Spikes of cold chilled her face. Feet away at the edge of a cliff, the wind threatened to spill her over but it would be of her own nervous shakes that would make her fall, so she stayed well away from it, and stood back with Mortia who was listening intently to the Hydra radio they had acquired.
"We were right. Dr. Zola's on the train. Hydra dispatcher gave him permission to open up the throttle. Wherever he's going, they must need him bad."
"Maybe we should just follow the train," She suggested in an attempt to stop the whole mission. All eyes landed on her and she shrugged, "just an idea."
"It'll be moving too fast."
"We could follow the tracks?"
"The trains here now and we can take them by surprise this way. If we follow it and it reaches the Hydra base, we'll be up against much more Hydra soldiers." Steve insisted as Dugan pulled out a box of supplies.
He clapped Bea on the back and she almost fell forward from the force, "Don't worry, we've got you girlie."
The men went off and began digging through the box, pulling out grips to hold on to as their plan involved them jumping off the cliff, sailing through the air and landing on the rain without a problem. Bea stood back, scared if she moved she might just vomit everywhere. She didn't want to get the supplies; she wanted to take Bucky's hand and drag him back to the truck.
Bucky passed her, her own grips, "Is everything alright? I know you're scared of heights." She looked up at him and frowned. She was scared of heights but that had nothing to do with this mission. Bucky must have misread her look as one of offence and immediately backtracked. "Not – not that I don't think you can do it."
Sighing, she took the equipment from him, "I just really don't think we should do this. I've got a bad feeling."
"It's okay if you want to sit this one out."
Sit it out? And just let them all go knowing what was about to happen. How could she possibly do that?
Her worst nightmare came true a moment later as Falsworth flagged a hand at them, signalling the train was coming.
"Let's get going, because that train's moving like the devil."
Everyone made a move to get in line but Bea looped an arm around Bucky, refusing to let him move. Him being so much stronger made her fall with him but when he noticed she was still attached to his arm he stayed back and gave her a questioning stare.
"We only got about a 10-second window. You miss that window, we're bugs on a windshield." Steve addressed to the group loudly over the whipping wind.
"-Bea… what are you doing?"
"Don't go." She insisted. Her arm stuck to his.
"I gotta."
"Better get moving, Bugs!" Dugan declared as Steve jumped and began to zipline onto the train. Gabe followed. She made sure Bucky stayed beside her.
Ten seconds – she just had to stall him for ten seconds and then Hydra would never get their hands on him again.
Dugan noticed the two of them still standing there. "You two… Quit making lovey eyes at each other. We gotta jump!"
She held her stare, pleading. "Don't."
Falsworth and Mortia went next.
"You can't go."
"Buck, Bea." Dugan called out to them, about to jump himself, "we've got to jump!"
"Steve needs me, Bea."
"I need you."
The ten seconds were almost up, but it felt like a life time passed between them. Dugan jumped and Bucky glared at their looped arms and tried to untangle himself. Resisting his force, he finally released himself from Bea's stubborn arms but by the time he got to the zipline, the train had already moved on.
"BEATRICE!" he snapped angrily, "I missed the godamn train now."
"Good." She snapped back. Her whole body faltered in relief, as her body remembered how to breathe again. "You can't have gone."
"What are you on about?" He frowned, "how is this any different to any other mission?"
"Zola would have gotten you again."
"We're a team," he gestured back at the train wildly. The train was long gone now. "It doesn't matter if Zola got me again. We do it together, until the end of the line."
"If you knew what I knew. You would not be saying that."
"What the hell do you know?" He threw his arms up in the air in a rage, fisting the ends of his hair. "Why the hell would you stop me jumping? It can't just be Zola… what the hell do you know?"
She should have expected this, but the fury raging in his voice was enough to know what she'd done wasn't the right thing. What else was she supposed to have done? Sat back and watched as Hydra got to him… no, she had done the right thing. "I- I can't tell you, Buck!" She pleaded with him to understand, "but believe me, I want to tell you more than anything. But getting on that train would have destroyed you."
