Note: Hey guys! So, just gonna do some blatant self-advertising here. Check out my one-shot I wrote about the Winter Soldier visiting the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian at the end of CA: TWS. It's called "Friend or Foe?" It's a different Winter Soldier than the one that's in this story, it doesn't connect to this story. I just wrote it because I was having sad Bucky feels. Anyway! Thanks for reading and reviewing. :)
The Winter Soldier didn't actually know where he was going so he pulled Ari into an empty office for one second, closing the door, and asked, "What next?"
"We either find and decode your files, or we find Steve and the gang," said Ari quickly. "Your call."
It wasn't even a choice to be made. The Winter Soldier wasn't going to pick his blood-splattered files over his old best friend. "Steve first," he said and he saw relief flood Ari's eyes. Irritation pricked him for a moment—had she really thought he'd go after his files first?—but before he could say anything or move, someone banged violently on the door and then yelled, "Soldier! We know you're in there with the girl!"
"Woman," hissed Ari under her breath angrily. "I'm freaking twenty-three, not thirteen."
"Come out now and we won't hurt either of you," the agent or guard called. The door had a frosted glass window that the Winter Soldier couldn't see clearly out of, but he saw at least four black shapes hovering outside the door, pointing handguns at it. He didn't believe for one second that they wouldn't hurt them. They might spare him but they'd definitely shoot Ari if he opened the door. And even if they didn't, they'd only come back and torture her—or both of them this time—again, as a punishment for escaping. He knew how HYDRA worked; punishment was something they were very big on.
"I need your word," he called coldly through the door.
"What?" Ari whispered. "Are you nuts?"
"We promise!" called the man. The Winter Soldier pricked his ears, listening carefully—and there, there he heard it. A whispered chuckle from one of the men, an unfriendly sound. He had chuckled when the agent had promised to not harm them. If the Winter Soldier had needed any more proof that the strike agents had been lying, this was it.
"Um, Soldier?" Ari tapped him on the arm and he turned to look at her. She gestured her head around the room and said, "We're in a weapons room."
And so they were. The Winter Soldier hadn't even noticed it before but guns and knives and all other assortment of weapons hung on the walls, along with rope and combat gear. "Convenient," he murmured but he was smiling grimly to himself. If it was convenient, then he would damn well enjoy this convenience. He picked up a machine gun and slowly, quietly got it ready to fire, clicking off the safeguards.
"Okay," he called, pointing the machine gun at the door. "I'm going to count to three and then we'll come out. One—" And then all hell broke loose. With one hand he forced the top of Ari's head down so roughly that she fell to the floor and then he let loose with the machine gun, firing madly through the door and the walls. Ari lay on the ground, hands over her head, eyes squeezed shut, and for a moment all there was extremely loud gunfire as the Winter Soldier let loose on the agents outside and a few of them managed to shoot back in his direction. Smoke, dust, and debris filled the air and ground and all they could hear for a few seconds were shouts and yells, both near and distant. And then the Winter Soldier grabbed Ari, yanked her up, and said, "Let's keep moving." He threw the machine gun aside, grabbed a new one, thrust a pistol at her, and pocketed a deadly-looking dagger. They stepped over four bodies on the ground and hurried down the hall, hearing more alarms blaring and people shouting in the distance.
"There they are!" he heard someone shoot from down the hall where they'd come. "Shoot! No—don't kill him! We need him alive!"
The Winter Soldier and Ari took off, racing down the halls and around corners through an endless maze that didn't seem to go anywhere. The Winter Soldier vaguely wondered what fool had designed the building design, because they'd clearly been on some sort of drug when they'd done so. Why were there so many damn turns?
They dodged sprays of bullets as they ran, random agents diving out at them from doors and hallways. The Winter Soldier shot at them with ease, barely even having to look at them. Ari wasn't as good as him, of course, she missed every single shot, actually, but she shot close enough to the agents that they would jump back in alarm—and then the Winter Soldier would take the kill shot. At one point Ari let out a slight breathless laugh as they raced through the halls, trying to find a place to hide or figure out where Steve and the others were being held, and the Winter Soldier looked over at her and shouted, "What's so funny?"
