Luna felt the texture of the ground beneath her feet change from the scratchy cement that had been tearing small cuts into the soles of her feet to the springy, matted texture she knew all too well. Her heart dropped to her stomach as she realised she was going to have to fight again, whilst still blind, anxiety pooling in her stomach, heavy despair building on her shoulders as she realised the true relentlessness of what Hydra had planned for her in captivity. But Luna had no fight left in her. What was the point in doing anything other than what they wanted. Maybe if she did well enough she could earn herself and Bucky some food, or water, or even just secure them a few hours of uninterrupted peace. The arms gripping Luna tightly loosened, and robotically Luna crouched to the floor, moving into a fighting position reminiscent of the Black Widows signature pose. She could hear the mechanical whir of Bucky's arm, knowing that seeing her submissance to Hydra, seemingly without even a command being spoken would anger him.

In reality it was quite the opposite. All that Bucky felt as he saw Luna drop into the fighting position she had so quickly assumed, was bitter self-hatred. Bucky was furious with Hydra, of course he was. But he was more disappointed with himself for not protecting Luna better, for not shielding her more. For not fighting on her behalf more. For not finding her a way out. For not getting them both out. Luna had been defeated, and he could see it. Her spirit had been taken from her, like a flame inside of her had been snuffed out. They hadn't broken her. They hadn't turned her back into their soldier. Bucky knew that much. But what they had done was crush he into some ghost version of herself. Bucky heard the sound of the doors at the other side of the room opening before he saw it, and immediately tensed as he saw Icarus come flying down into the room. Luna didn't even flinch as only 5 feet in front of her, the other woman landed. Icarus stalked over to Luna, firmly catching Luna's hair in her fist, yanking her head up. "Hmm," the woman hummed, "This is going to be so much fun." And then without even looking up, she added "For you too Winter Soldier." Icarus dropped Luna's head as almost as soon as she had finished speaking a voice crackled over the tannoy, coming from the glass viewing booth Bucky guessed was at least 20 feet up. "Why don't you show your большой брат what you've learnt Black Moon." It clearly wasn't a suggestion and before anything had even happened the men surrounding him tightened their grip on Bucky. Icarus, who had been making her way across to the other end of the matts, before as quick as a whistle, the woman had soared into the air, firing three daggers from her wings at Luna. Bucky couldn't restrain himself from calling out a panicked "LUNA!" towards the younger girl, but to his utter shock Luna had leaped into the air and caught one of the blades directed straight at her head, launching it back towards Icarus, with startling accuracy for someone who couldn't see anything. "Are you fucking insane!" Bucky called out in horror towards the glass box as Luna jumped and dived out the way of literal shards of death that he simply couldn't understand how she was sensing. Bucky got no response from the box however, and manically thought of a way to intervene that wouldn't result in Luna's pain. It didn't take long for them to stop however, as Luna got caught out mid air, only rolling out of the way of a dagger once it had already nicked a significant gash into her shoulder. Hell, it looked like it had taken a chunk of her arm out. Bucky was about to tear his way over to Luna, regardless of the consequences, but the Hydra officials above him called out a simple "Halt!" Across the tannoys, before the same door at the end of the corridor opened and a team of scientists entered. "Impressive, is she not Mr Barnes." The only response they got from Bucky however, was a "You're fucking insane." The head scientist simply removed the remote for Luna and Bucky's chip and twisted the dial Bucky now understood to control Luna's chip. This was confirmed by the small whimper the girl let out. "Jesus Christ," Bucky spat out, "Yes. Yes it was impressive." The insane woman in front of him turned and smiled manically at him, "Yes, I think she really is."

"Today is really going to be so very exciting," started the scientist, "You see now, what we have been doing to train the Black Moon back up to standard. It is however, her mental state which dissatisfies us. Yours too, Winter Soldier. And your loyalty to one another is really quite alarming. It was actually Icarus who came up with our genius solution. You will take it in turns you see, sparring with Icarus. Each hit you take from her daggers will earn you time. How long you stay down, will earn you time. Here, is the truly beautiful thing. Your time will be transferred to the other, so you see of course, that it will all be your partners fault." Bucky looked over to Luna, startled to see her pale, slightly green face, realising something which had not dawned on him, clearly had onto her. "What will be her fault?" He asked. "Oh silly me," the insane scientists laughed, "I forgot the grand reveal." The woman clapped, and a light in the far end of the room flickered on. Bucky suddenly felt as if he had been submerged into ice water. Everything around him became numb. The world melted away. His mind screamed at him. He needed to move. To run. He had to get out. Because across the room, sat a chair, connected to wires and computers. And all it meant was pain. "Now," the woman smiled grimly "You understand."

