...Bucky...
There's nothing outwardly wrong when we pull up to the apartment building in Brooklyn, but when we step out of the van there is a shift in the air that seems to press down on us. With one glance at Steve I can see that he senses it too. We head up the stairs, taking them two at a time and try to brush off the unease.
"Man, you weren't kidding about this place," Steve says when we open the door. The apartment is empty.
"Yeah, I think Stark hasn't quite let go of his personal vendetta against me." Steve lifts his eyebrows and gives me a knowing look. "Don't do that." I unlock my phone and turn away from his stare as I dial Kit's phone number. Steve wanders around our small apartment, picking random items up as he goes. I try the number for a third time and finally give up, locking my phone.
"Any luck?"
"No. It's going straight to voicemail. She was asleep when I left here." I spin in a circle, hands on my hips and try to find anything that might hint at where she's gone.
"Were you guys planning anything for today?" Steve asks as he pushes aside the beads leading into Kit's bedroom.
"No, I mean. We were going to go to RCP, but not until later in the morning." I look down at my watch and it is just after 8 am. "Kit has a hard time waking up before ten."
"Okay, well. We have tracking devices on her back at headquarters. Let's get there and find out where she is." I nod along with his words and frown as the words register.
"You have a tracking device on her?"
"Well, yeah. Of course we do. You have one too. We all do," he says a little too casually for my liking. "It's for safety measures. Like this very instance. Come on, let's stop wasting time." He pats my shoulder and walks passed me, leading the way out.
...Kit...
I wake up, woozy and with a headache. There's a loud ringing in my ears and all of the lights around me seem too bright. I'm sitting upright in a chair, my wrists and ankles bound to the chairs arms and legs respectively. When I try to lift my head to look around it is heavy, too heavy. With a groan, I try to shift in the chair. That's when I feel the rope just under my breasts, tying me tightly against the back of the chair and propping me up. Off in the distance, I hear voices echoing and I try to force the brain fog out so I can make sense of their words.
"... before it wears off," the voice belongs to a man. I feel like I recognize it, but I can't seem to place it. "If she wakes up fully, we're all done for. She's a super soldier, man."
"It's not going to wear off any time soon, she's still out like a light."
"We don't even know much about this stuff. How long will she be out of commission?" The first voice asks.
"Long enough. We'll figure out what she knows about Stark and the others, and then we'll kill her. Then we'll use this serum to kill Rogers and Barnes." There's a sick satisfaction in the disembodied voice that makes my blood run cold. Then I hear them moving towards me, their footsteps loud and bouncing off the walls around me. I let my head fall forward against my chest, feigning unconsciousness. The fogginess is finally beginning to lift when a door to my left swings open and clangs loudly against the wall. "See, look. Still out." With him in the room, and so close to me, I recognize the voice. It belongs to none other than John Teller.
"Great. Let's wake her up." I still can't place the first man I heard speaking.
"Wakey, wakey, Little Bird," John hits the side of my head roughly and I finally lift my eyes to his face. "Good morning, sunshine. How do you feel?"
I strain against the ropes binding me and they don't give at all. Bewildered, I look down at my hands where the skin is turning red with the force I'm exerting.
"Is it strange?" John asks me with a smirk. "Being like a normal person for the first time in a hundred years?" He hits me again, this time just below my right eye. My head snaps back with the force and tears spring to my eyes as pain resonates deep within my bones. I feel blood drip down my cheek from the skin his fist split. He stands up, looking down at his handiwork and holds his hand out to the other man. A vial is placed into John's hand and he holds it out to me. My vision is blurred from tears as he waves the vial in front of my face. "This is a new development. It blocks that super soldier serum running through your veins. It makes you... almost human."
"Why?" My voice is rough, like I haven't had a drink in months, and my throat burns.
"It isn't easy to kill a super soldier, Kit. This will help us."
"Katherine," I correct.
"Excuse me?"
"My name is Katherine. Only my friends call me Kit." I find the strength to lift my head and glare at him. "You are not my friend, Johnny." Mustering up all my hatred for the man, I spit in his face and watch the rage burn in his eyes.