A bullet whizzed past Ari's head and hit the wall, creating a small crater, and she shouted back, "This is kind of exciting!" as they ran.
"I've got you now!" An agent dove out of a room to their left and crashed into the Winter Soldier, knocking his machine gun out of his hand. A blonde female agent came crashing from an office on the opposite side and she and Ari dove for the machine gun at the same time, scuffling and hitting each other, viciously tugging on it.
Meanwhile the Winter Soldier had flipped out his dagger and was making short work of the agent. The agent was extremely strong and able-bodied, moving faster than most average men could move—but the Winter Soldier was faster. He threw himself into the fight, his blood singing the song that he had been created to sing, ducking, weaving, and lunging all around the agent like a striking cobra. Fluid, graceful, and lethal, he was like the most dangerous jungle cat that existed, except in human form.
"Soldier, you're so good!" Ari yelled from the floor, connecting the heel of her foot with the female agent's nose. The women fell backwards with a howl and Ari triumphantly grabbed the machine gun. A few seconds later, however, the woman dove at Ari and then they were back to fighting, viciously rolling around, both of them trying to gain the upper hand. The female agent probably would have won the fight much more quickly on any normal day, but her leg was wounded and dripping blood from some previous injury and it was clearly sticking at a strange angle, so all of her movements were more awkward and less agile. Ari, having experience firmly wrestling patients down and restraining when they got out of hand, was fighting quite furiously, though she lacked technique. However, her determination was admirable. Even with all her injuries from her beating—some of which were leaking fresh blood now—she fought hard. The Winter Soldier grabbed the agent, flipped him around so his back was to the Winter Soldier's chest, and wrapped his cybernetic arm around the man's arms and chest, pinning him against him so he couldn't move. The man struggled furiously, trying to twist and kick him and flip him over his head, but the Winter Soldier tightened his grip, whispered, "You asked for this," into the man's ear—and slit the man's throat with his dagger. Blood immediately leaked out, flowing fast and free, and the man let out a gurgling noise and then fell to the floor limply.
The Winter Soldier turned to see Ari hugging the machine gun tightly like it was a precious newborn baby, clinging to it, and his heart jumped into his throat to see her manhandling the gun so close to her face. The female agent had Ari in a headlock and was desperately trying to simultaneously choke her and grab the gun from her, grunting, "Give it to me, you stubborn skinny little bitch!"
The Winter Soldier punched the female agent in the face. She never even saw it coming and she immediately passed out, slumping to the floor.
"There they are!" someone yelled from down the hall. "Hey—HEY, Garry and Schumacher are down! I need backup here! Stanton, call for backup, now!"
A bullet came at the Winter Soldier and he moved as quick as lighting, grabbing a dusty painting of the wall and whipping it up as a shield while ducking. The glass of the painting exploded as the bullet blew through it and the Winter Soldier ripped out a pistol and shot the man at the end of the hall.
"We're never going to find Steve at this rate!" said Ari as they hurried down the hall. "We're never—oh, Soldier, would you look at that!" She pointed up ahead. "Stairwell. Come on, let's get off this floor before anyone sees us."
They stepped inside the stairwell which wasn't lit with any lights. "This place isn't very well run," Ari remarked as she peered around. "No lights? Really? This is the world-powerful HYDRA?"
"That's how I knew I could punch my way out of the room," said the Winter Soldier as he looked up and down. "I could tell that this building hadn't been used in years. Whatever was left of HYDRA from D.C. relocated here in a hurry and they set up alarms and some traps, but they didn't have time to set up a state-of-the-art security system. In the old facility the glass on the door would have been made of tempered, bullet-proof glass that shocked you if you touched it…" He continued to mumble to himself, unaware that Ari wasn't even listening, as he peered down the stairs and then up the stairs. They both descending and ascended into darkness. He turned to look at Ari, who had been examining a slash on her stomach and wincing. "Which direction?"
"Where is Steve likely to be held?" she asked.
"I was always…held in the basement," he said slowly. He hated the look of sadness that flickered in Ari's eyes at the mention of him being locked in cryo-sleep. It reminded him all too well of what all his torture and abuse had cost Bucky Barnes. His personality. His mental health. His memories. His sense of self. Everything.