Bucky's hand collapsed at his side. He looked as if he didn't know what to say.
"Are the others going to be okay?"
They all were in the original timeline. She nodded quickly before he had time to doubt her, "yes."
"Are you going to tell me what you know?"
"Buck, I- I can't…"
He didn't say anything. He didn't need too as he stared at her for the longest time, resembling a look of betrayal. She wasn't sure… she'd never seen him stare at her like that before.
Without another word, he silently he brushes past her, and begins to tap the radio furiously.
Numbly, she stood there but couldn't bring herself to regret her actions. By now, he would have possibly fallen off the train. Because of her, he was standing. Breathing. He hadn't lost his arm. Hydra would never get to him and he could stay with her. Just a bit longer. She hadn't lost him again.
He his banged against the radio and a whirring fizz followed as the whole thing completely jammed, "it's no use!"
"I'm sorry…"
Pinching the bridge of his nose, he glared, "You don't get to decide what missions I go on!"
"I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. "I- I was scared."
"I'm scared," he jutted the finger at himself, "I didn't want to go on that train either. Not with Zola there. I don't even know what stuff he put in to me the last time I saw him. I was nothing but an experiment to him. But I told Steve I'll join him and that's what I was meant to do. You had the choice to go home before you joined us, and you decided to stay. Now we have no choice but to continue with this mission."
"I didn't have a choice to go home," Bea fired back hotly, the time GPS on her arm suddenly becoming tight, "I want nothing more than to go home."
"Then go home!" He snapped back.
"I can't. I've told you I need the tesseract."
The radio continued to fizz. She could just about make out the sound of gunfire at the other end and then suddenly everything cut off. Bucky cried out, and kicked at it. It didn't calm his temper as he rounded on Bea once again.
"If anything happens to Steve. I'll never forgive you."
Her heart doubled in beats. Sharply, Bucky turned around and went to wait in the truck. It was probably for the best she didn't go near him for a while.
*~It started with Pizza~*
The time passed more slowly than Beatrice could imagine. If it wasn't for Bucky's constant glares or how he kept stabbing the snow with a long stick, it might have been bearable. She couldn't bring herself to regret her actions and if he was expecting an apology from her, he'd be waiting a very long time.
In the end, she settled for starting a fire. More for something to do than to warn off the cold. Right now, the cold was a nice distraction and her steady shakes felt deserving.
Eventually they heard the crunch of snow as the Howling commandos came back. Dum Dum Dugan was leading the pack but in front of him, came the small jumpy steps of Doctor Zola. His hand tied in front of him as he walked forward like a rabbit caught by its pray. A gun dug into the crook of his back.
"You got him," Beatrice smiled brightly, maybe Bucky will forgive her now. See… nothing bad had happened, and everyone was okay.
She got up and met them halfway.
"That we did," Dugan's said, his voice sounding stale. With a light push, Doctor Zola was spread out sprawled across the floor. "Where were you two?"
"Beatrice wouldn't let me go," Bucky growled, staring at Zola with a pointed glare. "You know I would have been there otherwise. Where's…" he stared around the group, his eyes widening, "Where the hell is Steve?"
No one said anything and the familiar silence she had just found herself sitting in with Bucky, was back. She waited, trying to be patient with the team, scanning each of their faces in turn to gauge something from them. Dugan turned away. Falseworth snotted up a few tears. Mortia stared blankly ahead like he wasn't really present.
Then Zola cackled. It chilled her very bones.
"Your great Captain is dead."
*~it started with Pizza~*
No one spoke for a while. Beatrice watched Bucky. His face paling. Violently his hands began to shake and form into a fist.
Dugan was the first to break the silence, revealing the Shield Gabe had been holding behind his back. "We think he dropped the shield. Hydra fired at him… I-I- we got there too late."
