Miia, thank you so much! My writing style had changed a lot over the years and this is my favorite place to practice different types of stories (although I'll admit I always end up in the same sort of undertone. What do you mean by a face claim? Never heard that term before… hopefully I can keep the chemistry up between all 3, I'll admit it's the first time I'm doing a potential three-way couple…
Karina, your comment on aliens just, just made me think about the Meme guy that has a crazy hairdo and says 'aliens'. Aliens are not always the answer… well, not here at least. They are for Captain Marvel though!
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They made it through the glacial streets slowly back to the safehouse. Lianka was limping pretty badly at some point, so Steve and Bucky took turns letting her lean heavily on their arm as they walked, keeping her steady. She withdrew a flagon of pills from her pocket when the pain became too great, swallowing two with a grimace.
It took much longer to get back than it had to leave that morning. It was late afternoon by the time they crossed through the fenced graveyard that stood neighbor to the little safehouse, all the while very careful to keep an eye out for anyone that might be following them… night was falling, typically early for the cold Russian months when they reached the rickety stairs leading down into the basement.
Lianka went first, followed closely by Bucky, Steve closing the walk. She grimaced slightly with every step, feeling utterly drained… it had been a long day. She was exhausted.
Perhaps that was why she did not notice a thing before it was too late.
She opened the door to the basement and stepped through without a glance.
Her hair stood on end as every inch of her subconscious screamed at her, but she heard nothing.
The blow caught her on the temple with such force that her knees folded beneath her and her vision swam briefly, before fading to complete darkness… someone grasped her and pulled her limp form back before Bucky could so much as cry out. He'd drawn his gun on instinct and aimed it at whomever had clubbed the young woman, Steve pushing in behind him, shields forming over his clenched fists as he raised them to his face…
Both men knew they would not be able to do a thing as they took in the situation : a woman had grasped Lianka, twisting her arm viciously behind her back as she maintained the limp girl easily against herself, a gun pressed under to her jaw. Bucky recognized those cold eyes : it was the rooftop shooter they'd encountered that morning.
Behind her stood the mountain of a man that had fallen from the balcony after his fight with Lianka.
As for the person who had knocked the girl unconscious with a single blow…
« You… » Steve's eyes widened in disbelief. « It… it can't be. I saw her shoot you through the heart… »
Bucky guessed that that was Liev.
The tall man smirked, a twisted sort of grimace. As an only answer, he unsheathed a knife and promptly closed his large, bare fist over it, slicing deeply across this palm. He then released the blade and raised his hand for them to see, palm out : under their disbelieving gaze, the bleeding wound glowed red, as though it was on fire… it looked for a moment as though his hand would melt, heat radiating from it like from the core of the Earth… and when it stopped, the cut had completely vanished.
« Either of you try anything… anything at all… Des will put a bullet in your little whore here. » He grinned viciously. His tone was ever so slightly tinted with a Russian accent. Bucky chewed on his tongue, glancing at Lianka : she was still out cold… nothing they could do for the time being. And the woman holding looked all too eager to shoot her, her finger curled hungrily around the trigger of her gun… Bucky lowered his gun slowly as Steve lowered his fists, but neither sheathed their weapons.
« What do you want? » Bucky snarled.
Liev kept on smirking. « To bring the Winter Soldier back home… » The words sent a silent sort of horror coursing through Bucky's entire being, while something within him howled agony. Steve was looking caught between bitter panic and resolute fury. He'd probably never worn such a vicious look on his face before. Liev continued. « I'll be honest… when we started baiting Wakanda by slaughtering their spies, we never dreamed they would send us the very people we eventually wanted to recover. Granted, Captain Rogers was never really our target, but Hydra won't say no to a free soldier… »
Steve's teeth were gritted so tightly together that Bucky could hear them grind. Yet somehow, even amidst the rising sensation of claustrophobia at the thought of returning to the abject organisation, he found that his brain was overclocking, trying to find a way out of this mess… sure, they could probably fight their way out… but there was Lianka to think about. Upon their first move, she would be slaughtered. And he was done being a brute monster that cared not for whom died because of his actions.
He glanced at the girl, who was still out cold, limp in the soldier woman's arms. If they could stall long enough, perhaps she would wake…
Liev looked very pleased with himself, his eyes as cold as ice. Bucky recognized there the soulless brainwashing he'd been through before.
« I wasn't with Wakanda until a year ago… yet you started killing spies before that. Your story doesn't add up. » Bucky said softly, hoping his friend would catch on to what he was doing.
