"Korsakov's surgery isn't scheduled for another hour, but you're still going to need to act fast. There isn't time to go exploring. Get in and get out, that's it." Lucy nodded as Bucky informed them.
"And you're absolutely positive he'll have the cipher on him?" Lucy posed the question to Robin who was in the process of slipping the communication earpiece into place.
"Believe me, I've been watching him for months. That thing is always around his neck, he never takes it off." She paused a moment before stressing, "Never."
Lucy shrugged, accepting Robin's assurance. "For everyone's sake, I hope you're proven correct." She replied.
"I will be."
Bucky watched as the two women turned for the vehicle doors to exit into the mist laden alleyway. Before Lucy had a chance to bound through the opening, he placed a hand on her shoulder, her face turning back to him in hesitation. "Be careful in there." He said softly, but she could sense the genuineness in his eyes. "Don't do anything stupid."
Lucy flashed a smile. "When do I ever?" She replied lightheartedly. Reaching back towards him she quickly brushed her lips across his before swiftly hopping out of the van and rejoining Robin on the pavement.
"You two seem quite close." Robin remarked flatly as they made their way to the entrance of the medical center.
"And you have a problem with that?" Lucy asked, mimicking her partner's tone.
"Should I?" Robin replied without wasting a second. Lucy's mouth gaped as she searched for a rebuttal.
"I don't really see why our being together is any of your business." She replied, finally.
"When there's the possibility it could put me or my mission at stake it becomes my business." She said, setting her shoulders back.
"But it's not going to." Lucy countered, irritation permeating her tone.
"Good." Robin answered as she pushed through the clinic front doors.
Lucy decided she did not much care for Robin, but quickly had to force the evidence of such emotions from her face as they approached the nurse's desk.
"We're looking for a Mr. Andre Korsakov's room." Lucy stated to the tired looking clerk behind the desk.
"403," the clerk replied after searching through several things on her computer, "go up two floors and then head down the hallway; it will be at the very end on the left."
"Thank you." Lucy said with feigned graciousness.
"Didn't know you spoke Russian." Robin commented as she pressed the button for their desired floor.
Lucy shrugged, "Bucky's taught me enough that I can get by when I have to." With an air of sarcasm she added, "The advantages of being close with your partner."
Robin twitched her eyebrows in acknowledgement at Lucy's snarky comment, but didn't offer a verbal reply.
"Damn, we're too late." Robin muttered angrily as the pair peered through the doorway at the empty bed that sat inside.
Lucy turned and headed for the stairwell a few feet away. "Bucky, we need a plan-b; it looks like Korsakov's surgery got pushed up." She stated into the earpiece, and waited for Robin to fall into step behind her.
She heard a disgruntled sigh and the tapping of keys before he returned with a solution. "Okay, do you see a door straight ahead?" Lucy affirmed and the two women proceeded wordlessly through to find themselves at the rear of the cafeteria. "Now head to the southwest corner, there should be another hallway with three doors. Take the second."
"Three of Andre's men at your two." Robin murmured as she ducked her chin towards her chest, letting her blonde hair hide her profile. Lucy registered the men and diverted their path around several large columns adorned with greenery.
"It needs an access badge." Lucy reported as she pulled on the unmoving handle.
Hang on, give me a minute. You know I was never any good at this." Bucky said as he worked to override the system from the whirring laptop. "Remind me again why I got picked to stay behind as surveillance and tech support?"
"Lucy felt the handle click announcing it was unlocked, and quickly swung it into the room. "Because a metal arm is a lot harder to disguise." She quipped back with a smile.
"Ah, right. That ol' thing." Bucky answered with a laugh.
"When you two are done chatting can we get a move on things?" Robin chimed in with obvious impatience. "If we don't get our hands on the cipher before Andre goes under the knife, we may not get another chance. What are we supposed to be looking for, anyway?" She asked as her eyes traveled the room that as near as she could tell was the doctor's lounge.
Bucky cleared his throat and returned to focusing on the task at hand. "Coming up on your right are a bunch of lockers. Surely you can find a decent guise in one of them. Lucy and Robin nodded silently to each other before quickly heading to work at rifling through the contents of the lockers closest at hand.
A metallic glint caught Lucy's eye as Robin slipped the green nurses scrub shirt over her head. A charm bracelet slid around her wrist and she hurriedly unclasped it and dropped it into her pocket, hoping Lucy hadn't noticed.
