Chapter 25

"I can't live like this anymore..." Bucky dejected out an engaged growl, uncertainly stirring in his pale blue eyes. It felt the surges of intermixed emotions rattling through his heart; everything was twining in his veins as he sunk his retracting silver claws into a snow bank outside a looming apartment. He looked painfully muddled. "I use to think that my life belonged to someone else..." he trailed away, feeling his heart plummeting sporadically against his chest.

His emotions were on the edge of a breaking point and senses made him attuned to everything surrounding him, the soft drizzle of crystallized rain pelting against glass windows from the building obstructing his view from the train tracks, to the rotten stench of trash heaps in a far corner of a darken alley. It felt intense and unnatural, almost similar to how he first felt the prick of the needle filling his veins with the compounds of the alpha X serum (hybrid of Doctor Erskine's life's work) which transformed him into a capable, enhanced and impassive killing machine with no conscience to feel or react to the immense throes of pain—guilt.

Dim glints of streetlight tarnished over his ebony fur; bile was threatening to encompass his throat when he spared a glance at Anna nestling the kittens inside a rotten cardboard box. "How did you survive in this stupid cat body?" he asked, with bite of spite ragging in his throaty voice, disbelief was present.

"It was never fun," Anna answered soberly, licking clean the female kitten's tiny face. "And it was never easy, either. But I guess I just always had to keep on surviving. It's like I still have something to do with myself before my time is up. I don't know; I don't understand it myself. But I just adapted, learned what worked, and tried not to think about the situation too much."

Bucky felt a cold shiver of resentment crawl through his bones and his fur seared cold with a haunting sensation of pain. His eyes sealed shut as he tried to deny what feelings his heart pounded against. He never wanted Anna to suffer like he did for almost a decade. He had been subjected to the mindless desensitization programming and being thrown back into the isolation chambers were the darkness and ice always greeted him. There were a few moments of weakness when he surrendered to a fate without human touch and stirrings of warmth. He wanted to give her a chance for grasping freedom as if she deserved it nine lives over. They only had one life and a small fraction of his condemned soul desired that to become reality. He opened his eyes again, and was faced with the same betraying nightmare simmered in her aurous eyes. He became rigid as they stared into each other's spectral gazes of misery.

"Anna, I never meant—"

"I know, James," she interrupted, breaking eye contact and instead looking at the ground. "I don't want to think about that-about the past. We've both borne more than our share of hardship, it seems. But I just want to get out of this miserable curse and out of HYDRA's webs altogether. I need to get out."

Tears filled her eyes and her heart felt swollen with so many lost hopes. The fingers of darkness that had long ago grabbed her soul in their grip had squeezed her to the breaking point, and she wasn't sure how long she could go on. She had to find hope and light again, and James seemed the only possibility for that. She dared to look back into his eyes searching for a chance of escape.

Bucky watched the kittens nuzzling their noses against her frontal paws, his gaze unwavering and crestfallen until the audible noise of distress unclogged from her throat drew his attention. He moved closer, methodical and cautious to the ratty box and watched worriedly as Anna blanched away from his approaching shadow.

He didn't make an effort to implore her to come out, he merely leaned his face against the cardboard edge, staring at her with his obscured blue eyes and his muzzle tight. He swallowed, feeling disturbances of writhing agony unfold against his serious intent. "You're not alone in this fight anymore." he spoke in a gruff and strained voice, and yet words remained stuck against the rawness of his throat. "If I had known what they did you beautiful, nothing would of stopped this Brooklyn kid from getting you out." He felt the bitterness flow in torrents in the hollowness of his chest. "We have to keep on fighting. That's all we can do...Kotenok."

"But how do we fight, James?" asked Anna, desperation easily seen in her shaky voice. "Tell me how we can possibly win; how can we complete this mission?"

"We do the best that we can," Bucky said quietly, staring back at her with a dismal look. "I think we'll make it out alive. You gotta have faith...Well at least that's what Steve told me back in the day."

"The same Steve we're trying to find?" asked Anna, still unconvinced. "I will be more apt to put stock in some of his faith when I can see him for myself. We've got to accomplish something, James. If it's our objective to find your friend, then lets find him." She let out a sigh of regret. "I have spent years wandering around without a purpose. I want to us to do something actively to fight the curse; I want to have something to focus my mind and energy on. Tell me what we are doing right now, James. How will any of this help us? she demanded.