« Let's just say our plans changed along the way, when we learned you were there… » Liev came closer, withdrawing heavy manacles from his inner coat pockets. Bucky was ready to bet those things were made from vibranium…
Steve was obviously thinking around the same lines as his friend, because he swallowed the anger in his throat and spoke. « I've seen that trick of yours before… »
The big soldier smirked horribly. « Of course, you would have, Captain. Stark has gone up against this technology before… like many others, he thought he'd won when the head of AIM fell… but you know what they say about hydras… now, you're going to put these on and follow us without a fight to Svalbard.»
« So you're an extent of the Winter soldier program… » Bucky chanced, glaring at those manacles as they came near. He had a feeling that if he got into those, he wouldn't be able to get out.
Liev snorted coldly. « You didn't think you were the only one left now, soldat… »
The man was before him and Bucky was all out of options. He chanced a glance at Lianka… she was still limp as a rag doll in the woman's grasp, but her eyes were wide open and fixed upon him, unwavering in their stoic fury. Their gazes crossed and at once, he was ready.
His metal arm was still full of stored kinetic energy from the bullets he'd stopped earlier. Bucky decided it was time to test the technology Shuri had gifted him with…
His metal fingers curled into a fist as he activated the kinetic energy release.
Liev never knew what hit him. One moment he was standing there, smirking like a wolf, and the next, Bucky's enhanced fist was meeting his face with cataclysmic force, shattering bone as though it was paper, all the stored energy released at once. The man went flying back like a rag doll into the wall behind him.
Lianka had twisted in the woman's grasp a split second before Bucky moved, grasping the hand that held the gun to her throat and thrusting it up violently. The woman shot twice out of sheer reflex, stunned by the turn of events, before Lianka turned to her with a violent kick to the stomach, which forced her to fold in half. Lianka managed to rip the gun from her momentarily soft grasp, but the giant behind the woman was upon her… Steve had moved as well, just a tad late to the party, but his incredible speed and reflexes allowed him to use his forearm shields to block the giant's initial blow at Lianka, before catching him in a vicious upper cut that sent him sprawling.
The woman had recovered, swinging a wild blow at Lianka's wounded leg, which hit true and forced the girl to her knees with a snarl. Thankfully, Bucky had reached her, catching the woman's fist in his metal hand, twisting it as viciously as he could, until she screamed and he heard a distinct crack… Lianka had risen and kicked the female right in the jaw with all the strength she could muster, sending her flying back as Bucky released her. Meanwhile, Steve pounced after the huge man, kneeing him right in the face, forcing him to stumble back, before delivering a bone-shattering blow to his plexus.
Lianka stumbled up, her face a mask of horror as she gazed behind them.
Steve and Bucky turned, following her gaze to Liev, who was rising from the shattered wall, his every pore glowing a magma-like red, his bewildered eyes fixed upon them with a certain degree of panic…
« Run. » Lianka whispered, terror clear in her voice. « RUN! »
She leapt towards the door stumbling over her wounded leg. Steve grabbed her and lifted her up against his chest with a single arm and she held on for dear life as he rushed to the basement door and up the stairs beyond, two at a time, Bucky right on their heels.
They barely made it to the top and out into the freezing air that a colossal conflagration went up behind them, sending them flying head-first into a snow bank, the air swept from their lungs. Steve curled his arms around Lianka, who ducked her head against him and prayed as debris crashed around them, the sound of fire filling the air. The snow had softened their fall, but they'd taken a hit from the shockwave caused by the blast… it took a moment for both soldiers to recover with pained groans, getting up to their hands and knees very slowly. Steve crouched above Lianka, who was breathing hard, her face twisted in pain, one hand on her leg. He gazed at her with distinct worry and she caught his eyes, forcing her face to return to neutral as she grimaced a smile.
« I'm… I'm fine. How's Bucky…? » She tried to struggle up, but groaned and collapsed, after which Steve simply too her into his arms and held her close.
The Winter Soldier rose beside them, relatively unscathed, save for his bewildered expression and a cut or two on his grim face. Mercifully, he'd somehow thought to grab their packs, which they had left by the door before setting out that morning, fearing they might need them for a quick escape. Thanks to these, at least they were not without resources.
« What the Hell just happened? » He demanded, looking back at the crater left by the incredible explosion, where only a few crumbling walls still stood to give testament to the house that had been there minutes before, everything aflame. If the two other soldiers had survived the explosion, it was impossible to say, because the upper part of the building had crashed down into the basement, burying it all.
