Chapter 35:

"There's two flights he could be on," Sharon assessed reading from the large screen which held on the details for flights. Charley matched her eye line to see she was correct and there was two different airlines flying to the exact same place Siberia.

"What are we going to do?" Charley turned to Sharon. She was the agent here, she knew what to do in these situations. Despite all of this Sharon shook her head, and contemplated.

A second later she sprung to face Charley "Can I trust you?" Sharon said sternly, causing Charley to break her eyes away from the board and nod furiously, "It's just if we split up we could go to each separate flight and we'd be able to know which one he was on, but that relies on me trusting you."

"You can I promise," Charley nodded, glad she could be involved and help somehow rather than being left on the side-lines like everyone else did to her (Bucky and Steve driving off came to mind)

"Good," Sharon settled plainly. The two hurried off and brought their separate plane tickets in order to cross the security barrier. For a moment Sharon considered getting her CIA badge out to save her bank account the cost of an airplane ticket, but with a worried stare to the security cameras lacing the airport she thought better. She did not need her work getting involved.

At security they were met with suspicious stares as they had no luggage to offer and were quickly escorted through. Finally they were at the point where they would have to go separate directions.

Suddenly nerves overcame Charley, feeling as if she was finally being tested. She knew she had got better with the fighting stuff but her spy skills were still in need of a brush up. Sharon looked equally as nervous as she passed Charley a walkie talkie.

"Now understand I don't want you getting involved," Sharon stated clearly, laying out the ground rules as they were about to head off, "I just need you to monitor the surroundings, if you see him then talk to me through this and I will come and find you. You are not an agent and I do not give you my permission to interact with him. You'll only get yourself killed."

Charley couldn't help but feel like a small child being lectured as she nodded reluctantly, but she knew Sharon only meant well and out of the two of them, Sharon was far superior than she would ever be. She clicked the top of the walkie talkie hearing the fizzle of noise come from Sharon's own walkie talkie connected around her belt.

"Hide that under your jacket or something," Sharon said, "You might look suspicious carrying a radio like that, I have a badge I can show to avoid suspicion, you don't"

"Right," Charley nodded slowly, the bubble in her chest tightening as she looked around feeling as if everyone's eyes were on her. As quickly as possible she tucked the radio in her back pocket, making sure it was secure in place, "so find the fraud therapist guy, contact you and you'll come. Great." She repeated the plan.

Sharon gave her a nod of reassurance, "You'll be fine. Speak to you soon."

With that Sharon turned her back and scurried off doing a quick walk, dashing through the crowd as Charley lost sight of the blonde agent, people with suitcases and bags blocking her visual field. She stayed there for a moment longer, hoping Sharon would come back and tell her exactly what to do again. She knew she was being stupid, it was a simple task, but knowing she was now alone and might be finding a person who was trying to find other super soldiers to do his bidding wasn't a very calming thought and she hoped to god Sharon would find him first. After all she was trained most.

Taking a deep breath and counting down from ten, Charley sprung around and went in the opposite direction. She replayed the face of the man in her head, when she had pinned him against the wall on their last encounter. If only he hadn't hit her with a laptop and ran away then none of them would be in this situation. Every face she passed she studied but when she started receiving odd looks from the crowd passing she kept her head to the floor and decided just to wait by her plane's boarding gate and wait to see if he showed up.

Getting there was not a problem. Having travelled quite a bit abroad she knew her way around an airport. Her flights gate hadn't opened yet so she decided to treat herself to a cup of coffee. She hadn't slept very well over the past few days and a coffee was just what she needed to keep her eyes from falling closed.

She thought she'd found a pretty good spot to sit at, it was hidden in the corner, hopefully out of sights from most onlookers and gave her a pretty good view of any people boarding the plane.

Half an hour later the boarding gates opened and Charley jumped up in her seat, having been staring bored at her empty coffee cup, wishing she had more money to buy herself another one.

As people boarded one by one Charley scanned their faces. The first twenty people that boarded she ignored, knowing they didn't look anything like the man she'd seen before but on the 21st face she froze, quickly standing up. Upon impulse her hands curled up into a defence position. This was the man who had successfully brainwashed Bucky… again, with only a few words.

