Chisinau, four years later
Kate scans the note and decides that Petr had successfully screwed her over again.
It is not the first time he had sent Kate on a meaningless errand, but this time he had really toed the line between Kate biting her tongue and making Petr swallow his.
"I'm not paid well enough," Kate grumbles, stowing the message away and beginning the short walk from the apartment block's entrance up towards her destination.
It's not uncommon for Petr to send Kate to scope out recent arrivals, even though they were few and far between, and establish if they should be added into his little web of organised crime; or eliminated from it entirely.
February has been especially cold this year, and Kate shivers through her thin jacket and expels a cloud of air at the final step. It's early in the bleak, frosty morning with a tired sun tucked firmly behind grey, heavy clouds, and there isn't a single noise from any apartment door – not even 407, her desired location.
"Hello?" Kate speaks in Romanian through the flimsy door, pressing her ear to the surface to hear a single sound. "Is anyone home?"
A shuffle answers, and a noise Kate would know anywhere.
She groans upon impact with the floor, a hail of bullets sailing over her and obliterating the door. Realistically, Kate thinks to herself whilst shuffling across the rough ground towards the stairs, I should have anticipated this.
Petr didn't like loose ends, who blames him – loose lips sink ships and all that – and Kate had been barely hanging by a cobweb, let alone a thread, for a while now. But what did the crook expect? He didn't pay well. He didn't inspire loyalty. Quite frankly, Kate believed she wasted on his petty businesses and scams.
But he did have one key advantage; he never dug too deep into where she came from, or who Kate was before coming to Moldova.
Now, she supposes, her arrogance has led her towards a nasty downfall. Well…it's been a long run?
Kate takes a long, steadying breath before rolling sideways into the foetal position and rolling onto her feet before lurching towards the stairs in a single, desperate attempt to try and flee. A spray of bullets hit where she'd been lying before, dust filling the hallway as Kate blindly barrels into an open apartment past its occupant.
The door slams behind her, and Kate is suddenly pressed up against a wall. Shit. Bad move. Bad, bad awful decision, Katherine.
"Who are you?" A voice, low and intimidating, whispers into her ear. But there's an American twinge. Instantly odd, the idea her almost saviour could be more trouble than Petr crosses Kate's mind. She twists against her assailant's grip, but they hold her steady in an iron-tight vice. Cheek pressed against the wall, Kate resigns to the position she's in.
"Nobody."
They press her further against the wall, with such strength Kate swears she can feel her heart being squeezed up into her throat. The plaster at her forehead bends.
"Okay, okay," Her muffled voice says, teeth pressed painfully against her cheek. "My name is Cristina Dogaru."
"Who are the men outside?"
"Petr Bratu's crew. They're trying to kill me. Listen. Just let me go. I'll be gone. I haven't even seen your face-"
"Cristina! Come out here now, before I blow this entire apartment down!"
Katherine sighs deeply, lowering her voice. "Well…now he knows I'm here."
The pressure pinning her hands to her lower back disappears and Kate turns to survey her environment. It's squalid, with newspapers covering grimy windows and an unmade mattress masquerading as a bed, loose floorboards rotting beneath their feet. Her eyes traverse the room, and Kate is taken aback when her eyes fall on the occupant.
He stands tall, about six foot, with threadbare clothes concealing broad shoulders and powerful limbs. His hair is shaggy, like a vagabond, and a faded navy cap is pulled low over his face. But even from beneath his cap, Kate can see a steely expression matched with a mouth set in a disapproving, hard line.
"I'd recommend getting out of here, now."
"I figured," He replies, turning away from Kate with disregard and lifting a knapsack from between the fridge and wall.
The stranger then proceeds to prise up his nailed down window, Kate put on edge at his sheer strength before he slides out the window. Petr fires a warning shot through the door, and it spurs Kate on to sail out the window behind the unknown dweller.