In the distance, for the second time that day, police sirens sounded.
« We'll explain on the way. » Steve offered and the soldier nodded, before they all stormed off into the adjacent cemetery, the flickering light of the blazing destruction lighting their way.
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They lumbered through the cold, exhausted and hurt, until they found a fenced yard that contained an unlocked, shambling shed in which they could temporarily hide out. There, the men convinced Lianka to pull off her torn, bloody pants, revealing her wound : it had opened up after her battle, but was thankfully only oozing a tiny bit of blood by now, mostly cauterized. Bucky patched her up, removing the ripped stitches and placing in fresh ones, before bandaging her up around the leg tightly. She found a second pair of clean pants in her pack and they took a moment to drink some water and grimly eat a couple bites of dried meat, all of which they had prepared that morning for their eventual escape.
All the while, Steve filled them in on what he knew about AIM, the organisation that Liev had spoken about. He mentioned how Tony Stark had gone up against them some time ago, had eliminated their leader and had mostly considered them to be decrepit and dead… he'd had obviously no idea that the group had survived and had somehow joined forces with Hydra, even less so that they had continued upon their enhanced soldier program.
« Lia… » Steve pondered, feeling a tad awkward. « You knew… you told us to run. You knew what was going to happen to Liev. How? »
He didn't want to sound suspicious, or accusing, but somehow he did all the same. She sighed, not at all offended by his sentiment : in their line of work, suspicion was what kept them alive.
« I did. » She admitted. « I've seen this sort of soldiers before, a couple years ago. In my spare time, I don't just spy for Wakanda… I gather information for my own purposes, which has time and time again given me the leverage necessary to get myself in better positions, or to buy out the right people. Sometimes, I take on contracts to track people, seeing as I'm good at that sort of thing. One time, I was tasked with tracking down a rogue soldier for an organisation that would not name itself. I wasn't asked to fight the soldier, or bring him in, just to find him and call in this organisation so that they could retrieve him. I did, and they came quickly. I was going to leave, but… I got curious. I stayed and watched as he fought them, refusing to follow and then…. He became just as Liev had… he glowed, as bright as a star, and all the soldiers started panicking… I was far enough away that I wasn't hit by the explosion. The others were not as lucky. I later learned that this soldier belonged to AIM and that this new tech was something they were still experimenting with, a very unstable sort of modification to the human genome, which they were working hard to stabilize so they could safely use it on soldiers. Because obviously, it was still incredibly dangerous. »
« Doesn't look like they succeeded in stabilizing it… » Bucky mused.
She nodded. « Remember what Liev said? That their plans with Wakanda had not originally been to bring you, or Steve in… they said they baited the Wakandans by killing their spies… why? Does Wakanda have tech that AIM and HYDRA could use? »
« I wouldn't know… » Steve sighed. « Should we report back to Wakanda, ask them to step in now? We might be in over our heads… »
Bucky had no opinion on the subject, so their gazes turned to Lianka.
« I don't think we should. » She chanced cautiously. « At least, not just yet. We don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes… and think about it : they let us leave my apartment. They could have killed us then and there, obviously, but they let us go. Worse : they knew exactly where we had been hiding, which means they somehow followed either me, or you, back to the safe house. Yet they didn't ambush us earlier, even though I was wounded. This all seems… unnatural. »
« I agree. » Bucky nodded. « They might be hoping we call in Wakanda, which might give them an access to the country somehow, if they can ambush our lift, or track our transmission signal. »
« We're not sure of that… » Steve frowned.
Lianka looked at him grimly. « If this is really Hydra we're talking about, they're a step ahead of us. Even when they have no right to be, when we think them gone and dead, they still are… no, I have another idea. » She bit at her lip and Bucky found that his heart skipped a beat. « Liev said something about taking us back to Svalbard… »
« That's a pretty long shot… » Steve protested. « We don't know if he was bluffing, or even where in Svalbard he wanted to go… »
Bucky was fixing her with a very intense gaze, which she returned. They were both spies of the Motherland, one voluntary and the other less so, but they had one thing in common : they had been shaped to think in such a manner and notice even the most minute detail in order to track their targets with utmost precision.
« Did you notice what they were wearing? » Lianka asked softly. She was mostly addressing Bucky, who nodded, following her lead.
« Standard military attire of the Russian air force. »
« The woman wore a set that did not fit her. »
« Which means she commandeered it. » Bucky was starting to smile.