She wanted to see this man dead. It was his fault Bucky had almost killed her, his fault that she now had dark bruises up her neck from Bucky's metal arm and his fault Bucky now hated himself more than ever before.

Despite the hateful things swimming through her head she realized this man couldn't see her as he disappeared from view onto the plane. Charley launched for her back pocket where her walkie talkie was supposed to be but as she went for it, her hand clasped around thin air.

Panicking, she began to look around her chair, hoping she'd just simply dropped the radio whilst having her coffee but it was nowhere in sight.

"fuck, fuck, fuck," Charley swore under her breath turning to the couple who had been sitting by her table the whole time, "You haven't happened to see a walkie talkie have you?" She asked hopefully and then shook their heads, sending her an odd look, "okay thanks."

She looked at the large clock on the wall and saw that her plane still had twenty minutes before departing. Maybe that was enough time to run and find Sharon and run back again to catch him.

But she knew she couldn't risk not finding her and letting his man get away. Then Bucky and Steve would be completely screwed.

Bravely, Charley took out her ticket she'd brought an hour before and handed it to her plane's boarding gate operator. He studied it, smiled at her and allowed her to pass onto the plane with no further questions.

She willed her legs to keep moving. It felt like a powerful wind was blowing at her, hindering her from walking further and her legs ached from continuing. However there was no wind, only Charley bitterly thinking of the worst things that could happen to her once she boards the plane.

"Hello," the attendee gave her a toothy forced smile as she entered the interior of the plane. Her first reaction was to duck her face away, feeling as if he may remember her face as well as she did his, "Your seat is B19, have a nice flight."

She realized she was being very rude to the woman as she took back her ticket, not making eye contact and continuing to survey the plane, but at that particular moment she didn't really care. She couldn't see the guy and for one fleeting moment she was worried she'd just boarded a plane to Siberia thinking she'd seen him, when she hadn't. She had literally not money to get back, no plan, no experience in what to do and she had no way to contact anyone to help her out.

She was a fucking idiot, is what she was.

Her thoughts were diminished however when she saw him, sitting at the back, nearer the cheaper seats by the window staring solemnly out. He hadn't seen her yet and Charley planned to keep it that way, ducking down into her own seat only three rows away and sealing her own fate

*~It started with Pizza~*

The rest of the journey flew by… literally. She was used to the boredom on a plane but usually she had prepared herself with a book to read or music to listen to. Now she had nothing other than looking over the person's next to her shoulder reading the news and found a fight had broken out at a German airport between the Avengers. The airport had been shut down but it seemed most of the Avengers were involved and some more. It just meant Bucky and Steve were still nowhere close to getting to Siberia… where incidentally Charley was now heading (even though Bucky warned her not to get involved… she'd apologize later, she decided.)

She spent the rest of the journey wondering what the next step in her plan was. She was hoping Steve and Bucky would already be in Siberia so she could at least meet up with them and tell them what was happening. But with little hope, she realized she was closer to getting to Siberia than Steve and Bucky were. Typical boys getting into a fight when she's managed to single handily get to Siberia all on her own.

Not too bad Weller, Charley smiled to herself proudly.

When the plane landed she followed the man like a hawk, careful not to lose him. She hadn't come this far just to lose him in a crowd. She discovered his name was Helmut Zemo after the airport attendee read his password allowed and she was right behind him. Her confidence grew with every step as she was pretty sure Zemo hadn't spotted her yet.

She followed him to a service station, allowing herself to walk closer to him. He hadn't turned around once and it was quite dark in Siberia due to the thick snow, so even if he did she was sure he could easily mistake her for a random civilian. He made a phone call and Charley stayed at the back of the service station pretending to be interested in purchasing a Russian doll, trying to listen to what he was saying but she couldn't hear a word.

Her hand was suddenly grabbed by something; they tugged forcefully at it making Charley spin around and face whoever had such a tight grip around her wrist. She looked up and saw Zemo piercing down at her.

