Bucky
Bucky could feel the sweat running down his back as he hung onto a huge branch attached to a tree. Bucky kept his breathing slow and subtle. He had been to this place before, about twenty years earlier, but he hadn't aged at all. He noticed his target and he saw a young man, had to be around Bucky's own age. He watched him closely as he walked along the trail. He moved his metal hand and gripped tightly another area on the branch and he pulled himself up higher.
Bucky reached to his right and grabbed a coinciding branch and he pulled himself up to a perch. He inhaled and pulled a rifle from his back and removed the strap around his shoulder and he set the rifle against a split branch, about at shoulder height for him. He checked to see if the rifle was still operational and once he knew it was he took in a few deep breaths. He moved his eye behind the scope and his sight was greatly enhanced. He could see the young man walking calmly. He followed him with the crosshairs and he had it aimed at his head.
Bucky wasn't in the best of places to be, it had rained an hour before and he was in a tree with wet wood and it was also covered in moss in certain areas. He had to be careful with his footing, or he would plummet down and land in the brush, and most likely kill himself. He checked his footing and he knew he was stable and he kept his focus on the young man. He saw him sit down on a rock and Bucky knew that this was his chance for e clean shot with the highest variability of a kill.
Bucky aimed more closely and he steadied his breathing, he took a breath and exhaled and he squeezed the trigger. He felt the rifle fire and he saw a flash of black in the scope and Bucky blinked and the rifle was thrown upward and the bullet flew into the air. Bucky dropped the rifle and he looked for what happened. He looked around he didn't see anyone. He closed his eyes and he didn't breathe and he heard someone climbing above him, they climbed almost feline like. He looked up and a man cladded all in black dropped down and hit him.
Bucky fell and he landed on one of the huge branches and he groaned and he stood up, keeping himself balanced. Bucky saw the man land in front of him and he had a skin tight black suit. He had a full mask that cover his whole head, including his mouth. The sides of the helmet had two small ears, almost cat like and he had yellow eyes and he had silver claws. Bucky noticed that he had an engraved necklace with panther claws. He took a deep breath and he saw him take a step forward.
Bucky ran forward and he dodged a slash from the man and he kicked him into the huge trunk, the man countered by lunging at him and grabbing him and threw him across the long branch, Bucky slid on his back and flipped and landed on his stomach. He pushed himself up and he pulled out a pistol and aimed and fired at the man. The man dove off the branch and he disappeared from his view and he looked around and he felt a hand grab his ankle and pulled him down. Bucky slid off the branch and he saw the man and fired and grazed him across the arm.
The man pulled him close and kicked him down and he hit more branches snapping through one of them. He hit the branch hard and he felt the air extinguish from his lungs and he struggled to breathe and he looked up and the man lunged down and landed on him. Bucky put his hands up and caught the man by the wrist and forearm and he kept the silver claws from his face. The man growled and he sounded like a panther and his eyes glowed more and his strength seemed to increase and the silver claws came closer to Bucky's face. He felt his muscles straining in his right arm. Bucky knew that he was going to give soon. He leaned to the right and let go of the man and he moved to him right and he almost fell and his claws sank into Bucky's metal arm.
Bucky grunted and he grabbed the man's left hand and pulled it out of his arm and he switched to his left and he pulled him up and he punched the man in the face. Bucky pulled out a knife and he stabbed the man in the shoulder and the blade bent and snapped. Bucky frowned and he dropped the man. He looked down and the man hit a branch and landed on the forest floor. Bucky stood up and he looked down at the man as he looked up at him.
Bucky looked at his metal arm and it was badly damaged. He looked back down and the man was gone. He looked around, listening for him to show himself, but nothing happened. Bucky took a step and he heard the growl and he turned and he saw the man lunging toward him with the silver claws coming first and then he hit him.
Bucky gasped and he opened his eyes and sat up quickly. He was breathing heavily, he was sweating lightly and he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked to his left and Hill was lying there. She was frowning in curiosity, Bucky took a deep breath and Hill sat up and she put her arms around him.
"What is it?" she asked softly
"Nothing, just a dream" Bucky said not looking at her
"You sure?"
"No" Bucky said honestly
"Could it have been a memory?"
"Yes, but it's hard trying to figure out a dream from a memory"
"What was it about?"
"I was fighting a man in all black, he seemed almost cat like, looked like a panther"
"I haven't heard of anyone like that"
"I keep seeing this word, Waknda… waknada… uh Wakanda" Bucky said struggling to remember"
"Isn't that the place that has the metal that Steve's shield is made out of"
"Yeah, pretty sure that's what it is" Bucky said
"So you had a mission in Wakanda while you were with Hydra?"
"I guess so, but this was years after my first time there. The first time I shot a very noble man, and this time it was just a random young man"
"Well time will tell what happened"
"Yeah, but it sucks" Bucky said rubbing his face and feeling a soft painful pulse in his head
"Can you go back to sleep?" Hill asked
"What time is it?" Bucky asked
Hill grabbed her phone and looked at it "5:56 am" she stated
"I might as well get up, we have work to do"
"Work?"
"Yeah we are finding that scepter and then I'm going to take Niko down" Bucky said
"Ok, I'll get dressed" Hill said and she climbed out of the bed
Bucky watched her as she got dressed, he moved his legs to the edge of the bed and he set his feet onto the floor. He stretched his right arm and he let out a soft groan and stood. He looked at Hill and he grabbed his clean boxers from a small corner that just happened to be his. He slipped them on and he grabbed his other clothes and put them on.
