Rewritten 2018

Make You Feel My Love ~Book II~

Disclaimer: I do not own The Winter Soldier movie! All rights go to Marvel. All I own is my own characters and their stories.

~Chapter 22~
Together

Artur's hands held a tight grip on Maria's upper arms as he waited until Steve, Natasha and Sam had been secured in the truck before pushing her forwards. She nearly tripped as she climbed up into the truck, Artur continuing to push her forwards as if he was afraid she'd get away even with the massive amount of armed soldiers around them. He placed her next to Steve, double-checking the handcuffs before he straightened his back.

Maria glared up at him as he lingered there, looking at her with a strange mix of feelings in his eyes. She could read regret coming off of him, yet she didn't understand why. Yes, he seemed to not want to hurt her, yet at the same time, he was working for Hydra now. If he truly didn't want to hurt her, he would never have agreed to work with them again in the first place.

With a sigh, Artur turned away and jumped out of the truck, closing the doors as he did.

"Jerk…" mumbled Maria under her breath, fumbling a little with the handcuffs before she gave up, leaning her head against the cool side of the truck.

Her eyes scanned her surroundings. There were two soldiers placed inside with them, yet they barely moved. For all Maria knew, they could be robots or dolls placed there only to scare them into not trying to escape. The helmets they wore shielded their faces and so, she couldn't see who they were nor if they were indeed real soldiers. Though she pushed the stupid thoughts about robots and dolls away from her mind, realizing how crazy they sounded shortly after they had appeared.

Because thoughts of androids and robots were too much, but an enhanced man who should be dead walking around killing people was not… Maria's new world was crazy.

Worry latched itself onto Maria even though she didn't show it on the outside. Most likely, they were going to be taken back to SHIELD's headquarters which now, unofficially, was Hydra's base as well. It would mean that no one would be able to stop the helicarriers from lifting, meaning that millions of people would die. Not only that, but who knew what Hydra would do to them once they were there? Torture?

Steve - who was sitting next to her cuffed in some pretty heavy handcuffs and metal cuffs around his chest to make it impossible for the super soldier to get out - was looking down at his lap. As the truck moved over the road, his head bobbed slightly up and down from the movement of the truck. Maria could deduce, from the strange look on his face, that he was deep in thought. She imagined she knew about what… if it had been her who had seen a long lost friend thought to be dead suddenly pointing a gun at her, she would be deep in thought as well.

Slowly, she diverted her gaze to Sam and Natasha who were sitting opposite of her, cuffed with normal handcuffs like Maria herself.

Natasha looked awful. She had been shot through the shoulder by the Winter Soldier and Maria could see it was bleeding heavily. Her face was getting paler and paler by the minute and she looked tired. Sam saw the same thing as Maria and kept on giving her worried glances. It wasn't until Natasha leaned her head against the side of the truck, letting out a groan, that Sam shifted to get a better look on her wound.

One of the soldiers suddenly pointed his weapon at Sam, clearly not enjoying the fact that Sam was moving. Maria rolled her eyes at the soldier; "He's checking her wound. Nothing more."

Sam nodded his head at the soldier who slowly relaxed again.

"This is bad…" murmured Sam, earning a look from Natasha.

"This whole situation is bad," mumbled Natasha.

At Steve's absent look, Maria brushed her shoulder against Steve's, earning his attention.

"What's up?" she asked quietly.

"It was him," he said simply, earning a confused look. "Bucky. We were friends back in the days…"

"Really?" asked Sam, frowning.

Steve had been iced for the past seventy years which was the reason for why he had survived. Not only that, but the super soldier serum in his blood had caused him to stay alive for that long too. Bucky had neither of that and even if he had lived for seventy years, he would've been an old man and not an assassin with the face of a man in his late twenties.

Maria recognized Bucky and believed Steve, but there was something else that was wrong. How could Bucky be alive?

"I know what you're all thinking," said Steve, commenting on the silence that had followed his previous sentence. "It was him… And he looked right at me like he didn't even know me."

"How is that even possible?" asked Sam, shaking his head slightly as he let Natasha's wound be for a while. "It was like, seventy years ago."

"Zola… Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43 and Zola experimented on him," said Steve, once again looking down at his hands. "Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall."

"The fall?" asked Maria quietly, not sure whether or not the subject was too emotional for him to want to talk about or not.