"Let's go down," Ari decided.
"We'll be backing ourselves into a corner," said the Winter Soldier matter-of-factly. "You know that, right? If we go down, there'll be less exits."
"We're not leaving Steve, Natasha, or Sam," said Ari firmly and she hurried down the steps as silently as she could so as to not alert anyone she was coming. He hurried after her, silent as a cat as well, wondering if he would find Steve down there. Wondering what he would find down there. What on earth could trap Captain America, Falcon, and Black Widow so quickly? Even he, the Winter Soldier, had struggled to kill them all quickly a few weeks ago, and he was one of the most dangerous men in the world.
They hurried down the flight of stairs which kept twisting at right angles, going down flight after flight after flight… After six flights of stairs, they finally arrived a dinghy, metal door covered with peeling olive green paint. Ari tried the handle and pushed against the door. "It's locked," she said. "Of course it is. Well, Soldier, this is your area of expertise, so…" She stepped aside and gave a funny little bow. "Have at it."
With pleasure, the Winter Soldier thought grimly. He took a step back and then exploded into a high kick, hitting the door so hard its hinges bent and groaned and then door clanged open (though it was too heavy to completely fly off its hinges). The sound was deafening where he and Ari were but they were so deep underground that he doubted if anyone above would have heard anything more than a muffled crash—if they'd even heard that. They were probably looking for him right now and he hoped they'd choose to check all the upper floors first. Rooftops, high areas, and jumping were his specialty, so hopefully they'd choose to believe that he went up instead of down.
They headed into the room and he attempted to reposition the door so it looked shut. After struggling to prop it up normally for a few seconds, he punched the door and straightened out some of the dents and left it leaning against the frame. He turned to see three dark glowing boxes. Ari stood by them, her mouth hanging open, staring down at them with a mixture of horror and awe. Her blue eyes were wide and the bright blue-silvery glow gave them an inhuman glow, as if she were an alien. His heart froze slightly and he walked mechanically over to the boxes. They lay side by side, taller than normal refrigerators and more terrifying than coffins. They had metal sides with glass fronts that revealed everything inside. Natasha lay in one, Steve lay in the one in the middle, and Sam was in the one on the other side. Their arms were crossed mummy style and their eyes were shut, their skin tinged ghostly blue from the blue lighting inside the box. Their skin, eyelashes, hair…everything was covered in ice crystals and the glass was filled with icy vapor swirling around lazily, like dry ice.
"They froze them in cryo," he said hoarsely, remembering the horror and numbness of being frozen in cryo. "I… We have to get them out!" He panicked, grabbing the top of Steve's cryo coffin and got ready to shatter it or shove it off but Ari lunged across the box and grabbed his arm and shrieked, "Soldier, STOP!" He froze and looked at her. Her face was pale and terrified and she quickly said, "I did some research on cryo sleep after you told me they put you in it—you can't just rip someone out of it! They do prep on you to put you into cryo sleep… Droplets in your eyes to glue them shut and retain moisture, serums to slow your heartbeat but keep your circulation going… All sorts of shots and chemicals. If you take someone out of cryo, you need to do it slowly and carefully. If you just yank them out, they'll asphyxiate or they'll die from poor body functioning!"
He slowly backed up from Steve's box and hit Natasha's box with his back, turning to look down at the woman. She looked suddenly so much more innocent and human when she was so vulnerable. Not so mysterious and dangerous. And even though she had annoyed him greatly, he suddenly felt like it was wrong for Natasha to look this vulnerable. It wasn't fair to her, what had been done.
"What do we do?" he whispered.
"Look around for a box—a bag—something that contains the medicines and serums needed to get their bodies going again. I can't switch their boxes off"—she pointed to a panel of switches on the opposite wall—"until I inject them with the chemicals needed to get them functioning at a normal level. Right now the boxes are the only things keeping them alive, I think."
