Krasnoyarsk, Russia
"I'm really beginning to think dying my hair would've been the simpler route." Lucy muttered as she attempted to discreetly adjust the dark brunette wig atop her head.
"If you don't stop messing with that soon, people are going to start asking if you've got lice." Bucky murmured back with a smirk, slipping his arm into hers.
She quit fidgeting with her hair and instead ran her fingers over her long black evening gown, smoothing it out. "I very well could." She retorted. "Where did you get this thing anyway, a thrift store?" Bucky just smiled and told her to be quiet.
"I feel like such a goon." She said, fielding the glances from the other sharply dressed men and women all meandering about the large, open room. Music floated from where the band sat and filled the room with its warm presence—a welcome contrast from the weather outdoors.
"You look stunning." Bucky said before landing a kiss on her lips.
Lucy grinned and reached up to straighten his bowtie. "Well you definitely look like a goon."
"Oh, you flatter me too much." Bucky replied sarcastically, pulling her closer with the hand around her waist.
"Three at the door at the top of the stairs. That must be where the exchange is taking place." Lucy murmured nonchalantly as they continued across the floor, canvasing the room inconspicuously with their glances.
Bucky calmly checked over his shoulder to confirm her observation. "With the two at the entrance, that makes five."
"I think we can be safe in assuming the staff, that's eleven." Lucy said with a sigh as a server brushed past with a tray of glasses.
Bucky shrugged. "We've handled worse."
"But with fifty civilians added into the mix?" Lucy countered.
Bucky opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off by the sound of someone clanking on their glass to get everyone's attention. The chatter in the room died down as everyone's heads turned to face the figure standing halfway up the sweeping staircase. "I wanted to take a moment to thank you all for coming to our event, it makes my heart sing to be surrounded by so many of my friends." The man bellowed joyously in his native Russian.
One of the men standing stoically in the hallway at the top of the stairs turned to murmur something to the one behind him, and the movement caught Lucy's eye. "Looks like they're getting started early."
"Before you all go back to enjoying your evening, however," the man continued, "Sasha and I have something to announce." He slipped his arm around the blonde woman beside him who blushed nervously and smiled. "We are to be married next month, and you're all invited to the wedding!" He finished, his voice full of genuine happiness. Cheers and applause broke out around the room and Lucy and Bucky clapped along politely.
Bucky sighed in agreement. "And I think I know what the distraction is supposed to be." He commented, motioning to the couple on the stairs smiling at the applause from the audience. "He just announced they're engaged."
Lucy's brows scrunched up and she replied with a hint of disappointment, "That's a shame. She clearly hasn't the faintest idea what she's getting herself into." She glanced at the young woman whose smile beamed as she looked up at her fiancée. For a moment, Lucy really did feel bad for her.
"I guess it's onto plan-b then." Bucky muttered.
Lucy looked up at him, her brows still pinched together, though this time inquisitive. "And how do you propose we get a hold of Korsakov with all these people here? They're all kind of staring directly at him at the moment in case you haven't noticed."
Bucky simply grinned. With a smooth flick of his wrist he whipped out the pistol from behind his back and fired a single round into the air. In an instant the entire crowd was shouting and scrambling to get away. "That's how." He said with a smirk.
Lucy simply stared at him with one eyebrow raised in judgement. "Really, that's your brilliant plan? So what do we do when they start shooting at us?" She questioned. As though responding to her questions, the echo of bullets ricocheting from HYDRA gun barrels sounded through the room and Lucy quickly dropped to her knees to dodge one aimed for her.
Bucky joined her as she crouched along the floor. "We shoot back, of course." He offered, readying his gun to fire again, this time at the HYDRA agents near the staircase.
Lucy let out a huff and begrudgingly pulled out two of the knives from the holster on her thigh. She still hadn't been able to touch a gun since Amsterdam, but knives had always been her first choice anyway. "So much for a simple mission." She muttered to herself. "In and out, no one will even notice." She said to herself, imitating the words Bucky had said earlier before they had arrived. Weaving between terror stricken individuals, she ducked behind a table that had been knocked over in the commotion.