"I've put my life in Steve's hands on the battlefield. I'm not giving up on him, Anna," he hissed out a response, low and grating; squaring his muzzle as he averted his troubled gaze. Unbeknownst to her warring distress, he retracted his metal claws and scraped the digits over the exposed cement and sealed his eyes shut for a long and agonizing moment. He tried to decrease the sense of resistance to believe in false hope whirling in his emptied stomach.

"We can't give up...Not when there's a chance for us to finally escape from HYDRA once and for all," he downheartedly added, and he rove his searing blue eyes on her. "I know you're in pain and unsure if we can break the curse...But you have to trust me just like you did as my partner."

"I do trust you, James," Anna quickly affirmed, "...but when we were partners, I understood exactly what we were doing. What is our objective right now, after we drop off the kittens, I mean. How do you expect us to find your friend?"

Bucky regarded her with a distant longing stare, feeling the reserves of his patience receding as rawness began to coil in his throat. "Steve won't be hard to track down. I can pick up his scent when we move out in the morning...Although the punk will probably smell like a wet mutt." He tried to evoke a sense of hope to ease her back into waves of contentment, while he intently watched her batting away stinging tears that glossed over her reflective irises. "I need you to calm down," he uttered, stalking inside the box and blocking her path, his paw offered a gentle caress as his padded digits stroke over her side. "Just focus on me..."

Anna's flesh rejected that idea, but she knew he was right, and she had to let her pride and fear dissipate. Back when they completed missions together, such emotions had always been avoided since they could result in large errors. Now was no different, except their current mission was one to free themselves, not to cause more death and pain. Anna let out a reluctant sigh and met James' gaze.

"Okay," she slowly breathed in submission. "How much further do you think we need to travel to drop off the little ones?" she asked in a much more docile tone. "Will they be secure tomorrow?"

"Yes," he affirmed with ire in his voice, detaching his paw from Anna's fur. His concern filled his stark blue eyes searched that of his love. "You've-" he hesitated and stared down at a visible sign of abuse. He hadn't registered it before. A patch of ebony fur exposed marred scar in the nook of her right front leg. "You're injured, how long have you been hiding this from me?" Bucky narrowed his eyes, feeling his throat close up, and he froze in disbelief. Breath rasped in his chest as he settled his gaze back at her face. A vague sense of unease seemed to crash against his slender form. "Anna, tell me what happened?" he asked, his tone becoming harden with dire.

Anna averted her eyes and took a step back, facing the opposite direction. "It's nothing," she insisted, sitting down and licking her paw nonchalantly. "Just a scratch I got on some glass from a broken window. It's fine; really. Has it stopped me from performing acceptably?"

In truth, the wound was quite a deep cut, but Anna did not want to allow the weakness to hinder her, so she had kept silent about it. Yet the cut did ache, especially after a long day of travel. She had hoped that James wouldn't notice, but she supposed his eye was too attuned to detail to miss it. Despite the discomfort, she knew she could not let her partner slow down on her account; she would rather bear the pain of a wound than continue in this feline body one minute longer than was necessary.

"Anna, talk normal to me. You're not a part of that world anymore." Bucky released a ragged sigh, he involuntarily stepped closer, keeping his distance tensely as she lowered down into submissive position and allowed the kittens to curl against her.

A painful hitch of breath kinked in his chest as he searched for his resolve in the shadows, wondering if he deserved her.

He imagined her standing on the old dock of Brooklyn's harbor, lithe body dressed in a pure white dress, and long mahogany ringlets framed her beautiful face. She was smiling, bright and full of life and waiting for him to take her home. "Do you mind if I join you?" he asked, his voice breathy, and his blue eyes piercing in the shadows.

"No," she answered after slight hesitation, scooting over to make room for James to enter the tattered box. "We should all get some rest." As much as the situation strained her nerves, she truly ached to be near to James, to feel the security that his presences always brought to her. And now more than when she had fallen for him, his eyes brought her a sense of peace. As long as she was with him, it truly did seem like she could make it through anything, even the curse that constantly pained her body and soul.

Sensing her measures of distress, Bucky felt his stomach clenched with rupturing cacophony of discontentment. With enough reserves of effort, he lowered down at the fraction of a second she lifted her head, and they suddenly felt the heat, their muzzles touched and were adjoining he was twitching nose so close, that he fought against the enthralling yearning, and caressed her face with a benign lick. He wanted to kiss her. Feel the lavish expanse of her lips move with the unbroken candance that matched the feral pulses of his hastening heart.