He began pacing around the room, frantically searching every single cabinet and shelf for something, anything, that would help them. There had to be something…HYDRA wouldn't just freeze Captain America without a way to wake him up again… He flung open a cabinet in frustration so roughly that it ripped off its hinges and clattered to the floor. Not caring, he rummaged through the cupboard, shoving aside glass jars and plastic tubes—until he came to a test tube rack labeled DCV. There was another rack right next to it that was filled with tubes and it was labeled CVitals. Could it be that DCV meant…de-cryo vitals? Did that even make any sense? He wasn't a medical expert by any means but he grabbed the DCV rack and headed over to Ari and wordlessly held it out to her. She took it and began inspecting the labels on the syringes inside.
"Yup…yup…yeah…" She looked up at him. "I don't know what some of these are—but some of them I do recognize. This one"—she tapped a tube filled with a clear liquid—"will get your blood sugar levels back up. This one thins your blood if it's too coagulated. Find me clean needles, Soldier. I'm going to need at least…at least sixty. Hurry."
And hurry he did. He ripped open drawers, throwing stuff out of them as quickly as he could, tossing old yellowed papers, notes, a stethoscope, roles of medical tape…all sorts of random junk…over his shoulder before he found an orange box labeled "Needles" and brought it back to Ari.
"Now," she whispered, ripping open one needled, inserting it into the first syringe, "open Natasha's box. We're going to go in order…"
"Why not Steve first?" he demanded.
"Soldier, listen to me," she commanded and her tone was such pure steel that the Winter Soldier was shocked for a moment. He'd never heard her speak in this way before, not even when she'd commanded him to read his files back at the hotel. However, taking a sharp glance at her face, he could detect that she had some sort of underlying reason for doing it this way—so he silently nodded and said, "Tell me what to do next."
Ari was completely in her element, very focused now. "Open Natasha's lid," she said. He looked around at the box and saw a small glowing red button near the foot of it. It wasn't labeled but since there was nothing else, he shrugged, mentally apologized to Natasha if this ended up harming her, and pressed it. They heard a clicking noise and then the glass top of the box began to slide upwards, first revealing Natasha's feet, then her legs, then her torso, and so on. Icy vapor so cold it stung and burned their noses and eyes drifted up from the box and the whole room began to smell like menthol or something of that sort. The Winter Soldier noticed thin needles coming from the sides of the box hooked into Natasha's body from head to toe—but they were inserted half-haphazardly. Someone had done a rush job. He also noticed some dried blood near Natasha's mouth and Ari's mouth tightened. "They didn't do this right," she hissed in horror. "She's—she's going to die if we don't fix this now! Alright, cover me."
And then Ari moved faster than she had ever done in her life. There were twenty syringes and she didn't know where to inject them or how much. The Winter Soldier could see she was in distress but she had a determined expression. She moved quickly, using a new needle for every single syringe—"We don't want to give them a disease," she explained—and began to inject them into Natasha's neck, forearm, wrist, and even some behind the knee (after the Winter Soldier ripped Natasha's clothes open from the knee down with his knife). "I'm injecting these anywhere there's a major pulse," she explained. "Carotid artery and the brachoradial, radial, and popliteal pulses… I hope that should work."
The Winter Soldier suddenly heard shouts that seemed much closer than they had before. And then he heard the clanging noises that meant only one thing—they were coming. "Hurry!" he hissed.
"Last one!" Ari said frantically. She slipped on a new needle and jammed it into Natasha's neck. Then she threw the needle across the room, slammed the needle box shut and slid both the needle box and the test tube rack across the room underneath a table. The Winter Soldier heard the thundering footsteps getting closer—it would only be a few seconds now—and Ari turned and said, "Quick, flip her switch off on that panel! She's…" She quickly ran around the box, frantically inspecting it. "She's C84! Flip that switch off, quick!"
The Winter Soldier searched the panel quickly. There were so many blinking and glowing switches that for a moment he had no idea what he was looking for and his heart rate was increasing as he panicked—but no, there it was. He smacked the switch down and the light for C84 went off. He hurried over to the box to see Ari surreptitiously drop her gun into Natasha's box and stuff it under her body so it was hidden from view. Then she lunged for the glowing red button on the box and slammed it. The box made a clicking noise and the glass cover began to slide shut over the glowing sides—
The shouts and pounding footsteps were right outside the door now and Ari was whispering under her breath, "Come on, come on, come on, come on—" as she watched the glass close—
And then door burst in one second after the glass clicked shut. Agents burst into the room, at least fifteen of them, and they all immediately pointed their guns at both of them. The Winter Soldier didn't even bother trying to fight this time because he knew Ari would get killed in the crossfire. So he slowly held up his hands to show that he was surrendering. Ari did the same.
