had a regular mortal in a coma, to say the least.

"No. I'm not leaving you." he said, joining the fight, but seemed more intent on trying to stop her than anything, taking care not to actually hit her, but trying to grab her, deflecting her blows.

She, on the other hand, tried to swipe at him as much as she could.

Or did she?

Did she just deliberately miss?

"Such loyalty among friends." she said, but found she meant it.

Suddenly, there were the sound of bullets.

Very close.

Like, at the door!

She froze on a hiss.

How dare they interrupt her hunting!

"Crap! We gotta move!" one of them said.

She turned just in time to see her prey leap out the window.

She ran and jumped to stand on the railing, unconcerned with the battle between the mortals behind her. Bullets were useless against Valkyrie. If one of them did draw a gun on her, she would think they were trying to tickle her.

He had disappeared.

Silly Valkyrie.

Letting the prey get away.

And, she suspected, though she would never admit it, it might have been accidentally-on-purpose.

Now she remembered who he was. She should have realized when she saw his metal arm. He was the Winter Soldier. A ghost story. He was so efficient and skilled at hunting and dispatching his prey that she and her sisters had read everything they could about him, fawning over him like teenagers over Justin Bieber, speculating over what it would be like to go toe to toe against him.

Kiana now knew.

And she liked it.

Her ear twitched and there was the sound of a motorcycle.

She stepped off the railing, landing on the street far below as if she had only stepped off the sidewalk, heading toward the sound.

She primped her hair.

The hunt wasn't over.