Bucky felt the aching sense of detachment,undeviating bite of the algific chasms of HYDRA and longing to skein his human hand through her silky brown hair. Instead of pulling away, he kept his mouth shadowing over her face. Coaxing to fully embrace her lips with his own.

Anna closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in the pleasure of being so near to James. But at the same time, she knew that it only stirred up desire for something that must wait, something that could not now occur. She moved her head forward and rubbed her cheek against James' face, and when he had settled down in the box, she rested her chin on his strong, warm shoulder. Her eyes eased closed, and she let her worries fade away as she took in the simple joy of being close to James.

In a tentative motion of his head, Bucky carefully nudged her with a measure of reassurance that freedom was close to grasp.

Steve let out a ragged breath and rubbed his temples to clear his foggy vision. His gloved hands felt strange on his face, as if he had temporarily forgotten he was in uniform. It did feel good to be dressed for action again, but that hardly erased the pain and worry that both had free reign of his members. Fear, with its icy fingers, had taken up residence in his mind and gut; every moment the curse progressed and taunted his thoughts. To mix with the cold anxiety, hot fever raced through Steve's veins, and sweat beaded on his brow. It had been a long time since he was sick-the serum had insured perfect healthy-but Steve knew that this was more oppressive and draining than almost anything he'd endured before. And that was only the physical aspect.

Steve tried to shove these hindering evils from his mind by treating this like any standard mission. He took another visual scan of his surrounds, noticing all the small details he could. He was currently in an old warehouse basement with large, wooden crates on all sides. The lighting was poor; only small windows near the top of the walls, giving a view of the dirty streets outside, provided any possibility of sight. The concrete floor was rough and cluttered. The air was dank and dead. It was an unpleasant place.

But Steve knew that if his sources were correct, this warehouse must house a HYDRA base somewhere. He supposed it would be a secret door or hidden room, but down here, he had not seen any such signs, and Sam had yet to report anything out of the ordinary on the ground floor. Had the base been deserted or destroyed long ago?

Steve felt his mind drifting again, and he knew he couldn't afford that, so he raised his wrist and radioed Sam.

"Sam, how do things look up there? Any luck?"

Darkness was a soldier's ally. Sam was crouched down near a cement ledge of the building adjacent; scanning the ominous, barren expanse of buildings caressed by muted streetlight with a pair night vision binoculars, his vision was transfixed in the phosphorescent haze of intensified green, his right eye was leveled with the objective lens as he release a calm breath emitting from his lungs. The frigid air was heavy and there was staleness of car exhaust permeating the vantage. He'd been up there for nearly an hour since they infiltrate a dock warehouse a few miles back. The dossier on Baron Strucker's latest experiments revealed cruel methods of subjection involving domestic animal captives and the evidence had been destroyed-innocent lives were dispatched and the remnants of the small massacres lingered in the vacant cages. Sam felt the desperation prickling in his veins, the allegiance to take a stand with Captain Rogers and fight for humanity's freedom. Apparently, that crushed a lot of weight over his heart.

Listening to the measure of strain in Steve's low voice intercept through the wrist com, "Negative, Cap," Sam stressed, before taking a cautious glance with his dark eyes,locked on the brownstone complex across from his perch. "There hasn't been no visible sign of movement. Whoever we're hunting, I get the feeling doesn't want to be down." He lowered the binoculars and exhaled a sigh of disbelief. "I think we've reached another dead end."

Steve felt frustration boil in his mind, but it wasn't directed at Sam. It was anger at the fact that every second he didn't find what he was looking for was another second trapped in the curse, both himself and Bucky. And if he didn't discover a way to defeat it soon, then he might end up missing the window altogether. Each minute brought more pain and a harder battle; wasted time, even if it didn't mean outright defeat, at least condemned Steve to further torture as he slaved on against this terrible foe.

"Let's double check, just to make sure this place is really deserted," Steve told Sam after a moment of thought. "We'll meet in ten minutes at the exit. Radio in if you see anything; even a minute detail could be the difference between detection or concealment."

"Thanks for the heads up," Sam replied calmly. He took another glance over the street and noticed a narrow crevice in between two abandon buildings. Peering straight ahead there was a gleam of metal, but the crescents of darkness folded over every corner almost making it impossible to see further. "Hey, Cap," he added, looking a little dubious. "Got something outside of the building...I can't make it out though." He grimace, releasing another heavy intake of breath as he stared back into the binoculars searching for heat signatures.