"Don't move!" one of the HYDRA agents yelled. "Get down on your knees, hands behind your head!"
The Winter Soldier and Ari both slowly knelt. Neither of them dared to exchange a glance at each other, lest they let any information slip. One of the agents walked forward and said, "So you've found your pals, huh? What did you think, that you would be able to free them and save the day?"
The agents hadn't realized that they had already started Natasha on the process of waking up. The Winter Soldier would have preferred to have Steve be the first one to wake up—for emotional reasons as well as practical reasons, considering that Steve was the strongest person here, aside from the Winter Soldier himself—but Natasha was still better than no one. He couldn't stop the small, mirthless smile that spread across his face and one of the agents snapped, "You think this is funny, Soldier?"
The butt of a rifle came cracking down on his head so hard that he fell to his hands and Ari shouted, "Leave him alone!"
"You're next, sweetheart, if you don't shut up," said one of the agents. "Your friend can handle this. Trust me, he's used to this."
Blood trickled down the Winter Soldier's forehead and dripped into his right eye and mouth as he got back on his knees. He roughly wiped the blood away from his mouth, his mouth filled with the taste of coppery salt, and then spat some of the blood at the agent's feet. This got him another smash, this time across the back. Ari groaned and whispered, "Stop antagonizing them!"
"Listen to your friend, Soldier," suggested one of the agents. "She seems smarter than you. You want to live, right? Then shut up. Now—on your feet."
The agents smashed the barrels of their guns into both of their backs and prodded to their feet. The Winter Soldier had to grit his teeth and overcome the urge to bent their guns into L-shaped boomerangs that he would then use to beat their brains out. Ari, he reminded himself. Think of her. And so he obeyed, like he had been taught to, and followed the agents back up the stair case and up another flight of stairs to the second floor. This floor had escaped most of the damage from the first floor, but he still saw a few bullet holes here and there.
The agents led them into a large office with a glass wall that overlooked the forest around them. A man stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring out at the scene. When they walked in, he turned around slowly and smiled. "Ah. I've been waiting for you two." It was the ugly man from the TV screen from before.
Ari snorted. "Could you be any lamer?" she asked. "What, did you just pick up the Cliché Guide to Being a Bad Guy manual at Barnes & Noble and start from chapter one?"
One of the agents started forward with their gun to hit Ari but the man held up his hand and said, "Stand down, Haverson. Let the girl speak her mind. In fact, all of you get out except Mullins and Stafford." The agents filed out of the room and two remained, closing the door and standing with their backs to the wall, staring straight ahead, holding their guns at the ready.
"Let me introduce myself," the man said. "My name is Gavin Hoffman. Director of HYDRA."
The Winter Soldier stared at this Gavin Hoffman with dead eyes and coldly asked, "Where is Alexander Pierce?"
Gavin Hoffman looked surprised. "My dear boy…did you not know? Alexander Pierce is dead."
The Winter Soldier felt like he had been punched in the stomach. The man who had controlled him for so long and had haunted his nightmares for the past few weeks…was dead? By whose hand? And had his death been torturous and painful? The Winter Soldier dearly hoped so.
"Um, unless you're a 100 years old, you really shouldn't be calling him 'boy'," said Ari. "Soldier is like twice your age."
"And yet, mentally, he is lower than the most meager of children," said Gavin Hoffman delicately.
"That's not true!" Ari said angrily. "What the hell would you know?"
"I know everything about him," said Gavin Hoffman mildly. "I've read all his files, read all of Pierce's notes. I know all about how he works, the work he's done for HYDRA. Very admirable, by the way," he said the Winter Soldier, inclining his head in what was supposed to look like a respectful salute. The Winter Soldier wanted to rip his head off. "I know that he's a mindless machine," continued Gavin Hoffman. "I know he feels nothing, understands nothing. He's dangerous, oh yes, he's dangerous. But he's childlike in his thinking. The slightest manipulation can change him. Just look at you. A few days of kindness and he's eating out of your hand. Give him a few days with me and my tools and he'd snap your pretty neck as soon as see you."