"Hey, hey, hey!" The other man grabs John by the arm as he winds up to hit me again. "We need to get the information out of her. And then you can hit her until your heart's content. Got it?" John nods after a long hesitation and then, rolling his shoulders, John leans back towards me, crouching on the ground so his face is level with mine.
"Why don't you tell us about Stark's compound, Katherine?"
"Why don't you get bent, John?" He glances back up at his partner and nods at him. "We have this other serum, it's pretty interesting. Some of the scientists we employ have been playing around with something that will mimic what happened to your boyfriend, but without the time involved with brainwashing. See, this serum," he takes another offered vial filled with a dark purple liquid. "It isolates the section of your brain that controls your pain response. During interrogations, like this one, it comes in handy. If we use enough of it, we don't even have to get our hands bloody. It fires off pain signals to your brain, and you can feel it, but there's no real injury to your physical body."
"Why do you want to know about Stark?" I ask, trying to ignore the syringe in his hand that he is filling with the purple serum. "If you're just going to kill me, what's the point in keeping it secret?"
"I guess you have a point... we plan to kill them, Katherine. All of them. Starting with Stark and Steve. Although, I think Keiran might start with James if I'm being completely honest. He seems a bit jealous of him." He presses he needle against the soft skin at the crook of my elbow. "Are you going to talk, or do we need to use this stuff? It isn't fun, you know. I mean, it'll be fun for me, but you? Not so much." My heart pounds at the thought of this serum, if it truly does what he says I want it nowhere near my bloodstream.
"Does Keiran know I'm here?" I ask boldly. I'm grasping at straws to delay John. Or distract him from his current task. Anything to keep that serum away from me.
"Of course he does. Who do you think sent me to collect you? I was going to grab you from your apartment and kill you on the spot... but then you snuck into RCP like an idiot, and Keiran felt it was an insult to him personally that you thought you could get away with double crossing him. Again. I told him not to trust you, but he wanted to give you a second chance. Love seems to blind even the best of us." He sighs heavily and shakes his head.
"What does Keiran have against Bucky?"
"Doesn't like the way the guy looks at you. Like you belong to him. Reed feels like you belong to him. Enough questions from you. Tell me about Stark's compound. What's the security like there? Where exactly is it located? Who all is there?" I stare defiantly up at him, my lips pursed tightly. He shrugs. "No skin off my back. See you on the other side, Little Bird." He presses the needle into my arm and pushes the plunger down, filling my arm with the serum.
The effect is almost immediate. My vision begins to darken at the edges as white hot pain races through my entire body. I feel it move through my arms, following the trail of the serum as it moves through my veins. My heart pounds against my chest so hard it feels like it's going to explode. I try to hang on for as long as I can and my breathing becomes labored and I hear someone screaming. It takes me a moment to realize that it is me screaming. My whole body is tensed against the ropes holding me in place and I can feel it digging into my skin but it is nothing, nothing, compared to the pain from the serum. The rope burn fades into the background as my brain is fully consumed by the fire burning through my body.
I hear conversation through my screams, but I don't register anything they are saying and I feel a slight pinch, a blip in the big scheme of things, against my elbow and slowly my vision returns as the pain begins to ebb slowly. When it leaves my body fully, I'm gasping for air and my entire body is covered in sweat. My fingers remain clenched around the arms of the chair and I can't seem to get them to relax fully; instead they remain rigid as the rest of my body until the last bit of energy saps out of me and I sag against my restraints. I have a sneaking suspicion that if it weren't for the ropes, I would slide out of the chair completely unable to hold myself upright.
"I'm going to ask you again, Katherine. How many people are being housed at the Stark compound?"
"Where," I begin, my throat raw from screaming. "Where did you get that?"
"We have plenty more where that came from, if you don't start answering our questions. And other, worse serums as well. Come on Kit, you don't think that Hydra really disbanded do you? You really think that Reed is just some run of the mill mob boss?" With his thumb and forefinger, he lifts my chin up so that I meet his eyes once more. "Keiran Reed is sitting at the head of the Hydra table, kiddo. He has the best scientists anyone could ask for. And he's going to bring down your little coalition of superheroes, and then the United States government. Give me the fear serum, Simon."