Peter could see the small red dot in the sky that meant Tony and Rhodey were nearly there. He had, ever since Cap talked him down from storming the building, tried to mask his anxiety about the situation he and the team were about to walk into. The thought had caught up with him you see, that they had lost last time. And they had lost badly. Vision and Wanda were hurt, Sam was nearly crushed by his own wings, Tony and Rhodey had nearly died. And Bucky and Luna had been taken. By one person. Icarus had single handedly taken down all of the avengers. And Peter had nearly killed someone. He was a Hydra scientist sure, but he was unarmed. He wasn't a threat. And Peter had nearly killed him "Kid," Tonys voice suddenly crackled through his ear piece, "Fri just sent me an alert through. Elevated heart rate and blood pressure. You're not fighting. Talk to me. Karen's muted your audio output. It's just you and me for a bit. Im coming as quick as I can. Tell me what's going on." Peter sat in silence for a second. He was sure if he looked up he would see concern rolling off of Steve and Wanda in waves. "I lost Uncle Ben, Mr Stark. I lost my parents. I know I can't save everyone. But I can't lose Luna. Or Bucky." Peters voice was small, quiet. He sounded scarily vulnerable to Tony. "I promise you kid, we're going to do everything in our power to save them. F.R.I.D.A.Y's registering masses of heat signatures on site. This is a Hydra spot kid. I need to know that you can handle going in there right now. There's no problem if you cant, but I need to know." Peter drew in a deep breath of bitingly cold air. "I can do it Mr Stark."

"Good." Came Tony's voice from beside Peter, startling him slightly, Peter hadn't even heard him land, "Because the rest of the team are a few seconds out, and then were going in."

"AGAIN." Demanded the voice across the tannoy, as Luna fell to the floor once more, barely moving, imperceptibly to the non-super soldier eye. Luna was still lying on the ground when another dagger went flying towards her head and at the very last moment Luna had to roll away. "Jesus Christ, she needs to stop!" Yelled Bucky from his guarded position, as he bristled with hatred for what he was bring forced to watch. "No," Luna ground out, as she forced herself to her feet, "I can keep going," she insisted, seconds before her blood stained body swayed backwards and forwards, before depositing her hard back onto the ground. No one moved to help her, and as Bucky did, he felt tendrils of pain shooting across his neck. "Black Moon, you are done for now. Remove yourself from the mats." But Luna was unconscious, and the burning sensation of pain spread across Bucky's shoulders, and he let out a strangled sound of pain, that apparently brought Luna back to, as her head turned to look at him she realised what was happening. Without even attempting to get to her feet, Luna began crawling off of the blood covered mats, blood dripping from a cut on her lip onto the ground as she went, making a sickening splashing sounds as it began to fall on concrete. Bucky stepped forward, ready to assume a fighting stance on the mats in front of him, his bare feet stinging slightly at the movement. But the hands on his arms tightened instead, dragging him into a corner of the room he hoped he would have found an escape route before he had to visit. Luna weakly started calling out, "I'm sorry, fuck I'm sorry Bucky." Bucky wanted to nod to her, to tell her it was okay. She did her best. That he was so damn proud of her for fighting as hard as she did. But the leather straps enclosed his wrists and ankles, the heavy weight of metal sat on his head, and a bit was forced into his mouth. Luna's cried became more and more desperate, "Take me instead! Take me! Take me, please," she screamed to the box above, sounding like a wounded animal as she screamed her throat raw, leaving a bloody trail on the ground as she dragged herself over to where the chair was, ripping off fingernails and the skin from the tips of her fingers in the process. Icarus was suddenly on top on Luna, pounding her fist into the younger girls face. Some how this was enough to shake Bucky back into himself, even if only momentarily. Suddenly Luna was being help by Icarus and three guards in front of the chair, two of the guards holding contraptions in front of her eyes, which now appeared clear, forcing them open so violently it sent blood trickling down her face, mingling with her salty tears as it fell. "I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry," she repeated, almost mindlessly towards Bucky. "It's okay," was the last thing Bucky Barnes managed to whisper, a clearly painful attempt at a reassuring smile briefly crossing his expression, before searing white pain enveloped his body, and his mind went black.

"Желание. Семнадцать. Ржавый. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Товарный вагон" Bucky's eyes opened slowly, admitting only the smallest amount of light to enter them. He felt a blankness about his mind, as Bucky sat, temporarily unaware of both where he was and what was going on. But he knew those words. Somewhere in the back of his mind, alarm bells were signalling, ringing so loudly they demanded he came back to consciousness. Light attacked his senses from almost every direction. Everything was blurred, and he couldn't force his eyes to focus in on an image, or at least, not before a hand sharply slapped across his face, and his attention was directed to the slowly focusing face of the mad-woman in a white coat. "солдат, отчет о состоянии." (Solider, status report.) Bucky's mind did not, at first register the meaning of this command, but a figure swaying behind the sea of white coats, held by a woman with wings and blood running down her face brought him back.

Bucky spat a mouthful of blood onto the doctors white coat, as he locked eyes with Luna, before giving her a bloody smile (he must have bit his cheek at some point.) and saying with his signature smirk "Hey kid, you can see me?" Luna nodded, barely moving her head for fear of jogging the spikes that held her eyes open. Some of the scientists seemed frustrated, but the mad head scientist simply pulled Bucky up out of the chair by his hair, and threw him forwards, sending him tumbling forwards in the direction of the mats. "Not to worry, we've got all of the time in the world to bring you back."

-AN-

thank you, dear readers, for the amount of love i got on the last chapter, it means so very much to me 3 i hope you enjoyed this chapter

over and out

ERS xox