"You know nothing," spat Ari. "He does feel. He does think. He's smarter than any of you morons ever gave him credit for. You never erased his memories completely. He's still Bucky Barnes under all this. He—he remembers Steve Rogers and he remembers his old life and he knows everything you've done to him and he hates you for it. I would know, I've actually spent time with him. He's more human than you'll ever be, you sick freak, and I would rather spend the rest of eternity with the Winter Soldier—even the cold-blooded killer one—than another second with a cockroach like you, because at least I know he has something under his exterior!"
"You think you've changed him," Gavin Hoffman said in a quiet voice. "You haven't."
"And you think you own him," whispered Ari. "But you never did." She was breathing heavily with suppressed emotion and anger and her cheeks were bright pink, her eyes glittering with anger, and when she looked over at the Winter Soldier, she was surprised to find him staring at her in shock.
"What?" she said, but he couldn't speak.
Never before had anyone said things like that about him. The emotions which were coursing through him were unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Getting to know Ari…meeting Steve…neither of them compared to this moment. The Winter Soldier had never heard someone speak about him this way, defend him so passionately, and he was horrified to find his eyes were burning. He wanted to sink to his knees and bury his face in his hands and cry. Cry because he had never had someone care about him this way before.
"Ah, so the little lady is in love with the Winter Soldier?" Gavin Hoffman sneered.
"I'm not in love with him," she said quietly. "But I do love him. How could I not? He tries so hard to be human but he doesn't see himself truly for who he is. He's already so human. And that's something I'd never expect someone like you to understand."
"What say you, Soldier?" asked Gavin mockingly. "Did the little lady's speech make you feel human and emotional?"
"I say that if you call her 'little lady' one more time, I'm going to rip your eyes out and make you eat them," said the Winter Soldier. "My only regret is that I didn't get to kill Alexander Pierce myself. But you can do in his place. Do you want that?"
Gavin Hoffman looked furious for one moment, like he wanted to order his agents to shoot both of them on the spot—and then he pasted a forced, smarmy smile on his fleshy face and asked, "Ah…but don't you have some questions for me? Before you kill me, of course. Questions like…how we knew you were coming before you did?" The Winter Soldier and Ari both stiffened and Gavin caught the movements. He grinned a toothy, horrible grin. "Yes, we did, Soldier! We've known from the start that you were coming. Why do you think we haven't sent anyone after you these past few days? We knew you'd deliver yourself to our doorstep, all wrapped up in a beautiful bow."
The Winter Soldier didn't know what to say or think. He could sense Ari as still as a statue next to him and he knew her mind was racing as well. He had a terrible feeling he knew what Gavin Hoffman was about to tell them but he didn't want to say anything out loud in case he was wrong.
"So tell us," he finally said.
Gavin Hoffman smiled widely and he looked positively grotesque as he did it. Perhaps it was a cliché that all villainous characters were ugly, but in this case, it was absolutely true and the Winter Soldier felt a bit ill watching Gavin's face. "Why, it was your dear brother, Aritamis!" he said, holding his arms out wide. Ari's face whitened and her body stilled even further and Gavin Hoffman nodded. "That's right, I know your full name. I know many things about you, Aritamis. At first I only knew you existed, due to being a relative of Alexian's. But I did further research when I realized the Winter Soldier was pathetically hiding out in your house. Straight A student, friendly, reserved, quiet. Never had a real boyfriend. Hospitalized a few times—twice for being in a car accident, three times for sports related injuries…and a few times for mysterious bruises and injuries. You claimed you had fallen down but funny how you always fell when Alexian was near, huh?" Gavin Hoffman and the Winter Soldier felt an intense rush of hatred for the man.
He realized that Ari was trembling and he slowly and carefully put his human hand on her shoulder to steady her. To his surprise, she did stop trembling slightly. Perhaps there was more value in human touch than he'd initially suspected.