"He died before I managed to stop the Red Skull… He… fell," said Steve, a frown appearing on his face which made Maria regret having asked. "They must have found him and-"

"None of that is your fault," breathed Natasha, having seen the familiar look on Steve's face just as Maria had.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky," said Steve quietly, Maria's heart sinking slightly at the pained tone in his voice.

Slowly, Maria moved her cuffed hands onto Steve's arm, earning a look from him. She didn't smile nor did she show any other emotion. All she wanted him to know was that she was there for him. He nodded his head in response before their attention was drawn back to Sam.

"We need to get a doctor here," said Sam, directing his statement to the soldiers in the truck. "If we don't put pressure on that wound, she's gonna bleed out here in the truck."

The soldiers reacted only by pointing their weapons at Sam. Maria once again glared at the soldiers, prepared to kick them even though she knew she'd get shot if she did. Though, something else happened. The soldier to the left suddenly thrust the back of his gun against the other soldier's head, knocking him out in the progress. The four heroes all raised their eyebrows, watching as the soldier removed his helmet.

"Hill!" exclaimed Maria at the sight of Maria Hill revealing herself. Sweaty but still with a bad-ass confidence around her, Hill let out a relieved sigh.

"Ah, that thing was squeezing my brain."

Relief flooded through Maria's body as she realized that they weren't going to Hydra's base anymore. With Hill there, uncuffed and probably with a set of keys and a plan to bust them out, they were saved.

"She with you?" asked Sam, making Hill look at him.

"Who's this guy?" asked Hill, perplexed.

"Sam, meet Maria Hill from SHIELD. Maria, meet Sam Wilson. Former pararescuer," introduced Steve, nodding at the two of them.

"Nice meeting you," greeted Sam, tilting his head to the side before glancing over at Steve. "Are all women you work with beautiful?"

"Really? Now?" asked Maria with a roll of her eyes, sharing a look with Hill.

Sam shrugged. "Never a bad moment to compliment a lady."

"Stop it," scolded Steve, his voice sounded amused nevertheless.

"I'm guessing you're here to ensure we don't end up going to Hydra's base?"

"Oh, they're not taking you to any base. They're taking you to a solitude place to end you," said Hill, growing serious again. Maria raised her eyebrows, surprised that Hydra wasn't even going to bring them to their base to question them. Apparently, all they wanted was for them to be out of the way. "So, once we arrive, we're going to have to be quick."

"How? And where will we go once we're out?" asked Sam, Hill turning to the unconscious soldier.

"Don't worry, we've got a plan," ensured Hill, her hands quickly searching the soldier for something and as she found it, she smiled widely and pulled out a set of keys. "Here we go," she said before un-cuffing Maria's hands.

Soon, all four heroes were free from their handcuffs, Steve being able to move freely again. In Hill's hands, a strange mechanism was resting, resembling a small rod. However, Maria doubted that it was just a simple rod...

Artur pressed his foot on the brake as the car before him came to a stop. They had arrived at the location where Artur was going to have to shoot Maria. His hands held a tight grip on the steering wheel and as Rumlow exited the car in front of him, gesturing for him to get out as well, Artur had to nearly pry his own fingers off. With tense movements and a heavy heart, Artur slammed the car door shut behind him, praying to some higher force that Maria and her friends had managed to get away.

They were Avengers. They always got away… right?

"Three graves. Start digging," said Rumlow to a pair of soldiers who nodded and walked off, shovels in their hands.

"This is it," said Rumlow, glancing back at Artur who reluctantly was following him to the van in which Captain America, Maria and their friends were being kept. "This is your time to show us where you stand. Behind us, or behind them."

With a gesture towards the two soldiers standing at the van, he ordered them to open it. While they did that, Rumlow took out a pistol and handed it to Artur.

"Specially made for little Dalton," said Rumlow as Artur hesitantly took the pistol, inspecting it.

Its small size made it fit in his hand perfectly and as he held it up in front of him, the light weight of it made it easy to aim. As he double-checked the ammo, he noticed that it was loaded with the familiar purple bullets.

"Sir!" exclaimed a voice from the backside of the van, causing both Artur and Rumlow to run over to him.

"Impossible!" exclaimed Rumlow angrily, punching the side of the van.

