Bucky

Bucky had spent the next hour checking the utensils on the Quinjet and he was at the very back of the Quinjet looking at the small armory. Bucky was standing near a crate and he opened it and he lifted the hatch. There was pistols and rifles lying in it. Bucky slightly cocked an eyebrow and he grabbed one of the pistols. He looked at it and he lightly gave a sound of approval. He unclipped the mag and he saw that it had ammo in it. He nodded and he slammed the clip back in and cocked the pistol and he put it in his holster on his right thigh. Bucky walked to the left leaving the crate open and he found a smaller box. He unclipped the locks and he opened it and there were seven knives inside. Bucky smiled and he grabbed one and he flipped it around in his hand. He grabbed another one just like it and he put them both into the two knife sheaths on his lower back.

Bucky grabbed another one and he put it in his boot and he tucked it in nicely and he lightly tapped the boot and the knife slightly shifted and it made it more comfortable. Bucky turned as he saw three grenades and he took them and hooked them onto his belt. He turned to see Clint standing there looking at him.

"You're pretty armed" Clint said

"I'm confident that we can get Niko, just I am not going to underestimate him." Bucky said and he grabbed another knife and slipped it into a secret holding socket in his sleeve.

"What is your history with this guy?" Clint asked already knowing the dimmed down version.

"I trained him, if you can believe it" Bucky said and he closed the smaller box

Clint shifted slightly and he crossed his arms "You trained Natasha to" Clint said more than asked

"Yes, I did. I helped her with the no emotion thing" Bucky said grabbing another pistol and putting it on his ankle.

"You made her what she was?" Clint asked

Bucky paused and he exhaled and he felt the guilt starting to spill into his thoughts.

"Yes"

"I don't know if I should shoot you or thank you" Clint said

"I would go with shoot" Bucky said bluntly

"Yet without your training she probably wouldn't have survived as long as she has" Clint said

"Yeah, but she should have had a normal life" Bucky said his voice low

"Not everyone is given that choice" Clint said

"I know" Bucky said thinking back to him and Steve. He inhaled unsettled, and he turned around and he opened another crate.

"She told me what happened in Red Room" Clint said

Bucky froze and he had his hand on the hatch and he lightly let it go and his real hand was shaking slightly.

"And?"

"She honestly can't remember that much" Clint said

Bucky chuckled and he looked at Clint. Clint frowned at him, and why was he laughing?

"She remembers it all, she has just suppressed the memories" Bucky said and he slightly shuttered

"So everything that she has told me is just a small glimpse of what happen back then?" Clint asked

"Yeah, sadly" Bucky said

"Damn" Clint said looking at the floor, what Natasha told him about Red Room gave him nightmares and he could see in her eyes that it was horrific, but to learn that it was even worse, was… sobering.

"Yeah, I wish that I never woke up" Bucky said

Clint looked at him and slightly cocked his head in confusion.

"Woke up from what?"

Bucky hesitated and he lightly nodded and he exhaled "From falling" Bucky said and he slammed the crate's hatch down

"You fell into a deep ravine right" Clint said

"Yeah, and that would be how I lost this" Bucky said confirming Clint's statement and he held his biotic arm up.

"What happened?"

"A rock crushed my arm, after I had already shattered the bones, it was basically being held together by muscle and flesh. The rock just tore it off"

"So why is Niko doing this, besides the fact that he is a complete psychopath?"

"They deemed him a failed experiment, the tests and the experimentations on him made him unstable. Basically, it drove him crazy and then he had violent tendencies"

"That would be why they couldn't control him" Clint said

Bucky nodded in confirmation.

"I gave the advice to kill him, put him out of his misery, but Professor Grigor Chelintsov thought that it would be better to put him on ice and see if advancement in technology could help them control him in the future"

"I'm going to guess it didn't"

"No, actually putting him in ice against his will actually made him crazier, there became this story between the guards that there was this howling spirit in the basement. As it turned out was that Niko was frozen, but he was still awake and screaming"

"How was that possible?"

"Something they did you him made it so that he couldn't be put into cryo and fall asleep"

"How long did they keep him in cryo?"

"About seventy years" Bucky said plainly

"No wonder why he's hell bent on killing you, you could have stopped it all, and by that he meant killing him"

"Yeah" Bucky said and he cleared his throat uncomfortably "So do you want any more information on Red Room?"

Clint looked behind him and he looked back at Bucky "No, I think Red Room should just stay in the past, the things that went down back then aren't important now. The only thing left of Red Room are its sins"

Bucky nodded and chuckled nervously "There sins, are my sins" Bucky said

"Well, then Red Room will always be around" Clint said

"What if they weren't?" Bucky asked Clint as he began to walk away

"Then the world would be a little less frightening"

"We don't have the luxury for such a world" Bucky said

"No, but we can move past it" Clint said walking away.

Bucky was alone in the back of the Quinjet and he stood silently and he felt the sudden loneliness that was deep in his heart. He felt it whenever he was alone, which was most of the time. What would the world be like without Red Room? Bucky had to guess everyone who knew about it would have asked that question. The world would be a little less frightening, yet it would also be a little less defended. For all the horrors Red Room made, one had made it out and found what little light it could. Natasha was the one thing that made it out of that hell hole. Bucky wasn't a product of Red Room, he was a product of Hydra, which had an alliance with Red Room, nothing more. He had a hand in making the Black Widow, and it would always haunt him, but he can find some peace in that the girl he had trained so many years ago could be on the Avengers and saving the world. He felt proud of her in a way. Now Niko had taken her away and he was going to ruin all the good that she had done. Bucky saw in the short time he had talked to Steve what she had done for him, he almost seemed like himself, yet there was always that guilt of what could have been that always haunted Steve like a shadow. Bucky didn't know if he would ever get rid of it, everyone has their demons. Either guilt, regret, anger, fear, or even helplessness. They were always going to be there and always lurking around in the shadows, but Bucky thought that maybe, just maybe that they were there to help people along to discover themselves. It was a cruel way of doing it, but it always made it worth it, to look back on a life and see the good the bad, and how someone got out of the bad, it is truly inspiring to see how people would push through dark times, just to see the light; even if it was only for a short while and then to be thrusted back into the darkness. To wage battle again, either with themselves or others.

