It Really Is So Great To Read Back My Own Fics And Be Like Hey, That Was Pretty Good Actually. I Always

it really is so great to read back my own fics and be like hey, that was pretty good actually. I always forget about that, and instead feel like "oh shit they probably all suck so much it's unreal, dying of embarrassement bye" and then when I do brave reading one after a while, it's always a good time! sure there's mistakes and some choices you'd change but the main point is still there

I think the lesson here is that you really are better than you think you are, and also if you can bring yourself joy with your creations then that's the best thing ever

i don't wanna live forever (3)

summary: you found your goal, but the path to truth was more complicated than it seemed

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

words: +4k

warnings: descriptions of wounds and blood, people getting stabbed, bad narrating of action scenes (sorry it's not my forte), bad words, english is not my first language, so sorry for any mistake!

note: hi guys! thank u all for the support in this fic! we're getting closer to the imminent reunion between these three! captain america and the winter soldier starting next chapter! i'll try to post next part as soon as i can. love u all and thank you for the notes! <3

part 1 ; part 2 ; part 4

The days in Siberia were cold, but not as cold as that night as you returned home.

All the crumbs you had been able to collect from the mysterious culprits behind the death of Tony's parents had taken you to Siberia. From the moment you stepped out the door of the plane a sense of uneasiness was stamped on your body, having to look behind you every few moments to make sure you weren't being followed. Even if they were following you, you were sure it would be very difficult for you to spot them, because so far they were all doing a very good job of hiding, making your job up to four times more difficult.

You had been chasing ghost trails for eight months and if it weren't for that sixth sense that made you look over your shoulder, you would think you were in the wrong place. But you were on the right track.

Fury had told you that, once in Siberia, you would have to do reconnaissance on your own, because the people there were not as open to foreigners as in other countries, especially in the town where you would be staying.

So, in addition, you spent about two months camouflaging yourself among the people, trying to live a somewhat normal life among the villagers. Some already recognized you when you passed through their streets, just a nod as a greeting. But you were on the right track.

And that night you confirmed it.

It was late at night when you were returning to your small room in an apartment complex in the center of town. You had to cross a lonely snowy stretch to get into town from the place where you worked cutting and storing firewood. You already had that nerve-wracking feeling of surveillance making your hair stand on end like at no other time during your time there. If he wasn't a stalker, then this guy had fallen into the trap.

He started with light steps, and you knew he was doing it on purpose because he wanted you to know he was there, behind you, with the lead. So you gave in and picked up the pace, just beginning to notice the yellow and white lights of the entrance to town in the distance. The man matched your pace and you were incredibly tempted to turn to look at him, to see if it was him or someone else, even though you had no idea of his build. You were sure you could recognize him just by looking at his eyes.

But you had an act to keep up. So you slowly pulled your hands out of your jacket… and started running.

His response was immediate, but you were honestly surprised by the way his footsteps still sounded so light unlike yours. Not letting that catch you off guard, you kept your pace as a normal person would, letting him think you were running as fast as you could. And sooner than ever, you began to hear his footsteps getting closer and closer, louder and louder.

Sharpening your ears, you heard him take an almost imperceptible deep breath, which would totally take any normal person by surprise, but which you were foreseeing since you started chasing a ghost, a myth.

The Winter Soldier.

Hand in hand with the sound of his movements, you stopped abruptly and squatted down as you sensed him gain momentum to leap up and take you by surprise. But you took him by surprise when in the middle of his jump he continued straight, landing badly on the ground covered by a light layer of snow, but recovering quickly to turn around and look at you.

His entire face was covered by a black mask.

He stayed on the ground, just like you, with one leg outstretched and one hand on the ground for support. You started to get up without blinking a microsecond to risk losing sight of him, and he mimicked your movements as if he were your mirror.

He was intimidating and the stories you had heard about him seemed to have outgrown him.

That man looked like he could snap you in two with the minimal effort of his arms, his big shoulders and the line of his muscles bulging through his black suit.

