Chapter 3

'It's okay to be scared. Being scared means you're about to do something really, really brave.' – Mandy Hale

Everything hurt. That was the first thought that entered her head. Not hurt exactly, but stiff. Opening her eyes at the sudden memory that popped into her head, she jerked with the realisation of why she was feeling so stiff. Ally had her hands pulled tightly behind her, tying her to what she could recognise as her own kitchen chair. It was dark in the room, although the early morning light filtering in through the window did nothing to help her see more clearly. She scanned the room, searching around the shadows of the room. Her once cosy home all at once seemed suddenly gloomy and imposing as she searched the empty spaces all around her. When she was satisfied that she could see nothing, and hadn't heard any movement, she finally accepted that she was alone. Whoever had been in her apartment, wasn't here anymore. Whatever they had come for, they had clearly got it and they had left.

She started to pull and twist at the bonds holding her wrists tightly in place to the slats in her chair and cried in both frustration and pain when they wouldn't budge, the rope cutting deeply into her wrists. Not resigned to sitting in her chair with no hope of freedom, she continued with her only option and continued to pull and tug at the rope, ignoring the pain in the hope that she could loosen the bonds enough to free one hand. She only stopped when the stony silence of her apartment was broken by a steady and cold voice that emerged from the darkness. It was only one word that he said, not that she knew what he had said since he was speaking a foreign language. Russian would have been her first guess, but that was strange since she was pretty sure that when he had threatened her the night before, he had spoken with an American accent, but maybe her mind had just been playing tricks on her. Whatever he said though, it had the desired effect and she stilled in her movements.

Despite her fear (and she was afraid, she could hear her heartbeat ringing in her ears and if she hadn't been forced to sit in the chair, she was quite sure that her shaking knees would have given way by now) she leaned forward, trying to get a better look at the person who had spoken. Call it morbid curiosity, but if she was going to die then she at least wanted to know who it was that was going to kill her. It wasn't daybreak yet, but it was getting lighter and staring into the furthest shadows of her kitchen, she could almost convince herself that she could see the black outline of a figure. A rather tall and large figure.

Sounding rather braver than she felt, which was quite a feat considering she felt that she had a rather large frog living in her throat that she had to swallow deeply just to keep her voice from trembling. 'I can see you, you know and considering that the sun is coming up and I'll see you in about half hour anyway, you may as well come out so we can get this over with, because my arse is killing me.'

If Ally could take back what she had said then she would, for when after a long moment of silence in which she could almost feel his eyes boring into hers the large black outline took a few steps forward and into the dull light, she couldn't help the shaky gasp that audibly worked its way into her lungs. Ally instinctively leaned back in her chair trying to put as much distance between them as possible. If she had been scared before, it was nothing to how she felt now that she could actually see her attacker. He was the very definition of terrifying. If he had looked large in the shadows, it was nothing to how he looked standing only a few feet in front of her. His shoulders were wide and broad, covered in a leather, something, armour would be the best word to describe it with its various straps and belts that scarily reminded her of a strait jacket. All over him, attached to just about every part of him, his waist, chest, legs, boots were various weapons of just about every shape, size and description, but what drew her attention the most were his arms. Not just because they were huge and incredibly muscular, she certainly hadn't exaggerated the feeling that he could have crushed her when those arms had been wrapped around her the night before, but the fact that one was made of entirely metal. At first she had thought it was armour, like a gauntlet that a knight used to wear, but it fit his arm too well and almost seemed like a part of him. What sort of person had a metal arm? Not just a prosthetic arm, but a fully functioning robotic metal arm? Examining the final part of him, the part that Ally had deliberately left till last, she looked at his face. His face would tell her exactly what sort of man her was, although the weapons and metal arm had probably told her all that she really needed to know. Slowly she raised her eyes and took in his face. He had shoulder length dark hair that hung loosely around his face, obscuring parts of his face from her in the shadowy light. However she could make out the chiseled features and the two black eyes that gleamed back at her.

'Who are you?' she whispered in fear.

'Who are you?' Such a simple question and yet he didn't know. He couldn't even begin to form an answer to that question, so he stayed silent, staring at the girl who sat opposite from him.

He tried to think through all of the things that he did know about himself, trying to piece things together. James Buchanan Barnes that man, the soldier had said. He had seemed to know him and for a flicker of a moment he had thought he felt something, a spark of recognition. A hint of a life that might have been. Yet the name didn't seem right. It was achingly familiar and yet something about it was wrong.

What else did he know? HYDRA. He was part of HYDRA. He killed people. The Winter Soldier. The Asset was what he was called. He solved problems. Eliminated threats. Took out the enemy. A flash of a memory appeared in his mind, 'your work has been a gift to mankind. HYDRA can give the world the freedom it deserves.'