Lucy, however, had already taken in the two sets of initials inscribed on the lone charm. She let a few seconds of silence pass before bringing it up. "You didn't just get assigned this mission on chance, did you?"
"I don't know what you mean." Robin replied, but it was obvious to Lucy that she was forcing the words out.
"These kids you're trying to find, it's more than just an assignment isn't it? It's personal." Lucy slid into a blue top and traded her jeans for matching blue bottoms.
A flash of emotion flashed through Robin's eyes, but she quickly shook it away. "Lucas and Daniella." She replied after a moment of uncomfortable silence. "I promised my sister I'd bring them back to her, and it's what I plan on doing."
Lucy nodded and pressed her lips together. The pieces were slowly coming together and Lucy was beginning to understand Robin's fervency that had been glaringly present ever since they had met. "We're going to do everything we can to make sure you bring them home safe and sound." Lucy said, and this time she really did mean it. Regardless of how she felt about Robin, she couldn't think about the kids being tested on by HYDRA without a pit forming deep in her stomach. The mere thought of what could potentially be happening to them made her feel sick and she had decided that even if it took everything she had, she was going to see this mission through.
Robin looked like she was fighting back tears but somehow managed a weak thank you without any of them spilling over.
"They've already got him set up in the operating room." Lucy noted to Bucky as the two women peered through the glass window.
"Do you remember Nanjing?" Bucky asked, and Lucy laughed.
"You think that will work?" She asked with a smile.
Bucky chuckled back, "Just don't do anything stupid." She motioned to Robin and they stepped into one of the prep rooms. Lucy grabbed two face masks and handed one to her partner.
"What happened in Nanjing?" She asked, accepting the mask and tying it behind her head. Lucy wordlessly pulled out a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on.
"Are you crazy? You think we can just waltz in there in the middle of surgery and swipe it off him without anybody noticing?" Robin asked incredulously, realizing what Lucy was insinuating. "I think they're going to notice that we're not actually medical professionals." She added.
Lucy smiled from behind her mask and raised an eyebrow, "They haven't even started yet. Besides, fake it till you make it, right?" She said hitting Robin playfully on the arm. The blonde turned to protest, but Lucy was already striding confidently through the doors and she had no choice but to follow.
"I've got a bad feeling about this." She muttered under her breath.
"Dr. Barinov, I didn't realize you were stepping in for Dr. Ovechkin." One of the men in blue scrubs said, and Lucy suddenly realized the comment was directed at her. She glanced down to see the name printed on the access tag clipped to the hem of her shirt indicating that 'Barinov' was indeed her.
"Oh—ah, it was a last minute switch." She said quickly, motioning for Robin to take a place at Korsakov's head. "Shall we get started then?" She asked, feigning confidence.
Slowly she stepped up to the table where Korsakov lay motionless, and took a glance at the results of her own handiwork just eight hours prior. Feeling the eyes of everyone in the room resting on her she swallowed hard and nudged around the injury site, pretending to know what she was looking for. "Scalpel please." She said, not knowing the name of any other piece of equipment to call out.
"He's already got a perforated kidney, are you sure?" The man next to her asked tentatively. The assistant silently handed to her the tool.
"I'd rather you not question me about every little thing." Lucy said as she inconspicuously shifted the blade in her hand until she felt a small hole form in the thumb of the glove. The man pinched his eyebrows together in confusion, but didn't press further. Lucy made eye contact with Robin to let her know to start working on getting the cipher.
Lucy raised the scalpel to Korsakov's skin, waiting for everyone to lean in, their attention trained on her. Slowly she pulled the blade across making a small incision. The man next to her started to speak but she cut him off with the raise of her hand. "Ah-ah, no talking, remember." He quieted and shuffled in place.
Amidst the questioning glances the staff members were tossing each other across the table, Robin managed to get her fingertips resting on the lanyard around Korsakov's neck. Behind her back she felt around until her hands came across the scissors she was looking for.
"Now I'm only doing this once, so you better pay attention the first time." Lucy said as she rested her left hand on his abdomen, the other still holding the scalpel. Intrigued by her words, those around the table leaned in another few inches to see what Lucy was doing.
With her right hand she poked around aimlessly with her scalpel, while with her left she felt the touch of the man's skin to hers through the small hole in the glove. Closing her eyes a moment to prepare herself she let the familiar feeling overtake her.
Several small gasps of disbelief whispered around the room as the incision started to close before their eyes. Robin seized the moment of distraction and quickly snipped the lanyard before pulling it noiselessly off of him and into her pocket.