"Do you have any idea what it is?" Steve asked, daring to hope that they might have stumbled onto a lead. "Should I come up?"

Sam inhaled the frigid air, if felt like ice was crystallizing in his lungs. A rapid passing of fear deluged in his veins when he turned the dial on the lens and steadied his gaze back on the alleyway. Time was dwindling and Steve was departing further into his accursed form. Sam wasn't giving up, of course. Not even if his friend and the wellborn compass of the Avengers spent the rest of his life was a canine-he would still of benevolent,unyielding and confiding heart of Steve Rogers-Captain America. His father told him at a young age, that to measure man is not by his size, but the magnitude that lies in his heart.

Venting out a calm breath, Sam had detain his scrutiny on a sheen of metal in the obscurity behind a dumpster. It was a cage. "Hey Cap," he countered through the wrist come. "You should definitely come up. There is a cage and from where I'm standing, it's not vacant."

Steve's mind flooded with concern as a hundred possibilities flew through his head. Whatever or whoever was in the cage might be able to tell them something about what HYDRA was up to, whether with words or just by its condition. And even if that wasn't the case, it was very likely something in need of help. Unless it was all just a trap.

"I'm on my way," he told Sam, marching to the stairs that led out of the basement. "Do you see anything that would indicate hostility?" he asked, mounting the staircase and quickly walking up, skipping over a step with each stride.

"Negative," Sam addressed, as he looked through the infrared lens. He noticed a range of thermal patterns of a small body-there was a possibly it was a child. "I have a trace of a heat signature." he breathed out an grim sigh, before adding, "I think whatever is in the cage is small..."

Steve's heart skipped a beat as he wondered if it could be Bucky, still trapped in his cat form. That was unlikely, but Steve still felt himself drawn to the cage, as if he was sorely needed there as quickly as possible. He picked up this pace even more, hurrying towards his goal.

"Which side of the building are you on?" he asked Sam, pushing through the door at the top of the staircase and glancing around as his eyes adjusted to the light and his body adjusted to the cold. "I've just come out onto the ground floor near the front side, facing the street."

Carefully keeping himself observant over the narrow crevice that resembled an alley, Sam listened to a vague stir of distress, it was audible enough for him to detect a faint whimper. Muted orange light reflected over the windows, giving him a fairly decent view of the extraction point, as he lowered his equipment, and settled his brown eyes on the cage.

"Use caution, Steve," he advised the super- soldier in a low breath. "From my vantage...The captive appears to resemble a child..." his voice fell away, as his knuckles tightened under his balled glove. He hated when innocent children became victims of a crime. He was prepared to fight against the injustice that reeked over the streets, and that forced people to turn a blind eye on the unspoken horrors which resided in the darkness.

Steve felt his hair stand on end. "I'm almost there," he said, jogging in the direction he deemed quickest. He rounded the building and came to a darker section of street with a small enclave, and soon he spotted Sam. His companion was looking into the alley way, and Steve hurried to his friend's location. Skidding to a halt and breathing out a white cloud of air into the frosty night, he followed Sam's line of sight.

"Should we move in?" he asked, always ready to weigh his own ideas against the experience of his friend.

Sam felt his heart jolt against his chest. A wave of coldness permeated over every reachable surface, the temperature was dropping as faint wisps of snow licked over his tight jaw. It was a tough call to make-Steve's life could be on the line if he stepped closer into the lucid and vivid memories of watching Riley's body drop into the desert sand racked against the recesses of his mind, he was paralyzed and hesitant with indecision. A child's life -any life was vital and he couldn't be selfish and hold back Steve from saving the captive. When he tried to blot out those recurring memories, he answered back, unknowingly, "It's your call, Cap."

Steve considered the situation for a moment, but the choice was clear to him; they could not leave this creature-human or otherwise-in the dominion of HYDRA like this. "I'll go first; you follow a few paces behind and cover me," Steve instructed as he gripped his shield tighter in his fingers. "Alert me at the slightest sign of movement from anywhere else. If I were a HYDRA operative, I wouldn't leave evidence just lying around unless I had another purpose."