"How did you do that?" Kate questions him, sliding down the gutter behind him. He's already walking away from her and hearing a barrage of bullets upstairs, Kate heads in a similar direction. The stranger doesn't slow his pace and Kate scrambles to keep up, waiting for a reply but silence answers her. "I'm talking to you."
"Pretty good Romanian for an American," He finally replies and she pauses, taken aback. Nausea hits her stomach like a punch to the gut, and she watches the stranger mount a rusting motorcycle. It hardly looks like it will run, until he punches the gas and it sputters ferociously to life. He turns in the filthy alley, sending old bottles and crushed cans rattling across the concrete, and looks briefly to Kate. "Stay out of people's apartments."
"I-" Katherine opens her mouth to retort, but the noxious bike has roared furiously away with its mysterious owner. A thunder of feet above her head spurs Kate on, and she pulls herself up an old, aging fire escape to the rooftop above street-level and beyond the view of Petr's men.
The hovel she finds herself in is squalid to say the least, and her roommates sound suspiciously like scurrying mice and rodents-alike. Pushing broken, sodden pieces of old doors against the glass-less windows Kate finds a small breath of relief escape from her tight chest. At least with the windows covered the small fire she was nursing from wet newspaper and old matches will be hidden. Otherwise, the sudden activity in a dilapidated building would be painfully obvious. Pulling her thin jacket closer, Kate huddles closer to the smouldering embers masquerading as a fire. Winter is bitter in Eastern Europe, and while Kate has become accustomed to its biting frost, central heating is sorely missing.
Cold seeps beneath the collar of her jacket and slowly, Kate feels herself slide towards unconsciousness. It numbs her senses and freezes her already icy limbs, solidifying her joints. Unwillingly, Kate feels her eyes droop gently before sliding shut.
As the merciful oblivion of sleep creeps over Kate's mind, her body easing into darkness a noise downstairs rips her from her doze. With a quiet start, Kate's eyes widen and her ears strain to source the disturbance.
Downstairs. To the left. The kitchen.
The hallway is an impenetrable darkness. Under her silent footsteps, the floorboards bend from years of water damage. It's a dangerous walk, feeling blindly in the black for holes and missing planks of wood. Running a hand over the wall, Kate can feel peeling wallpaper, likely decorated with mould and patterned with stains, under her fingertips and suddenly the beginning of a broken bannister reaches her touch. The stairs.
Dodging the first few broken steps, Katherine easily makes her way to the ground floor. Through the broken windows, the yellow light of street-lamps weakly pierce once impenetrable darkness. Tensing her body in preparation for a fight - or worse, a bullet - Katherine edges through the heavy gloom to the kitchen doorway. A putrid stench of wet rot and stale air hurts her sinuses and Kate peers around the kitchen's open mouth to see inside.
In the weak light, the indecipherable shapes of abandoned kitchen appliances are firstly visible. Nearest to the door is a fridge (or at least what Kate presumes to be a fridge), and in the far corner Kate can discern the vague shape of a table, upturned, on its side. Apprehensively - masquerading as boldly - Katherine steps into the kitchen's centre.
Her hands flex into fists, prepared to shield her face from an assault, but silence blankets the house. Maybe - just maybe - you've finally lost it. You must have imagined it.
Turning to head upstairs, Katherine hears the unmistakably crunch of something beneath her foot. Lifting her boot, and squinting in the weak light, Kate spies the sparkle of broken glass. In a derelict ruin like this one, broken glass is as water is to the sea - perfectly average - but by its side Kate discovers a boot print.
Generally, footprints would be like the glass - normal - but on further inspection, this boot print raises warning alarms in her mind. Big, blaring, howling red ones, as Kate realises the boot the print belongs to was coated in fresh dirt from the flowerbeds outside. Like dark, foreboding clouds rolling over a beautiful blue sky, the dirt is an omen. An omen of trouble. Katherine feels icy fear strike her heart like a needle pricking her skin.
His hand brushes the small of Katherine's neck, but her ears caught the rush of his body to snatch her. Ducking from beneath his gasp Katherine twists backwards, rolling between his parted legs. Her assailant swerves and makes a dive to grab as she rises, but Kate lurches forward into the hallway.