"Alexian hacked into our systems years ago," explained Gavin, "but he didn't go undetected. We could have had him eliminated—but we decided he could be useful. So we contacted him and managed to convince him to report to us if we ever need him to hack into a system for us. In return for his services, we allowed him to go about his normal human life and we left the rest of his family alone, as long as none of you ever realized what he was up to. It was a perfect deal. And then imagine my complete and utter shock when Alexian contacts me over a week ago and lets me know that the Winter Soldier is staying with his sister—and is hacking into our databases to get his files! I allowed Alexian to retrieve your files because I knew they were encoded and I knew they would drive you right back into our arms."
"No," said Ari blindly, speaking up for the first time. "Alex is—Alex is a jerk, but he wouldn't sell me out this much, he wouldn't do that—?" Her voice ended on an unsure, questioning note and the Winter Soldier could tell that deep, deep down she knew her brother was a monster but she just didn't want to admit it to herself.
"Sorry to break it to you, Ari," came the voice that Winter Soldier loathed. They both turned slowly to see Alex step through a door in the side of the room. Clearly, he had been waiting for a dramatic entrance because he was smiling in a way that made the Winter Soldier want to shoot an entire round of bullets into his body until he was broken and bleeding. "But yes I can. And I did. So you're just going to have to come to terms with that, little sister."
Ari stood frozen for a moment, her mouth hanging open—and then she threw herself at Alex with a maddened shriek. The Winter Soldier lunged forward and dragged her back and she screamed, "LET ME GO, SOLDIER, SO I CAN BREAK HIS NECK!" She struggled furiously against him and he held her so that she wouldn't injure herself—or him—by all her flailing fists. She was smaller than him but if she jabbed him in the eyes, it would hurt all the same for him. "Let me go!" she screamed at him. When he didn't respond, she screamed at Alex, "YOU BASTARD! I HOPE YOU BURN IN HELL FOR THIS!" The Winter Soldier had never quite seen her lose her mind like this. She was screaming so loudly it sounded like she might rip her throat and tears were suddenly pouring down her face.
"And you haven't even heard the best part yet!" said Gavin Hoffman, sounding delighted at Ari's reaction, who was now weeping silently. The Winter Soldier knew she hated Alex and he had abused her and ruined her life, but he suspected that she'd never thought he could betray her this badly. It must have felt like losing Danika all over again. Ari really was too trusting of a person, because the Winter Soldier hadn't put it past Alex to be a traitor from the first day he had met him. "I'm going to give the Winter Soldier his files and his memories back!"
The Winter Soldier frowned and glared at Gavin Hoffman, not wanting to ask what he meant but his curiosity unavoidably piqued. Gavin Hoffman looked like a cat who knew he had cornered the mouse and was now content to play with it before he ate it. "That's right," he said. "I'll decode your files for you." He held up a black device in his hands. "I'll even return your memories of being Bucky Barnes to you—we have a way to reverse the damage that's been done on your mind. And then you can walk away…or join HYDRA. But all this will only happen on one condition."
"What's that?" the Winter Soldier growled.
Gavin Hoffman gave the slightest of nods to one of the agents in the corner—and then it happened so quickly he couldn't even stop them. Three agents had surrounded him and dragged Ari away, across the room, shoving her in Alex's direction, who caught her by the arm roughly. Ari wiped away her tears and demanded, "What are you doing? Get off me! GET OFF ME!" But no matter how hard she tried to pull away, Alex hung on with a fiendish grip, the skin on his face looking taut like he was a grinning skull. He positioned Ari in such a way that she was standing right opposite of the Winter Soldier. An agent came forward and shoved a gun into his arms. All around the room stood five agents, three pointing their guns at him and two pointing them at Ari for insurance.
"You're going to kill Aritamis Madden," said Gavin Hoffman. "Do we have a deal? Refuse and not only will I destroy the decoder, I'll destroy any access the devices that can return your memories. And I'll have your memories wiped again and I'll have Miss Ari Madden killed anyway. So it seems like there's only one logical choice here…but again, it's up to you, Soldier."
Note: Sooo…there it is! I'd intended for it to be this huge plot twist but you clever things caught onto it almost right away. Oh well, I'd had the idea from the start, so I guess that's all that matters, right? Haha. Thanks if you've managed to stick around so far! I promise I won't drag this story on for ages. We're past the halfway point by now, I think, so stick around with me till the end and let me know what you think!