Steve began cautiously edging his way forward, entering the alleyway with his shield before him, trying not to let his eyes linger on the rust that still ran on the vibranium's smooth surface. He could see the cage now; it was placed beside several old garbage cans and other containers. The area looked to have been disturbed recently, like more containers had once been there but were now gone. Perhaps HYDRA agents had evacuated in a hurry and forgotten this last cage. Forgotten or left; Steve didn't know which was more likely.

When he was within a few yards of the container, Steve was able to see through its bars. Insider, curled into a small, shaking ball, was a child. By it's long, blonde hair and thin figure, Steve guessed it to be a young girl. She had on only a ragged dress, and her limbs were dangerously malnourished. She did not turn to look at Steve; indeed, her silent crying seemed to make her oblivious to all else.

Steve's heart threatened to rip out of his chest, his throat burned, and his soul thrashed within him as he took in the full extent of the evil that was before him. This small, innocent child had suffered what no human should endure. And so young, so pure! She was like a flower bud still too shy to open. Yet HDYRA had plucked her from the branch and trod her underfoot.

"Hey," Steve said gently, surveying the cage one last time to assure that it was safe to approach. He then closed the distance between himself and the container and knelt beside it. "Little one," he said in the same soothing voice, "..are you ready to come out?"

The small child stopped her sobbing and slowly turned around. She started back for a moment, but clearly she realized that Steve was different from those who had captured her. She looked at him with eyes shining full of tears, too crushed to dare to hope. Steve again felt his inner anguish threaten to boil over, but he shoved it aside in favor of action. Getting a good grip on the front of the cage, which undoubtedly required a key to be opened, Steve wrenched the metal plate straight of its hinges, tossing it away when it was free.

"Come out, sweetheart," he whispered, coaxing the girl out. "You're going to be safe now; I won't let anyone hurt you."

The little blue eyes looked at him in confusion, but there was understanding behind them, and the trust of a child. The girl extended her small, fragile hand and grasped Steve's arm, steadying herself. Then she crawled out of the opening, collapsing into Steve's chest. This seemed to release the flood, and she sobbed uncontrollably into Steve's strong, warm shoulder, pulling him closer with all her might so that she would never be lost. The super-soldier rubbed his hand on her back to warm her shivering body, pulling her tightly to himself. He positioned his arms to bear her miniscule weight and stood up, still lightly stroking her light hair with his free hand. Then he turned and began walking back towards Sam, who stood watching the scene from a few yards off.

"She needs warmth and medical attention immediately," he advised his companion. "There's nothing else here; let's go."

Sam nodded, wordlessly. He wasted to time, and quickly unzipped his winter jacket, swathing it over the trembling child buried in the next of Steve's solid arms. "She needs to come with us," he dismissed, looking into Steve's harden azure eyes as he stared down tenderly at the little girl. "If HYDRA had her for a reason, she might have been experimented on...It's just an assumption...We need to keep her under our watch."

The thought of what this child had undergone made Steve's stomach turn, but he shoved the images from his mind and nodded in response to Sam's comment. "You're right," he agreed. "Let's get her something to eat and a warm bed, and then we can decide exactly what to do. Is it alright if we crash at your place again? I hope all this isn't too much of a problem; I feel like I've asked so much of you already."

Sam shook head his dismissively, "Dude, you need my help." He grasped Steve's shoulder, reassuringly. "I'm more than happy to offer my place to you, Steve."

Steve smiled with thanks and dipped his head slightly. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate it, Sam," he said with genuine gratitude. Then, with a glance at the shaking child in his arms, his expression became more resolute. "We should get her out of this weather as soon as possible," he observed before turning and heading down the road with strong, fast strides. His arms wrapped around the girl's back, transferring as much warmth as he could into her cold body. "Don't you worry," Steve quietly told her. "It's all going to be okay in just a minute. I'll make sure you stay safe."

Sighing out a heavy breath of relief, Sam turned around in the second a beam of red hit Steve's shoulder. His eyes widened, and veered his gaze back to the super-soldier, keeping his emotions moderately calm as his blood suddenly, doused with chilling panic.

"Steve," he roared, voice straining with dread. "Get down!"

The words had hardly reached Steve's ears before his instincts kicked in. Immediately, the super-soldier pulled the child close and protectively wrapped his arms around her, dropping into a kneeling position with his back facing the direction in which he presumed the danger to lie. He had no time even to move for cover before the sound of a gun going off split the air.

A/N: A huge thank you to my talented co-writer and JuliaAurelia.