Can't be Petr. Must be Cristian. Possibly Darius.
Forgoing her careful steps, Kate rushes up the stairs. Cold metal wraps around her ankle and with unstoppable, unyielding strength something is pulling her down the stairs. Kicking blindly in the darkness, Katherine valiantly tries to dislodge whatever Cristian has wrapped around her ankle. It nearly breaks her toes. What the hell is that?!
Twisting, splinters and shards of wood pierce her neck and the skin through her jacket. Gnarled, rusty nails shred her cheek on the descent and upon coming to a sudden and graceless halt Kate kicks her foot up.
Cristian grunts in pain when her heel collides with his chin, sending the lackey sprawling into the adjoined living room. Unsteadily finding her footing, Kate moves quickly. Blood, sticky and uncomfortable, drips from the gouges on her cheek down her neck. It mingles with her loose hair and stains the collar of her t-shirt as her foot connects with Cristian's side.
"You, goddamn, bastard!" She breathlessly curses, slamming the toe of her boot repeatedly into his ribcage; hopefully breaking something. Her foot swings back and mid-arc, Kate gasps loudly. The metal has wrapped around her ankle again, an unnatural cold against her skin, and the ground disappears.
Landing in a hail of rubble, broken flooring and trash that has been left to rot strewn over the living room carpet, Kate moans in pain. Her knee feels wrong. Not broken - Kate has broken plenty of bones, and none were like this - but wrong. In a fiery burst of agony, Kate realises a long sliver of glass has slashed her knee to her calf.
"Fuck," Kate feels blinding pain when she uneasily stands. Her attacker is standing too, and they watch one another in the dim like animals circling one another. Her eyes struggle to focus, between the throbbing pain on her cheek and the blistering agony radiating across her right leg.
In the pale moonlight, Kate determines what the unnatural cold is. The foreign metal.
Her attacker has a metal hand.
Definitely not Cristian, Kate thinks, panic rising through her body and terrified heat burning her face and chest, this is definitely not going to end well.
Edging backwards, in retreat, Katherine feels her heel catch on a piece of the broken, soiled couch. Falling, Kate tenses her body in preparation for the springs undoubtedly about to drive into her skin.
Squeezing her fists, Kate waits for wounds that never come. In a beat of silence, the only noise which fills the space is her neurotic, breathless pants. The room spins around her and Kate has to breathe deeply through her nose before regaining composure, and discovers a hand is gripping her jacket.
Uneasily, her eyes open to see a familiar face glowering at her. His nose is bleeding gently, dripping down his lips and his eye, bloodshot, will undoubtedly blossom into a beautiful and shining black eye. A nasty bruise is forming on his chin.
"American," He greets, and Kate huffs. Not with relief. She isn't that foolish.
"Hi there, stranger," Kate laughs nervously. He slowly pulls her towards him and Kate feels a lump form in her throat.
"Your little friends are after me now," He tells her, his mouth pressed into a hard line. Kate looks up at him, her hand clutching his metallic wrist instinctively. In a single swipe, he could rip her larynx from her throat. She remains very still. "What did you do?"
Kate breathes slowly, her chest moving carefully. She's painfully aware how close he is. How strong he is. Moreover, how fast he is. Katherine would have little more than seconds to swing out of his grasp - that's even if she can wiggle out of her jacket - and getting out of the house would be an impossible feat.
"I'm a loose end," She reveals, watching his wide face. It's a familiar face. She isn't sure why. With intense, piercing eyes and a wide, firm mouth Katherine struggles to string together a sentence - her mind is occupied with locating where she knows him. "I'm a loose end and Petr doesn't like them."
His hand drops her and Katherine genuflects to her good knee. Her hands are bloodlessly pale in the moon's gaze as it streams through the window, and in a flood of vibrant colours Katherine remembers.
Washington D.C., nine years ago.