« From a Russian air base, because they arrived by plane, or jet, possibly under false pretenses. »
« And the closest air force base is… »
« Kubinka. » Lianka was grinning, quite pleased at working with someone who thought like she did.
Steve looked impressed at their quick trail of thought. « And if they did arrive by jet… »
« We can have a look at their flight log and see exactly where they came from. » Bucky completed gladly. The trio looked quite pleased with themselves as they pulled on their warm clothes and packs, setting out from the crumbling shack and into the howling wind of the night.
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It took most of the night to get to Kubinka, as they hitched a couple rides from truckers headed that way. They made for an odd, battered trio and knew they would attract attention, but they did not dare split up in case there were more soldiers out to get them, or the two back there had somehow survived that blast. Once close to the base, they trekked on foot, careful to remain out of sight.
Getting into the base was easier than they could have thought : it was surrounded by a high fence topped with a spiral of barbed wire, but they were super-soldiers… all three managed to jump over the obstacle with relative ease, landing on the far side in knee-deep snow. There was no erasing those tracks… they hurried along, knowing their time before being detected was probably limited.
The place was being lazily patrolled by a couple soldiers, but security was not very tight : Kubinka had long since become a base that housed older models of jets and planes, mostly used for show rather than for combat. They slunk through the shadows between the hangars, searching for a plane that would seem like it had belonged to a trio of AIM soldiers… outside, they found nothing. As they went, they managed to peak into the hangars, but it was very hard to make anything out in the darkness.
« Maybe they didn't land here…» Steve chanced after a while, as they had passed through the entire compound, finding nothing. The last building left to search was an illuminated hangar that stood next to the barracks, where there was clearly a lot of commotion going on. The soldiers there were laughing loudly and singing, a good indicator that they were drunk.
Lianka nibbled at her lip pensively. This time, Steve felt his heart take a leap and he glanced away, his face a tad redder.
« Let's go check that last one out. If there's nothing there, we gotta find a way into these other hangars to search them better. »
The men nodded and they set out rapidly across the yard, crossing it to the last building. The large front doors, big enough to let planes through, were slightly ajar, releasing as sliver of warm light out onto the snow. All three of them peaked into the huge room.
Lianka rolled her eyes. « Of course… » She sighed at their ill luck. There was some sort of party going on in there in full swing, with countless soldiers bantering and drinking around… a jet that more than clearly did not belong here. It was reminiscent of the models Shield used, all sleek and aggressive and clearly out of its element in this Siberian hangar.
They pulled back to the shadows.
« How are we getting to that? » Steve asked, more exasperated than worried.
« We can't wait for them to pass out. They're Russian… it'll take for ever. » Lianka was thinking hard.
« I'm not going in there and shooting everyone. » Bucky said softly, half as a joke, and half with an exhausted sort of sadness.
Lianka immediately grasped him by his metal forearm and even through his coat, he felt her touch.
« No one is going to ask that of you. »
Her tone was uncommonly harsh and her gaze unyielding. Steve looked from one to the other and slowly seemed to comprehend just why they had found solace in one another the night before. She'd grown up in a dangerous world, forced to do things she did not want to do in order to survive… Bucky had been trust into that same sort of world, not by choice, but had done equally horrible deeds… Steve knew they were probably haunted by things he could not even begin to imagine.
« Which one of us can operate that thing? » Steve asked after a moment, easing the tension. « I don't think I can so much as open the door… »
« I can. » Bucky said at once.
Lianka nodded slowly. « We're not going to steal it. » When they stared at her, eyebrows raised, she explained. « Think about it : if we steal it, they'll know exactly where we're headed and we'll just walk into another ambush. If we want to take the lead and stay ahead of them, we must vanish first. Get off the radar. We just need to check that plane's log, figure out where it came from and head there on our own. »
Both men stared at her with a certain degree of awe, neither quite ready to admit how clever the idea sounded. Steve would have favored just charging right into Hydra's headquarters, but he had to admit she had a point : if they were to end them once and for all, they had to catch them off guard. Hydra couldn't be given the possibility to flee.
« Alright. » The blonde soldier finally agreed. « We have to get those soldiers out of there. We distract them, Bucky heads in, checks the log and gets back out before they notice a thing. »
« Do we have a distraction? » Bucky asked.
At this, Lianka grinned. « Oh yes, we do. » She was staring at the bunker across the yard, which both soldiers knew to be housing arms and, potentially, explosives. They glanced at each other, a bit alarmed by the manic glint that had appeared in the young woman's sky-blue eyes.