You took a hesitant step forward, him mimicking you as if he was playing you, as if you were a fool to think you had a chance of beating someone like him. You could tell he was letting you feel like you had some control, because he easily understood your game with that little trick you played on him.

That was a very big risk for you to take. The moment the Winter Soldier realized you were no ordinary person, the decks would stop coming out in your favor.

So you kept approaching, willing to take the risk, because the only thing you could do from now on was to catch him off guard by doing everything as stupid as possible, the opposite of your survival instincts that implored you to run away from that place.

He came closer too, his steps full of grace and so light that if you hadn't seen him right in front of you, you would've thought there was no one there. His left hand imitated yours, when you reached for the knife you had hidden behind your back, under your trench coat. And when you uncovered your hand all at once, he also had a knife in his hand, a little smaller than yours, but no less lethal in the hands of an experienced killer.

So if he knew why you were there, because that was the reason he must've followed you, you must've made enough noise about mysterious murders, especially that of Howard and Maria Stark, which was the reason many townies stayed away from you, then he must've been working for the culprit or he himself was the culprit. There was no other reason that man had to have followed you so late at night, armed to the teeth if not to kill you for being a snoop in matters not your own.

The real killer could have sent him to finish you, the only person in that town who suspected that the murder he had passed off as an accident in the States hadn't been a mere accident. And he must've deduced that, if you had gone to the trouble to travel there and make such a fuss, it must have been because you knew something. Something about him. And he couldn't take any chances.

So here was the Winter Soldier, ready to take out the trash, looking sublimely menacing under the yellow sidewalk light.

You had to get that mask off him somehow.

So, following your incredible plan to disregard your survival instincts, you lunged at him, looking all inexperienced and foolish, to proceed to dodge one by one the flicks of his wrist in your direction, some too close to your face. Not lagging behind, you tried your best to hurt him anywhere on his body, moving in different directions as you tried to evade his stabs and trying to fit yours in when he moved less than a second just before you could hit him.

The bastard was as good as you had hoped.

He leaned forward, when with a hard blow to your side he knocked you back and you didn't have enough time to compose yourself when with more speed than you had seen anyone move, even Steve, he leaned forward and plunged his knife into your lower abdomen.

Because of the adrenaline you didn't even feel pain, but he took it upon himself to move as if he did, holding you with his left hand on your shoulder as he twisted the blade as if it was his intention to bleed you out on that half snow-covered dirt path under his watchful eye.

That probably was what he wanted. He probably had to give the report that he had seen you die. Maybe he had to bring your body to the real killer.

The only thing you knew was that the soldier lost his senses when he was about to kill someone, because he gave no sign of feeling your hand move across his side, the blade you were holding taking him by surprise as it plunged into his abdomen, close to his lung, letting out a choked exclamation.

An electric current whipped through your body at how his voice seemed to alert something inside your head, your body reacting first in surprise. But the familiarity that echoed through your body like a bell disappeared as soon as the man strided away from you, his right hand grasping the long knife stuck in his side, smart enough not to pull it out immediately or he would surely bleed out walking to wherever he had to go to hide. You couldn't get that mask off, but the tone of his voice kept repeating like a broken record in your head.

You grabbed his knife, right in the middle of your abdomen, barely feeling the twinges of pain as you began to walk backwards, the soldier mimicking your movements, returning to where he had come from. If he hadn't hurt such a crucial spot that you needed to treat as soon as possible, things would've ended very differently.

You walked backwards until he disappeared into the darkness and only then did you begin to pick up your pace, passing the entrance to the town and looking for the center.

If the few people who were around saw you, they preferred to turn a blind eye. It didn't surprise you, when many of them had warned you what would await you if you stepped into the lion's den.

As soon as you arrived at your apartment, with some melted snow near the wound, the first thing you did was to take the phone that Fury had given you before the trip and send the automatic emergency message. Next, you grabbed the first aid kit you had right on the living room table and collapsed on the wooden chair. Treating your own wounds was not something you enjoyed very much and you kept grimacing and moaning as loudly as possible as you tried to sterilize the wound around the razor.