"You're wrong," Bucky fired up, "Where's the train? He's still there."
Beatrice reached forward trying to stop him from doing something he might regret. "Buck-"
Before she could touch him, Bucky jerked away from her as if her hands were fire and he would be burned. He spat, "You said they'd be okay."
"I- I didn't know."
How could she have known that by saving Bucky from a fate worse than death she would be dooming Steve Rogers – Bucky must have somehow saved Steve in the original timeline. How… how was she supposed to know that?
How could she… how could she have done this? Unable to move. Unable to think. Steve's face was at the centre of her thoughts. How. How could she have done this? More than ever she wanted to escape. Press the button and she could be home. Steve would be back.
Steve who comforted her after Bucky disappeared. Steve who pulled her from the darkness after she'd had Brooke. Steve who had protected her from the government when they wanted to throw her in jail. Steve. Her best friend. He was gone…
She'd never been a very natural mother. When Brooke was a baby she never knew when she had to be fed or changed. She could never calm her when she cried. It wasn't even until last year when she found out that Brooke's favourite colour was orange – she'd been buying her everything pink up until that point. Since Steve had brought her home orange paint to go over Brooke's bedroom walls to surprise her, she'd questioned him why he'd gone for orange. Steve knew. Steve had always been there for them. She'd never even asked him to be there. He just was.
In repayment, she had unknowingly caused his death.
Bucky strutted over to the shield, snatching it from Dugan. He gripped it in his hand and screamed out. Reaching back his fist and slamming the shield down on Zola. Before the shield made contact with his head Falseworth caught Bucky in the middle. Unbeknownst to him, Bucky was much stronger and managed to tackle him away.
Teaming up, Dugan, Gabe, Falseworth and Mortia all managed to pin him down. Reaching around, Beatrice pried the shield from him. Insults and curses spat from Bucky's mouth. The sound pierced her ear but not so much as the dark chuckle Zola echoed out.
"Shut up." She said hotly facing Zola and pointing the shield at him threateningly. "We will kill you!"
"No." he shook his head. "you need me."
"You really think so?"
Zola didn't respond but scanned the group. It was taking all of the boys' strengths to keep Bucky down. They'd buried one another in the snow trying to tackle him.
"I'll get him in the truck," She told the group.
"Don't trust her," came Bucky's surprisingly calm voice. He heaved up and down, panting from struggling so hard. "She stopped me – she knew something bad was going to happen."
"I didn't know this was going to happen!"
"-Yeah take him," Dugan said with a curt nod at her "get him out of sight."
She forced Zola to stand. The gun in her pocket was a strong motivator in getting him to do what she wanted and he followed her without any complaint and shoved him in the back of the truck
"You're after the tesseract," he guessed, whispering so only she could hear. "I saw you before with Red Skull, you knew it was in the brief case."
Resisting the temptation to hear more she forced a gag over his mouth, "Don't talk to me."
She couldn't go back to the men. She could still hear Bucky struggling against them, as time passed his voice got quieter until all she could hear was his deep ragged breathes, slowing giving up from exhaustion. She had no choice but to sit next to Zola and listen to his taunts.
Bea had always wondered what she'd have to do to make Bucky Barnes stop loving her. In the past, she had been an assassin, lied, forgot him, fought him… and he always still loved her. Sometimes loved her more for the things she had done.
Apparently killing Steve Rogers was the one thing that would do it.
So, I'm currently writing ahead of this chapter, and have just gotten up to where Bucky meets Brooke. I can't stop writing. There are some chapters I really struggle to get through but at the moment I'm in a place where it's just all coming out. Can't wait for you to read it.
What'd you think of this chapter?
LunaEvanna Longbottom: so… hate me yet? I'm sorry! But also thank you so much for calling me one of your favourite authors (even if it was temporary until after this chapter, lol)
Sofiarose613: you got it right! Twas Steve's death :/ thank you so much for the review!