« Don't blow the place to Hell… » Bucky whispered as she rose, her face set. She dismissed him.
« We'll meet behind the first hangar we passed on our way in. Give me a while. »
She crossed the yard like some ghost. Thankfully, the snow here was so trampled that she did not leave tracks that could be followed. Steve and Bucky bunkered down and waited, almost holding their breath, wondering what the young woman was going to pull off…
Bucky turned to his friend. « Hey… » He sighed; a bit uncomfortable. « About what happened the other night, with Lia and me… »
Steve tried to shrug the awkwardness away. « No worries, I get it…»
Bucky shook his head. « No, that's not it… it's just that… if she'd interested in you… and I think she is… I don't mind. » He looked distantly across the yard, lost in thought. « I thought I would mind, but I don't. No idea why, but I don't… »
« Buck, I… »
The soldier shoved his friend playfully, breaking out of his reverie. « I'd have to be blind not to see how you look at her. We're heading into some pretty dangerous shit… would be a shame if you died a virgin.»
Steve huffed, only half insulted. « I'm not a …»
But Bucky hushed him, smirking playfully, as a pair of patrolling soldiers approached their part of the yard. It was taking a while for Lianka to do anything, and they understood why when they saw the patrolling soldiers walk across the yard, towards the bunker : she was probably waiting for someone who could sound the alarm.
Just as the grumbling pair of militaries passed the weapon shelter, complaining about being on duty while the others partied, there was a snapping-like sound and one of the electrical wires over the bunker, laden with frost and snow, broke in half and collapsed onto the metal building. Upon contact, it generated a great arc of lighting that proceeded to plunge the whole compound into darkness while sparking against the metal, starting a fire atop the bunker.
The reaction was immediate and frighteningly chaotic.
The soldiers on patrol were shouting, the drunk militaries in the hangar were pouring out of it, swearing and yelling and the uproar was such that Bucky was able to rush into the hangar through the open doors, passing three Russian soldiers without a single one noticing him.
There was no one else in the vast room, so he got into the jet, his hands working every control so automatically that he got sudden vertigo as his body seemed to respond before his conscious mind could order it. It temporarily felt like he was still under the organisation's control… the thought was terrifying, even though he knew it to be false. Of course he knew how to operate this thing… it belonged to Hydra, just as he once had. Bucky shook the depressing thought out of his head and powered the jet, launching the flight log. His sharp eyes searched, until they fixed upon coordinates that coincided with the jet's last starting point. It was indeed in Svalbard, on one of the isles off the coast of the main land… he frowned. As far as he knew, there wasn't anything there : not a Hydra base and not an outpost. It was a very cold and hostile land, nothing but a frozen tundra and polar bears… yet, if there was but a place in the world where Hydra could have hidden, it was there…
He powered down the jet and slipped out of it just as the generator came on, lighting the compound in a low, eerie, reddish glow. There was still no one in the hangar, so he hurried to the door and back out into the cold Russian night. Across the yard, soldiers were still shouting, frantically trying to extinguish the flames that were eating up the bunker's roof, increasingly panicked at the idea that the munitions within might blow them all into next week.
Bucky joined Steve and exchanged a silent nod with his friend. Both men set out, keeping out of sight, headed to their rendezvous point with Lianka.
The distraction had worked wonders : there was no one to bar their way and they were not spotted. They reached the back of the first hangar they had passed on their way in and a tiny shadow moved out from between two crates as they came near, starting them. When they recognized Lianka, both men relaxed ever so slightly.
« Nice job, back there. » Bucky murmured as he got close to her. She smiled innocently.
« Just a powerline that fell. No sabotage whatsoever. »
Grinning, she led them out through the way they'd taken in.
Once they were out of sight and sound, and safe from a potentially deadly explosion, they turned to Bucky to find out what he'd learned.
« We're going to Norway, boys and girls. And we're taking the long way there.» He grinned at them almost sheepishly, a look they returned as a solid sort of cooperative relationship began forging itself between the three unlikely heroes.
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Finals are next week. I'm stressing like crazy. Send me lots of love, guys! For those of you wondering, I'm studying a bachelor's in chemistry, so it is no easy feat. But I'll pull through… I hope.
I'm glad to see the story attracts more favorites, reviews and follows with every chapter! Feel free to write me a little review to let me know what you like, what you like less and any thoughts you have about the story! Until we meet again!