He walked out of the room fully dressed, he found Hill sitting on the couch. He walked over and plopped down next to her. He reached and grabbed the file he was looking at before he had his episode. He flipped through some of the pages till he came to the pictures; this was where he had his episode. He glanced over at Hill, he was afraid to continue if it meant that he would have another episode and almost kill her, again.
Bucky took a deep breath and continued. He frowned at a few of the pictures, the ones that showed a castle on a hill with a small villa below it, not to mention a huge amount of woods before the huge hill. He had a funny feeling that he had been there before, and by his episode he knew that he had been there, but it wasn't as a Hydra agent. It happened when he was still being on loan to Red Room. He knew that Hydra and Red Room often shared compounds, he guessed it threw off the other Intel organizations such as the C.I.A. and M.I.6. He made a soft grunt; which he didn't notice that he had made. Hill glanced over, looking at his file from a distance.
"You got anything?" she asked
"Maybe" Bucky said clearly only paying half his attention to her.
"Care to share?" she said putting her file down
Bucky looked at her and he lightly smirked "Yeah, sorry"
Bucky gave her the file and he explained what he had found.
"As you can see the writing is just a bunch of weird righting of certain equations, it is actually a fake clue. See it is a much unknown way of throwing someone off, it was used by one man: Prof. Grigor Chelintsov. He was the leading man in brainwashing back in the day. You can thank him for my current situation. Anyway see by his way of confusing someone in the beginning of the file, it means something is in it that had value, but if you didn't know you would just dismiss the file altogether"
"Yeah, I looked at it four times, but just saw it as gibberish and moved on" Hill said
"It is risky, but it works. Now if you just move on through it, when you get to the pictures; that is the key. The writing is just for show, the pictures tell you everything. The castle on the hill is the base, Hydra and Red Room used to share compounds, one would leave the other would move in. They would do this ever so often to throw off other Intelligence Organizations"
"So are you saying that this could be a likely place for the scepter?"
"Maybe, it was used by Hydra to store artifacts, Red Skull used it temporary to smuggle the tesseract into Germany. So Struker may have seen this as the best defensive situation, not to mention this place houses some serious gear"
"How serious?"
"Let's say enough arsenal to destroy our world governments serious"
Hill's eyes widened and she nodded "Yeah that's serious"
"Now I have been here before, but the area has probably changed very much from around sixty years ago. Now that doesn't mean that it was scrapped from Hydra's possible bases; I have a feeling this is an active base, now if the scepter is there, I don't know"
"Well it's something, I was coming up with nothing. I will have Fury work on getting some recon on the place and see if we can find Struker there"
"Ok, now how long will that take?" Bucky asked
"With our limited resources…"
"Don't we have Stark?"
"Yeah, but for hard Intel recon military style, he is no help"
"Yeah I can see that"
"It will take few months"
"Few months, huh. Well I have all the time in the world. I'm just waiting for an update from Gerald"
"How well do you know him?"
"Very well, don't worry he won't turn against me"
"No, do you think he has enough men to help out with the recon?"
"I don't know, but he should" Bucky said sitting up in alert and he looked through the mess of papers and he found the I-pad.
He looked through contacts and tapped Gerald's name and the screen went black and it showed a bell in the center. They both sat there for a few seconds then the screen flashed and Gerald appeared on the screen and he was drinking alcohol as usual.
"Barnes my boy, what is it you need. I already have half my men looking into your problem. Don't tell me you are bored."
"I'm not bored Gerald, I actually need something"
"More my boy, aren't I doing enough"
"Yes, but I was wondering if you could help out with recon on a Hydra base"
"Recon on Hydra base, why would I do such a thing"
"I'll let you talk to my lady friend" Bucky said noticing the weird glare from Hill, he handed the I-pad to Hill
"Hi" Hill said
"Hello, well you are a beauty. You sure you're not the hired help?"
"She is not a whore Gerald" Bucky said embarrassed
"I know, she doesn't look it, now what is your name?"
"Maria" Hill said
"Beautiful name, I knew a Maria once; man was she flexible"
"Gerald!" Bucky said
"Sorry, well I will say that you have out done yourself my boy, what is it that you do?"
"I can't talk about it"
"Or you have to kill me that is exactly what Barnes said to me when we first met"
"Really?"
"Yeah, he can be an incredible pain in the ass"
"Gerald stop it" Bucky said
"Alright" He said chuckling "I can do what you ask, but only because I got to meet Maria"
"You are too kind" Hill said
"I hope not too kind, my reputation would be ruined"
"Yes Gerald you and that ever growing reputation of yours" Bucky said
"Reputation is all a man has you little shit" Gerald said smiling
"Yes Gerald" Bucky said
"If that I all good bye, oh and maybe sometime you both could swing by the bar and we could have a drink in person"
"I'm in" Hill said
"I look forward to it" Gerald said and he disconnected
Hill put the I-pad down and she noticed Bucky's stare "What?"
"Nothing" Bucky said
"Was that supposed to end badly?"
"No, just you really want to go?"
"Yeah, I like him."
"One conversation and you already like him"
"I see that he is a little unorthodox, but he seems fun"
"Yeah he's loads of fun, oh fun fact do not get into a drinking contest with him he will drink you under the table"
"Now he really sounds fun" Hill said
"Ok after we both get our main problems out of the way, we will go"
"Promise?" Hill asked
"Promise?" Bucky shook his head slowly "Well let's get this recon underway"