When his mission was over he was meant to return to the HYDRA base, at the Federal Reserve Bank. Yet something was telling him that he shouldn't go back. He hadn't completed his mission. He wasn't to go back till the mission was complete, yet he knew that wasn't it and it would never be. The mission was over. He hadn't stopped the soldier. He hadn't wanted to stop the soldier. His mission had failed.

So why wasn't he going back? HYDRA were trying to save the world, to protect the world. But were they? Something about it didn't seem right. The soldier in the heli- carrier told him that people were going to die and that he couldn't let that happen. He been a HYDRA weapon, he had killed people. He was used to death, so why did that bother him. That HYDRA were going to let people die, lots of people. And then the soldier had saved him. If that man was his enemy, a threat to society and freedom, why had he saved him, the man who had been sent to kill him? None of it made any sense to him and it didn't get him any closer to finding out who he was.

His head started to ache with the questions and thoughts ricocheting around his head one after the other. The more he tried to claw through his brain to find answers, the more the answers slipped through his fingers like water.

'Hello, are you just going to stand there? Who are you and what do you want with me?'

The voice pulled him out of his head and back into reality. Back into the little kitchen that was beginning to fill with the light of the sun that was beginning to peak over the horizon. Back to the girl who was sat in front of him, staring at him questioningly.

He hadn't missed the way that her gaze had traced over every part of him, taking all of him in. Analysing every detail. He hadn't missed the gasp of fear or the look of alarm when she saw his arm. But it was the look in her eyes when she finally looked into his that had him wanting to turn around and leave the room. She wasn't just scared of him, she was terrified of him. Knives, guns and a metallic arm were scary, but whatever she saw in his eyes had her shrinking back from him in terror. What sort of person was he that he could garner that sort of reaction?

Ally continued to stare at the man standing in her kitchen, wondering if he was actually going to respond in any way. It had been a few minutes since she had asked him who he was and ever since his face had completely closed down, taking him some place far away. She didn't mean to sound quite so snarky when she was speaking to him, but she was scared and apparently that made her do or say incredibly stupid things. In the light of day she could see him more clearly. Not that it helped the situation any. It only made him look more terrifying, not less. His face was littered with cuts and bruises. He had gashes on his cheek, forehead and chin although they had stopped bleeding. Glancing around the rest of the kitchen Ally saw various blood soaked bandages and cloths and it suddenly made sense who he was.

'You're one of them aren't you? You're HYDRA.' She saw the slight stiffening in his body at her accusation and she knew that she had hit upon the truth. 'All that stuff that happened today, all those people that died, that was you. You were involved in all of that.'

The realisation of who he was and what he had done, spiked Ally's fear as well as her anger and that made for a dangerous combination. Before rational thought could even enter her mind, she opened her mouth and started screaming for help, wanting nothing more than to get this monster out of her house. However she had barely gotten two syllables out of her lungs before he moved even quicker than she would have thought possible and pressed his metal hand tightly and painfully around her throat, jerking both her and the chair backwards until it rested solely on the two back legs. The only think stopping her from plummeting to the floor was his grip around her throat. A grip that was squeezing the very breath from her.

'Did I not warn you what would happen if you tried that again?' he said in a low voice.

Ally lifted her eyes and met his gaze trying to keep the fear from her eyes. Something she managed until she actually looked into his eyes. She had been expecting to meet the cold, hard, black eyes that she had looked at earlier, yet she found herself staring into the clearest blue eyes that she had ever seen.

'Do it then,' she managed to croak out through her restricted throat. Ally wasn't particularly known for being a brave person. In fact she hated confrontation. Yet after a day of seeing the pain and loss of so many other innocent lives, she'd come to face the inevitability of the situation and the knowledge that the statistics were about to increase by a factor of one.

However the challenge that Ally issued seemed to confuse him. She felt the infinitesimal movement of his hand tightening around her and the last bit of air in her lungs, exited in a painful rasping gasp. Yet even has he did it, his face, more specifically his eyes were fighting it, showing some sort of regret over what he was doing. At the sound of her gasping for air, he wrenched his hand away from her in one swift movement, bringing the chair back the floor with a bang. Despite coughing and gasping for air, for the first time since she had woken Ally felt a little spark of hope that she might make it through this alive. She had seen something in his eyes that proved he wasn't just the ruthless killer that he looked, he had a conscience, or at least the beginning of one. If she did exactly what he said then maybe he wouldn't kill her. Maybe he would leave her alone. But then in that moment of hope, her phone rang and everything went to hell.

A/N- Thanks so much to everyone who has favourited or followed this story. It really means a lot. I've had this story in my head for quite a while now so it feels amazing to actually get it out there and share it with everyone. Having a few issues with spacing which is why I've put the lines in to separate Bucky and Ally's parts. Anyway I hope you are enjoying it and the characters. Please leave a comment or a review with any questions or comments you have.