She glanced back to see Bucky taking on several of the waiters so she turned her attention to the now four men at the top of the stairs, all talking quickly to each other. Korsakov and Sasha were both crouched on the stairs, their faces a mixture of shock and terror. Taking only a moment to aim, Lucy pulled her arm back and hurled the knife towards the group of men at the top of the stairs, the blade finding its target in the chest of the man with a beard.
He let out a cry of pain and the three with him, upon realizing what had befallen their comrade, all simultaneously trained their guns on the room below, searching frantically for their assailant. Lucy smirked, grabbed three blades in one hand and sent them sailing through the air at full speed. In seconds the men were all grimacing and clutching at their wounds. One man angrily yanked the blade from his shoulder and threw it to the ground with a growl.
"Don't think you're getting away that easy now." Lucy assured as she waited for her weapons' full effect to be realized. The man's scowl slowly faded as he slipped to the floor. She watched in amusement as he mouthed the word 'poison' to his fellow men and their faces all flashed with terror.
"I've got Korsakov." Bucky said, siding up beside her, his gun trained on the middle aged man cowering on the stairs trying to motion to his men to get him out.
"No!" Lucy said, her exclamation surprising even herself. "You could hit Sasha, she's innocent." Bucky looked at her questioningly and she continued, "She may have chosen to marry a monster, but she doesn't know that. And she doesn't deserve to die for it!"
Bucky thought about her words for a moment before responding. Lucy had a point, but doing things her way was going to make things a lot more complicated. "Fine." He finally conceded, still countering the attacks from the HYDRA agents pouring into the room. "I'll take care of Sasha. When you've got a shot at Korsakov you take it, okay?"
Lucy nodded and Bucky ducked out behind her, she presumed in search of a back stairwell. A few minutes later she glanced up to find him on the balcony, around the corner from the now unconscious guards. She nodded to him and in a grand leap he hurdled the railing and plummeted towards the unsuspecting couple who jumped in surprise when he landed next to them with a loud thud.
Korsakov fumbled to retrieve the gun he had apparently forgotten about until that moment. Bucky, however, snatched it easily away and secured a good grip on the piece. Making quick work of things, in an effort to avoid enemy fire out in the open, Bucky grabbed a hold of both of Sasha's shoulders and dragged her away, the gun remaining trained on a startled Korsakov.
"No! Let go of me! Leave me alone!" The young blonde woman shrieked as Bucky tore her away from her much older fiancée and down the stairs.
With Bucky and Sasha far enough from Korsakov, Lucy drew up one of her knives and took a deep breath before setting her aim. "Sorry," she murmured with a smirk as Korsakov's eyes met hers, "you throw parties, I throw knives." Blocking out the gunfire mixed with Sasha's shouting, Lucy extended her arm to release the blade, but felt a jumble of limbs bumping into her shoulder as the metal slipped from her fingertips. Lucy cursed under her breath at the tangle of party guests all fumbling on top of her. With a scowl she heaved them off of herself.
Anxiously she pulled her attention back to Korsakov and saw that while her aim had not been as dead on as she had intended, she had still managed to get him in the lower abdomen. She didn't have time to revel in her newfound stroke of luck, however, as she quickly had to make her way to the door to meet up with Bucky and Sasha who was now howling in distress and likely anger. Lucy felt a bit of remorse for the woman. She had, after all, likely just killed this woman's fiancée right in front of her eyes. Lucy reminded herself that Korsakov was HYDRA and she had just done the woman a huge favor whether she realized it or not.
"Who do you think you are?" Sasha shouted angrily in Russian as Lucy approached them. Bucky kept a tight grip on the woman, not letting her lunge at Lucy as she wished to do. Quickly Lucy scurried out the doorway into the next room, Bucky following closely behind with Sasha in tow.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sasha exclaimed in fury, this time in flawless English.