Pretending she didn't recognize him she tried tugging her hand away from him but his grip was too tight, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Did you think I wouldn't recognize you?" Zemo drawled in a thick accent. Charley gulped, fearing the worst. She gave up on the wrist and instead went to knee him below the belt but he moved out of the way jumping back. However in this movement he had to spring Charley free of his hands and she had a moment to run for it but she couldn't go too far. She'd flew over here for one reason, stop Zemo before they got to Bucky and Steve.

She ran far enough out of the station. The snow was too thick to skilfully run through and there was no way she was getting away now as she could hear Zemo struggling behind her just as much as she was.

She wondered briefly whether Bucky and Steve were close by but the thought diminished quickly as she realized she needed to focus and made the conscious decision to stop running and turn around to face the running man behind her.

"You're not getting to the secret hydra base," Charley said quickly, fearing her voice may crack from fear if she spoke for very long.

"You're Charlotte Weller, I did my research," Zemo said, he slowed down from a run and watched her legs, as if expecting her to run again, "You're the winter soldiers little girlfriend. I'm very glad you came, I was looking for a plan B in case my plan failed."

"And what's your plan A?"

"I know you're not an agent, you don't have to pretend."

Charley's held high shoulders suddenly slumped as Zemo took another step forward. Despite there not being much of a height difference she couldn't help but feel much smaller in comparison. The man named Zemo didn't look like typical supervillain she'd expected. He didn't look big and strong, in fact Charley was pretty sure she could take him down with a few blows. He seemed like an everyday man to her.

"Why do you want the other super soldiers?" She decided she'd at least get some answers.

"No reason at all." Zemo shrugged, uninterested.

She rolled her eyes, "Then why are you here?"

"To end the Avengers."

Charley took note of his sinister tone, tearing her eyes away from his hands where she had been waiting for a fist to fly at her and instead at his face. He narrowed his eyes, the sides of his lips curling up.

He was being annoying sinister and unhelpful in his words, Charley decided to keep pestering him with further questions until he gave her something.

"Bucky's not an Avenger, why did you mess with his head?"

"To get to the heart of the Avengers."

From turning her head away from his hands she sealed her fate, as he pulled a large needle out of his pocket. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere his dived at her something sharp collided with her neck for a second before the pain disappeared. She clutched her neck protectively with her hands, quickly kicking out at him, large bits of snow kicking up into the air as she did so. He rolled backwards and Charley was satisfied to see him not take a step closer but a feeling of unsettlement crept into her chest as she saw the sinister smirk appear at the curve of his lips.

"You shouldn't have followed me," Zemo grinned, "stupid really, you made it really easy."

"What did you do?" Charley cried, going to her neck realizing he must have been referring to the sharp prick she felt, "Did you inject me with something?"

"It should kick in any second now."

"I thought you already had a Plan A?" Charley asked desperately, "Why do you need me?"

"For a plan B," Zemo shrugged simply, "To tear the avengers truly apart. To suffer as I did. They don't know what is…"

Before he finished his sentence, Charley could no longer him hear as his words came out in a slur. Was he still speaking? His mouth was still moving? Why were there two of them? She focused carefully; narrowing her eyes in order to get a better picture but three more Zemo's appeared, phasing out from one another in a blur.

"Please don't," was what Charley meant, however all the game out was a groan of noise as she stumbled forward, clutching into someone else's car door for support but her hands missed the handle, stumbling further forward and collapsing into the bitter snow, stinging at her hands. She hadn't dressed for the cold weather, she still wore the same jeans and jacket from three days ago which were now ripped and dirty.

"I wonder if what they used to wipe Barnes's memory is still operational…" Zemo said before blackness overcame her.

A/N okay so let's ignore the fact this took ages to update and probably really badly written for rushing, also the fact Charley clearly didn't have a passport on her and also Zemo happening to have a needle in his pocket. This is fiction, I don't need to explain myself :P

Love you all for reviewing and thank you all for updating. You're the best :D

Elliot Locksley: Update is here(finally, I know right) Thank you so much for your lovely review, love you :D

Guest: continued as requested Thanks for the review

.2017: thank you so so much. You're one of my dedicated reviewers and I just wanted to say I really do appreciate it, I can't thank you enough. I'm glad you enjoyed