"Katherine Linehan, are you listening!" A petulant, nasally voice demands from the front of their entourage. Kate, aged twelve, looks up from where she's leisurely been ignoring her teacher and smiles brilliantly.
The teacher throws her a scowl of disapproval. "This is important, Katherine. You might even learn something."
Kate has always had excellent hearing, and catches 'though that's unlikely' as Mrs Trunchball mutters beneath her garlic breath. Of course, her name isn't that. It's Mrs Bland. Equally befitting.
Her friend nudges her shoulder. Throwing Kate a look, the latter imagines it's the same bemused but displeased look Jasmine's future kids will have to suffer for the rest of her life. But for now, Kate has to pretend to scurry apologetically ahead with the rest of her class. They were entering a darkened room, filled with an obnoxiously loud voice-over. Individual plinths, decorated with glass and aged photos, were flanked in brilliantly white light.
Jasmine steps away in the opposite direction to Kate as the class spreads across the room and eagerly rushes to read exhibits. Kate, her mind fuzzy with boredom, trudges to the nearest - deserted - corner. It's a simple pane of glass with stark black letters written on its surface and a large, yellowed photo. Her eyes mindlessly wander over the text, before reaching the final line;
Bucky Barnes was the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.
In Moldova, staring at her hands, Katherine sees the photograph of a brave, heroic young man. The eyes. The stern mouth. She remembers it clearly.
"Bucky Barnes?" Kate finally speaks, and he stiffens. His entire body seems to have been rocked with electricity. "How...how are you alive?"
He's wordless, his body still tense. His jaw is taunt and if he clenched any tighter, he would break teeth. The metal fist by his side flexes and tightens, inciting a flutter of fear across Katherine's heart. A bead of sweat rolls down her spine. "I don't know."
His voice is strangely pathetic. Its deep baritone is quietly resigned to sadness, filled with it in fact, and vaguely hopeless. Shy. A man who remembers nothing but misery. It makes Kate's chest ache. "But...but it's been...it's been seventy years. How do you look...so young? Scratch that, you died!"
Kate's comment makes him flinch. Shame heats her cheek and Katherine looks at the ground in embarrassment. "Sorry. That was...callous."
"How do you know me?" He suddenly asks and Kate looks up. He seems attentive now, less secretive than before. Maybe, behind his defensive eyes, Kate can spy a spark of hope. A very human desire - a craving - to be recognised.
They walk together upstairs to Kate's failing fire, and she gently blows on the dying embers as Bucky gently settles across from her. His shoulders hunch forward, and his eyes remain firmly on the small pile of ash between them. He's patient, but cagey.
"Well...when I was twelve we went on a school trip. To the Smithsonian, you know, in Washington? It was a big deal. I'm from the Bronx. My school didn't go to D.C.," She laughs, but he seems disinterested in her ramblings. Her cheeks heat once again. God, I must look like a tomato every time he glares at me. "Anyway - we went to the museum, and there was this display about you. I remember reading it. It was about you and Captain America."
His face opens up to Kate for the first time, and a look of quiet excitement dawns across his features. Captain America generally incited some excitement from people - national treasure and all that - but this is much more.
"But you probably...well you probably knew him as Steve Rogers, right?"
Bucky Barnes's eyes are very far away and more than likely in a different place and time to where they are now.
If Kate were to guess, Bucky's mind is in a forgotten part of Brooklyn a long time ago.
"Why do they think we're working together?" He finally speaks and Kate shakes her head.
"Paranoia, probably. Or the fact it looks like you were holding me up in that...squat you called an apartment."
A faint smirk tugs at his mouth. "You really callin' that place a squat when you're living here?"
Kate laughs quietly. "Wow. Brooklyn just jumped out."
"Well, you know yourself, Bronx," He retorts cheekily. Kate rolls her eyes, and sticks out her hand.
"My name is Kate. Shake my hand," She demands, and Bucky complies. "There. Now we know each other. Possibly working together."
He seems unsure, retracting his hand.
"Hi Kate. I guess I'm Bucky."