"You're boyfriend isn't who you think he is." Lucy argued back with almost as much fervor. "He was a weapons dealer for HYDRA and a lot of people's lives were ruined because of him! I did you a favor, you would have been married to a murderous monster!"
"You don't think I know that?" The blonde angrily spat back. "I'm MI-6 you idiot! And now because of you two, five months of work is down the drain. S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't the only one who cares about HYDRA, you know!"
Lucy felt her heart lurch to her stomach as the blonde woman spoke, and glimpsed up at Bucky who seemed just as shocked as she. "What are you talking about, you mean you knew Korsakov was HYDRA's puppet? How do you know we're S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Lucy asked, her heart rate picking up speed.
Sasha clenched her jaw and took a moment to compose herself. Still seething, she glared up at Bucky until he finally released his grip on her. "There's not time right now, we need to get out of here before we all get our covers shot to hell. Thanks again for that by the way." Sasha, who Lucy was now beginning to think's real name wasn't Sasha, picked up the hem of her blue silk gown and directed them through several doors before exiting through a window via fire escape.
"Robin Cooper, Special Forces." The blonde woman said as she turned the laptop around to face Bucky and Lucy who stood with arms crossed. The three were back at Bucky and Lucy's hotel room, which despite their skepticism at the validity of the woman's claims, had been chosen as their destination after fleeing the party. They didn't trust this woman just yet, but their hotel room was the only place they could count on not being watched or overheard.
"This is legit." Lucy informed Bucky as she shook her head, inspecting the screen Robin had presented to them. "Unless she just so happens to know how to hack into the MI-6 database and pull up a file of herself in fifteen seconds flat, she's telling the truth." Robin breathed a sigh of satisfaction and turned the laptop back around to find another document.
"HYDRA's been kidnapping kids from a handful countries for nearly six months now, using them for experiments. I was sent undercover to find out the location of the compound where they're being held." Robin said as she flipped through the database to find the pages she wanted.
Lucy shot a glance at Bucky, her eyebrows drawing together. "What do you mean experiments? What are they doing to these kids?" She asked, not knowing if she wanted to know the answer.
Robin flipped the laptop around again, this time the screen showing images of a young boy, she estimated to be no older than 8, lying helplessly in a filthy alleyway. His eyes stared vacantly into the distance, unseeing. Lucy felt a sickening feeling creeping up her throat as she registered the needle marks dotting his arms and neck.
Swallowing hard she turned away and took a seat on the bed. Memories she had long since filed away were now pounding at the door of her mind, each one demanding to be relived.
"We believe they're trying to revive an experiment from way back in the forties, trying to recreate their results." Lucy stared blankly out the window, her back to Bucky and Robin. "After the Allied's success with Rogers, Red Skull began working to perfect his own super soldier serum." Bucky felt his fists clenching of their own accord and he forced himself to relax. He had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly where Robin was going with this and he didn't doubt that Lucy did as well. "He ran into several setbacks, producing primarily flawed versions of the serum, including the one he dosed himself with. What most people don't know, however, is that they did have a few successes that—"
Her voice trailed as she looked up to see Bucky removing his gloves and suit jacket. Her eyes widened as he rolled up his sleeve to reveal the silver metal underneath.
"Shit, the rumors were true. It-it's really you, I—I—" Robin stammered breathlessly as she connected the dots and realized the infamous Winter Soldier was standing just a few feet in front of her. She scolded herself mentally for not seeing it sooner. She had been so caught up in the anger of her mission being blown that she entirely missed the fact that the man whose picture she had studied for hours, an integral part of that very same mission, had been in the same room as her.
Robin ran her fingers through her hair, her mind rushing to put everything together. "So Korsakov, he knows where they're holding these kids?" Bucky asked intently. Robin snapped back to the present and returned to thumbing through files.