A few minutes later, just as you felt you were about to pass out listening in the background to the blood dripping from your side to the floor, with the crimson on your left hand glistening in the yellow light of the living room, the door to the apartment opened wide. Faces you recognized from the town square rushed in, but your consciousness from blood loss barely allowed you to remember Fury's words as he handed you the phone, only to give you reassurance before succumbing to the darkness.

“SHIELD is worldwide. I know you've been out of that whole spectrum long enough and thanks to Peggy you've never needed it, but this time you'll need all the help you can get. This is an emergency phone. It doesn't take calls, it doesn't make calls. It just sends an emergency message by pressing the button in the middle and I want you to use it when you're at a point where you feel you're not going to make it. I assure you that you won't be alone and, when you least expect it, you'll be back with us.”

-

An incessant throbbing in your head was the first thing that greeted you as you opened your eyes, struggling because they felt extremely heavy. You could barely register that you were dying of thirst with a dry throat, when pain coursed through your body as you tried to get up.

“Hey, careful,” you recognized a male voice and arms land on your shoulders, pushing you back onto the gurney. You moved your gaze, still somewhat disoriented, to meet clear eyes looking back at you. “Are you with me?”

You tried to mumble something, but the lack of fluid generated a coughing fit almost instantly. You felt yourself being leaned forward a little and then a glass cup of water appeared in your vision. You quickly grabbed it, drinking it all in a few seconds. You ignored the throbbing headache and the discomfort in your abdomen to concentrate on your surroundings for the first time.

Steve had returned to sit beside you, a hand holding you by the shoulder just to keep an eye out if you needed anything. His touch brought back memories of the night before, the soldier gripping your shoulder tightly as he pushed by the handle the knife that…

The knife.

“Where's my stuff?”

The blond stood up, moving around the room. You brought a hand to your head feeling incredibly dizzy, the pain in your head wouldn't let up for a second and now everything was spinning around you.

The weight of a small backpack on your legs pushed the pain back into the background, your hands moving quickly to open it and spread its contents all over you.

“It's not here. It's gone, why isn't it- why not-?”

Holding up the backpack, your eyes darted to your hands, images of the night before rushing back into your head, like a fast-moving movie. But there was something you wanted to remember as you looked at your left hand, something you had also thought about when you were in the apartment after sterilizing the wound. There was something… something you wanted to…

“Where's the knife? Why the fuck am I so clean?”

“The knife you had buried in your abdomen?” you turned to look at Steve quickly as soon as you heard him, ignoring the whiplash of pain that shot through your head from the sudden movement.

“Where is it?”

“I don't know, Y/N, I only got here yesterday and you were still unconscious. I haven't even been able to talk to Fury.”

“Yesterday? Yesterday I was unconscious?”

Steve nodded, his confused expression sure matching yours.

No.

You raised your left hand, remembering the crimson glowing under the yellow light.

His blood.

No.

No, no, no.

“No…” you wailed, interlocking your hands before running them over your face, the bent posture causing you some pain in the wound in your abdomen.

“You should lie down,” Steve tried to grab you by the shoulders, but you jerked out of his grip, a seed of helplessness growing in your chest.

“Call Fury, please,” you grabbed him by the wrist, pulling his body close to yours, hoping he could see the need in your eyes and not make you repeat yourself.

“That won't be necessary.”

The voice of the aforementioned filled the room, the memory of his voice before you passed out in the apartment causing you another dizzy spell. You wanted to stop and worry, but as soon as you saw him you opened your mouth to speak, only to get your words stuck when Fury raised a ziplock bag with the knife inside to your full face. You felt a little more relieved, because maybe that would give them a clue, something much better to work with, and you hoped Fury thought the same, but his stoic expression left you much to be desired.

“There were only your prints,” the man confessed, your expression dropping faster than you could process. The incessant dizziness was making you want to vomit.

You felt Steve's gaze sweep the room, shifting from your profile to Fury's, surely full of questions, but fearful that raising his voice was going to cost him too much.