Much to Artur's delight, the van was empty. Left was only a hole in the bottom of the van that reached even down far into the earth below the van. Both Steve, Maria, Sam and Natasha were gone and he had to bite his lip in order to refrain from smirking. He placed his new pistol into an empty holster on his leg before crossing his arms over his chest, immediately seeing the amateur job Rumlow was doing as a leader.

"There were two soldiers in there, right?" asked Artur, earning the attention from Rumlow. "One's gone. They got help from inside."

"That's not possible. These are all my men," said Rumlow angrily, taking a step towards Artur.

"Did you double check before you left? You always double check before you leave," mocked Artur, enjoying the fact that Maria was safe and far away from him where she'd be safe; and enjoying the fact that this was Rumlow's fault.

Rumlow's face suddenly grew dark and he stepped closer to Artur, placing his face near his, invading Artur's personal space and at the same time managing to intimidate him. Artur's smugness disappeared, and he looked away from Rumlow, knowing he'd gone too far.

"Mission's not over, Kuznetsov," he said through gritted teeth. "If they're still out there, they'll be found and killed soon. And I will personally make sure that little Dalton is kept safe until you're ready to shoot her."

Artur watched Rumlow walk off, his eyes on the hole. A part of him was relieved that she was okay, but the other part of him knew that her escape meant his own suffering would go on.

Why had he ever decided to side with Dalton?

"This is… disgusting," mumbled Maria, a hand covering her nose and mouth.

"At least we're not getting executed," said Sam, giving her a pointed look to which Maria pouted.

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," she shot back, grimacing as she once again stepped into something lumpy and squishy, the sound making her stomach turn.

They were walking through the sewers after having jumped down the hole Hill had dug – or rather 'lasered' - for them once the car had stopped. The rod in her hands had been a sort of laser with which Hill had managed to dig the deep hole in under a minute. Now, their shoes were getting wet from the strange goo that existed on the ground and all around them, disgusting fumes could be smelled, causing the five of them to cover their noses as best as possible.

Poor Steve with his enhanced sense of smell was starting to look a little green.

In front of Maria, Natasha was walking with weak steps. The jump down had hurt her wounded shoulder quite a lot and although they had wanted to get away from the opening, Natasha had needed a minute to recover before they could start moving. Luckily, Hydra's soldiers hadn't decided to follow them.

"You should be happy it hasn't rained in a while," said Hill, making Maria frown and shiver. "The goo would've been up to our shoulders then."

At the end of the tunnel, there was a metal ladder. Hill stopped in front of it before she started to climb up, opening the maintenance panel that existed at the top with ease before gesturing to the rest to follow behind her.

"Can you climb?" asked Steve as Natasha was the first to go.

She glanced at him, simply nodding her head as she grabbed the ladder, frowning at the pain in her shoulder before sucking in a deep breath as she started to climb. Maria cringed at the pain Natasha must've felt and she wished she somehow could transfer her healing abilities to Natasha temporarily. Though it didn't work like that. In fact, Maria didn't even know how it worked at all.

Sam was the next one to climb the ladder, following slowly behind Natasha and watching her every move, ready to grab her should she lose her grip.

"You lost a lot of blood," said Steve suddenly, causing Maria to look over at him.

"Yeah. But I'm fine now," ensured Maria, offering him a smile.

"I know. But… You lost a lot of blood."

Maria nodded her head, understanding what he was saying; "The bullets. They hindered the wound from healing."

"What bullets?" asked Steve, furrowing his brow.

"I don't know. I brought one with me for Stark to analyze," said Maria before sighing. "It might mean that Hydra knows something I don't know."

Steve stayed silent, instead walking over to her and wrapping an arm around her waist, gently pushing her against him in a warm hug. Above them, Hill and Sam were helping Natasha through the opening still and Maria let her arms wrap around him, seeing as they had the time.

"Whatever it means," hummed Steve, his chin resting on top of her head; "we'll figure it out."

"As we will with Bucky," added Maria, gently moving backwards and looking up at him with sympathetic eyes. "Together."

"Together," he said with a nod before he placed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Okay, next!" called Hill from the topside, causing Maria and Steve to look up.

"Come on," urged Steve, letting go of Maria and gesturing for her to start climbing.

Before she did, though, she placed a gentle kiss to his cheek, causing him to smile.