"Not directly." She pointed to an image of a small keychain looking device with HYDRA's emblem engraved on the front. "But he's part of a group called 'The Architects' who each possess a cipher that they keep on them at all times. HYDRA has their own database, not entirely different from MI-6's or S.H.I.E.L.D.'s, some of it new, some of it left over from decades ago. Some of it, however, is so deeply encrypted it can only be accessed by using one of these ciphers." Robin leaned back in her chair. "I was hoping I'd be able to get my hands on it soon, but now it looks like any chance I had has been shot to hell." She sighed in disappointment before closing the laptop and setting it aside.
Bucky rubbed his jaw thoughtfully before asking, "And all the information about these experiments is locked behind this cipher?"
Robin rose from her chair as she answered, "Correct. They're calling the operation 'Krov' lisy'—Russian for 'Blood of the Fox'." Bucky flicked his eyes over to Lucy who sat unmoving, her shoulder muscles tense. "It refers to one of Red Skull's test subjects back in the day, the one they—"
Robin's words were cut off sharply by the hand slamming into her throat, pushing her backwards. "Who sent you, why are you here!" Lucy barked before shoving her against the wall with a reverberating crash.
"Lou!" Bucky shouted sternly, stepping towards the two women. Robin looked over to him, her expression one of shock and confusion.
"They sent you here to find me didn't they?" Lucy growled through gritted teeth, her face tense with rage. "I should've known the minute I laid eyes on you, you filthy, lying—"
"Lou!" Bucky reiterated, this time more forcefully. She turned her head to him, her face seething with anger. "If she were HYDRA do you really think she would have come in here unarmed and told us all of this?" Her chest heaved as she took in his words. Slowly she lowered her arms and Robin let out a pent up breath.
"I'll take it you're the Little Fox, then." Robin said as Lucy stepped closer to Bucky.
Lucy stopped in her tracks, clenching her jaw to restrain her anger. Something about Robin's tone seemed to continually set her off. Bucky flashed her a look, warning her not to do it.
"I'm surprised you didn't just kill me like all the others." Robin added, raising her hand to massage her now sore neck.
Lucy threw out the self-restraint she had been clinging to and turned on her heel, the blade already firmly in her grasp. "You have no idea what I've been through!" She snarled as she lunged towards the blonde. She was stopped by Bucky's arms wrapping around her and pulling her back. "She's begging for it, just let me give her what she deserves!" Lucy protested as she fought against his restraint.
Robin just stared back with a smirk. "I guess that's why you're the Fox, feisty little one aren't you." Lucy struggled against Bucky a few moments longer, but soon had to accept that her efforts were futile. "Relax, we're on the same side." Robin said as she slipped off her high heels and tossed them along the wall.
Seeing that she had calmed down and wasn't going to lash out again, Bucky loosened his grip on Lucy and took the knife from her trembling hand. "We want to see HYDRA fall as much as you do, so what do you need from us?" He asked, his eye still trained on Lucy.
Robin nodded, glad he was more focused on the mission than his partner. "They'll be taking Andre to the nearest hospital, our best shot at ever getting our hands on that cipher are by sneaking into his room and slipping it off him before they take him to the OR. We might have to take down a few of his men but with three of us it shouldn't be anything we can't handle."
"My knives are all laced with poison, it won't be out of his system until tomorrow morning at the earliest." Lucy retorted, her brows still furrowed. "You know he'll have a host of people around him as long as that's in effect."
"Well, like I said, it shouldn't be anything we can't handle." Robin replied back, a hand on her hip.
"I don't mean that he'll have a bunch of burly bodyguards around him." Lucy snapped back condescendingly. "I meant that there will be at least one doctor or two nurses at his bedside at all times." Robin shrugged as if to ask 'so what?' Lucy sighed loudly, and she felt Bucky place a hand on her shoulder again. "Contrary to what you might be inclined to believe, I don't in fact enjoy killing innocent people. Crazy concept, I know."
Bucky stepped in front of her and chimed in, "She's right. We do want to help save these kids, but if we are, we're going to do it right. No one innocent gets hurt, that isn't how we do things, not anymore."
Robin chewed on her lip, contemplating their words. "Fine." She said after a minute. "Have it your way, we'll go in the morning. I'll take the floor." She finished with a sigh before heading for the bathroom.