“No…” you wailed again, raising your hand in his direction. “Why did you wash my hand?”

“Were we supposed to let you rot in dried blood for two weeks?”

“Two wee-yes, Nicholas, yes!”

The man frowned at you, passing his gaze over Steve as if he had any idea what was going on.

“It was his blood,” you told the man in front of you, his expression dropping in comprehension. “He stabbed me, but I stabbed him back and had his-his blood all over my hand.”

You wanted to throw yourself on the floor and cry. You had spent ten months waiting for that moment, for that little chance to go one step further and now… now you had nothing. You were at the beginning, with no idea whatsoever of his identity and, worse, him knowing that he wasn't dealing with someone ordinary. He probably already knew everything about you, finding the address of this hospital and heading at this moment to kill you.

He should've known where you lived by now. Two weeks was more than enough. Now he had you on his radar and of course he had the advantage.

“So we're back to square one then,” Fury gave voice to your thoughts, hearing it come from his mouth making it so real you didn't avoid the frustrated growl that left you. “Steve, can you give us a moment?”

“Sure, let me abandon my friend clearly in a stress crisis instead of letting her rest like she needs to, because her wound isn't healing,” Steve spat the words at Fury, who glared back at him incredulously mid-sentence, with you raising your head because you rarely heard Steve talk that way since he came back.

Those were ways to talk about pre-serum Steve and meeting him at times like that really was a band-aid for your heart, but you needed to talk to Fury and you needed to do it right then.

“Steve, I'm fine. Please, I need to talk to him.”

“Why can't you talk about it in front of me?”

“It's confidential information, Rogers.”

“Then make it non-confidential,” the blond determined, his square shoulders showing the tension in his body. “I spent a whole week in the fucking cold of Greenland without hearing from her and every time I called you to ask you told me the same shit. That fucking mission you sent her on almost cost her her life.”

“That's the price for the job,” Fury blurted out, Steve moving back, his face incredulous, as if he'd just slapped him.

“Nicholas,” your low voice brought him back to look at you, his hands clasped behind his back moving to slap his sides, frowning.

“Make up your mind right now, Y/N, you want him to know or not?”

“Know what?”

You growled in frustration, agreeing with Steve that you'd have a meltdown if you didn't figure out a solution for that right then. The room was starting to spin on you the moment you unfocused your eyes on the two of them.

“Do we really have nothing?” you turned to Fury, the man taking that distinction as his answer.

“Nothing,” he shook his head, Steve catching every glance and word that bounced around the room. “The nurses cleaned up the blood completely after they stabilized you.”

“You didn't even consider it?”

“We did, but we took the wrong sample.”

You dropped your head in your hands, feeling defeat and accepting it because there was nothing more you could do.

“Then that's it,” you turned to look at Fury. “He's coming back for me.”

“Him?” Steve came into your peripheral vision, his disgruntled, worried face squeezing your chest.

“The Winter Soldier,” Fury answered for you as you looked down, feeling panic mix with nausea.

“Who?”

“A lethal assassin. Y/N suspected him of being responsible for some unexplained deaths that occurred a few years ago and was investigating him on her own.”

“On her own?” Steve turned to look at you. “A lethal killer?”

“Believe it or not, Steve, I can defend myself on my own.”

“Well, that's pretty clear to me,” he commented gruffly, pointing at you. The fact that you were on a stretcher, no, it didn't help at all, but you had been able to put up a fight before that final blow.

“Anyway, it doesn't matter now. He must have all the information on me by now and he must be tracking me like a damn bloodhound. It won't be long before he gets to this hospital.”

“Hospital?” Fury arched an eyebrow at you, barely seeing it through your eyelashes when you felt a sourness at the back of your throat.

“Wherever we are, Nicholas,” you ran a hand over your mouth, closing your eyes tightly. “I don't know if it's the horrible headache, but I have a severe urge to vomit. Do you guys have any dramamine or something?”

Fury and Steve shared a look and you frowned at them, incredulous.

“Want me to throw up on your feet?”