Bucky knew that they were in the deepest pit imaginable, but maybe they could see the light, even if it was for a few minutes.

Steve

Steve was caught up in another blizzard and he was covered in snow. He had his hand in front of his face so he could keep the snow from getting into his eyes. Steve was in snow that was to his knees and he was starting to get cold. Steve wasn't going to stop though, he didn't dare get the thought in his head about stopping. He had a goal and he would die for that goal to be accomplished. Steve grunted a she lifted his right foot out of the snow and he sunk it back down into the white. He could feel his muscles starting to burn. Steve could see a small outpost in the distance. He would cause some trouble there and he would get arrested, and if he was lucky it would be Niko's men and they would take him to the Gulag, if not he could end up in a prison in Moscow.

Steve knew the risk and he was willing to take it, if it meant saving Natasha. Steve would do it a thousand times. He felt the snow start to cut his cheeks and he pulled the collar of the coat close to his face and covered his cheeks. Well at least he looked nothing like Captain America, or Steve Rogers even. He had a beard and his hair was sweaty and flattened. He actually looked like an escaped prisoner. The blitz plan that he thought up could actually work. He also had to talk the part that would mean Russian accent. He remembered one of the first missions that Natasha and he was assigned. They had to be weapon smugglers from Russia. It was a grueling weekend learning Russian from Natasha, but in the end he could now speak Russian, and also sell an accent. Again, if it wasn't for Natasha he wouldn't have made it this far. Steve was determined enough to walk through a blizzard to find her, and he would go through hell to find her if he needed to. Just this one was a frozen hell, Russia really was hell, if it was in a constant winter. He was getting closer to the outpost and he noticed a large assault vehicle driving across a street. Steve paused and he knew those had to be Niko's men. Regular Russians probably would have assault vehicles in a small outpost, especially this far out into the wild. Yet again that was just a theory.

Steve increased his speed and he ran through the snow. He felt the ice cold air travel down his throat to his lungs and it made them burn. Steve grunted and he got past a soldier who was looking in his direction. Steve slowed and he leaned against the side of a building. He stayed as close as he could and he glanced over at the soldier staring out in the direction he had just came from. Steve was lucky that the blizzard had picked up and the snow was quickly filling in his tracks. Steve steadied his breathing and he took a step and he saw the soldier turn his back. Steve saw it as his chance and he quickly snuck over to the small building the man was in. Steve knelt down and he was out of sight.

He knew that the man would come back around and he just had to wait for it. The wind was howling, Steve was hoping it would make the sound of anything harder to hear. Steve kept his eyes on the glass right above his head. He saw a man walk up to the window and he had a fur hat on. Steve inhaled and he closed his eyes and then he popped up. He sent his hand through the glass and he grabbed the man by the throat and pulled him out of the window. The man fell face first into the snow and he struggled and turned over. Steve grabbed him and quickly hit him twice in the face, knocking him out. Steve let go of the man's collar and he looked around and he didn't see anyone. He stood up and he climbed in through the window. He planted his feet firmly on the floor.

Snow fell off of him and it was creating a large puddle under him. He took a step, careful not to make his boots squeak against the floor. He slowly crept around a corner and now he was on carpet. Steve was inside the outpost, but he still needed to get into the Gulag, that would mean not be Captain America and screw up a move. Steve readied himself and he let his last step on the uncarpeted floor squeak loudly. Steve heard mean in doors suddenly stop and become curious and open the doors of their rooms. Steve saw one take a step and he quickly hit the man in the throat and he grabbed his face and brought him down to the floor. He knocked the man's head against the wall knocking him out and making a loud thump.

Steve saw seven men come out all at once. He calculated that a normal person could take out two or three before going down. That meant he had three men to take down, then get caught. Steve saw one come at him and Steve hit him in the ribs and then brought his knee up and hit him in the jaw, sending him back. He fell against his door and the door slammed shut and the man tumbled to the floor. If the first mistake didn't get enough attention, that one did. Steve ducked under a punch and he jabbed the man in the ribs and then hit him in the throat. He was trying not to do anything to fancy. If he did, it would become clear that he was a good fighter. He just had to make normal moved that someone may know.

Steve dodged another hit and he quickly turned and he brought his foot down on the man's toes and he felt them break under his force and he brought the back of his head back as the man leaned forward in pain and their skulls made contact. Steve broke the man's nose and sent him to the ground groaning. Steve saw a man with a stun baton and he knew what to do. Steve swung at the man missing on purpose, and the man sent the stun baton into Steve's ribs and normally it would have taken a lot more than one simple shock to stop him he dropped to the floor like a normal person would have. He lightly shook as he lied on the floor to sell the shocking and the muscle spasms he had seen plenty of times from Natasha's Widow Bite. The men gathered around him and Steve stopped the spasms and he kept his eyes closed, but he was still conscious, the point was to make it look like they took him out.

One of the men laughed and he patted another's shoulder.

"You got him" the man said in Russian

"Take him to Niko, we have another prisoner for him. Tell him that we found a dog trying to escape" the man ordered in Russian

Steve felt hands grab him and pull him up and drag him around a corner. Steve's face was toward the floor and if the men had looked at him a little closer, they would have seen the small smirk on his face.