Seeing that the stab wound was nearly healed, Lucy hurriedly exchanged the scalpel for a bandage and fastened it over the site just as she pulled her hand away. She glanced up to Robin who nodded in affirmation.
"What the—" The man muttered, and the other attendants all glanced at each other in confusion.
"Well I hate to stitch and run, but I should be going." Lucy announced before her and Robin quickly darted in the direction of the door. As Robin reached for the handle, another man burst through from the other side, bewilderment on his face.
"What—who is this?" He demanded, looking at the two women trying to hurry out of the room.
"Ovechkin, you're here." The man at the table said, still bemused by what he had just witnessed. "Dr. Barinov seems to have taken care of things just fine." One of the assistants next to him peeled off a corner of the bandage to reveal smooth and unbroken skin underneath.
"Barinov?" The doctor asked, no less perplexed. "She's out of the country for two weeks—" He turned quickly towards the two women but they were already gone.
"What the hell did you do in there?" Robin asked as they weaved through hallways to their rendezvous point at the back exit. Lucy didn't reply but simply gritted her teeth, trying to stay on her feet. Specks danced around her vison and she fought to blink them away. "Shit, you're bleeding!" Robin breathed, her eyes landing on the slowly growing patch of red on Lucy's torso.
"I'm fine." Lucy replied hoarsely, their exit in her sights. "You should know that, you've studied my life."
"There was nothing about this!" She exclaimed, slipping a supportive arm under Lucy's.
Lucy tried to focus on her breathing as they covered the last fifty feet to the doorway. "Let's just get out of here quickly, okay?"
Robin pushed through the doors, a pale faced Lucy in tow, to find Bucky waiting for them in the driver's seat. At the sight of Lucy he immediately leaped out and rushed to her side, leaning her away from Robin and onto himself.
"You drive, I've got her." He said quickly to Robin before ushering Lucy to the backseat. "I thought I told you not to do anything stupid." Bucky said, lifting her inside.
She lifted a hand cautiously to her side and peeled the fabric away from the wound. "It's not that bad. I'll be fine, I always am." She said, though her shallow breaths made her statement sound less convincing than she had hoped.
"Lou, he was stabbed." Bucky reasoned. Robin threw a furtive glance back to see Bucky's hands pushing Lucy's away. A slight grimace spread across Lucy's face as he applied pressure in an attempt to stunt the flow of blood.
"And apparently sprained his ankle too." Lucy added, trying to straighten her foot.
"You shouldn't have done that, it was reckless." Bucky chided sternly.
She attempted to shift in her seat, "I couldn't very well perform actual surgery, now could I? There weren't a lot of options, I did what I had to."
"You could've just stalled them until you had the cipher." He argued.
Lucy wiggled her ankle, feeling it start to repair itself. "They were expecting a surgeon. If I didn't do something quick they'd suspect something and my cover would've been blown."
Bucky sighed. "Yeah well you probably managed that anyway. A miraculous healing isn't something you typically see every day. When Korsakov finds out he'll know we were here, and he'll know we have the cipher."
"Well what would you like me to do about it?" She asked shortly. Bucky just sighed and shook his head.
"Does somebody want to tell me what the hell just happened in there?" Robin asked as she braked for the red light.
Lucy closed her eyes and let her head rest back on the seat. "What's there to figure out? I patched up Korsakov, you got the cipher, and we got out. What part of that do you keep getting hung up on?"
"The patching up part, as a matter of fact." Robin retorted. "What did you do to him?" She asked, posing the question for the third time.
The redhead looked at her quizzically. "Why is this so shocking to you? You've clearly already read my file, you know how I killed all the people that I have. It's the same idea." Bucky could hear the snippy tone returning in Lucy's voice and he shot her a scowl that warned her to back off.
The light changed and Robin stepped on the gas again. "Nothing in the information I was given said anything about those kinds of…abilities." She said, shaking her head. "We were under the impression that your serum had produced the same effects as that of the Winter Soldier. I see now that we didn't quite have the whole picture." Quietly she mumbled, "This changes things a bit."
Lucy shifted her position, the wound bleeding less profusely than before. "So what did you think the metal spine was for, decoration?" She asked sarcastically.
Robin turned to face them, her brows knitted together. "The what?" She questioned.
Bucky let out a sigh. "Perhaps you should start from the beginning, Lou."