“You didn't tell her?” Fury turned to Steve, wagging a finger between you and your friend, the blond shrugging his shoulders.

“You didn't give me much time.”

“Guys,” you almost implored the sky, moving to lean back again, catching one of the bedroom windows out of the corner of your eye.

You didn't come across a parking lot or a green space. That wasn't a hospital.

“We're on the SHIELD helicarrier, Y/N, a long way from a hospital,” Fury finally spoke, your gaze falling on the dark blue sea that stretched for miles.

“Shit.”

“I'm going to go get that dramamine,” Steve spoke to Fury, as you lay back on the bed without looking away from the window. The sea sure wasn't going anywhere, but the overwhelming sense of panic at least you could chalk it up to something other than the Winter Soldier.

“What's wrong with her?”

“Sea-phobic.”

-

You took it upon yourself to take a long nap when Fury told you you wouldn't be returning to mainland anytime soon, much less now that there was the desperate possibility that the Winter Soldier was after you.

Steve stayed by your side every step of the way, meeting your every request with patience. He knew that when it came to the sea you turned to jelly, so he took it upon himself to cover the window and keep you stocked with dramamine.

Fury said he would send undercover agents to your apartment and surrounding locations looking for any sightings of the soldier and the very thought sent shivers down your spine. To think that, against all odds, you had faced a fearsome assassin who was almost passed for myth with a small knife, with almost zero chance of beating him and still came out alive. You didn't know how you could continue with the mission, much less now that Fury had told you that you would need more days of rest because the knife with which that man had stabbed you was made of vibranium.

There they had something to work with and Fury assured you, after doing the respective studies, that they would investigate purchases and sales of vibranium near Siberia, if they could get any kind of resource before having to resort to field agents.

That gave you some peace of mind.

“Feeling better now?” Steve was still sitting on the side of the bed, his arms folded across his chest and his expression stoic, though in his eyes you could sense the nobility and his concern. When you nodded, he mimicked your gesture and moved closer to the bed, pulling the chair over with him and resting his arms on the wooden edge. “Now, are you going to tell me why the hell you got involved in investigating a killer who has as many sightings a year as Bigfoot?”

You rolled your eyes at Steve so hard that the twinges in your head almost returned. You moved to lie face up, your face turned in his direction detailing his disgruntled expression.

“You heard Fury,” was all you could say, trying to keep your face as serious as his.

“Yeah, he mentioned some mysterious deaths,” he reminded, not looking at all pleased with that vague piece of information.

“Is that not enough for you?” you arched an eyebrow at him. “The lives of innocent people who have nothing to do with SHIELD are also important.”

“That's not what I meant,” Steve shook his head. “The Winter Soldier has been credited, without proof, with two dozen murders over the last fifty years.”

“So you did your homework,” you looked back up at the ceiling, hearing your friend's irritated hiss.

“He's been in the field for fifty years, and SHIELD started investigating him a year ago?”

“You said it yourself. Knowing if he existed was as rare as proving the existence of Bigfoot,” you turned, Steve's confused look falling in realization.

“You'd been looking for him for a while, but you didn't know it was him.”

“Correct.”

“Because of those deaths Fury mentioned?”

You nodded in his direction.

Steve fell silent, immersed in his own wild thoughts, for a few seconds of conjecture, before speaking again.

“There had to be something about those deaths that motivated you enough to be willing to sacrifice your life like that.”

You hated him. You hated Steve at that moment. Why couldn't he just stick with the simple fact that you wanted to stop a crazed killer? There was also another option you could take, to divert him from the main reason, but you didn't have enough evidence for him to believe you and you couldn't risk him not taking you seriously later on. If the Winter Soldier really started looking for you, maybe he would do you a favor. He would bring all the answers to your playground. Two birds with one stone.

In response you just snorted, turning to look at him once more.

“It doesn't have that deep a meaning, Steve. I found a practically empty report on it one day and Fury told me it was a myth. But there were some coincidences enough to make it not real. So I decided to look into it, yes, on my own.”

You felt horrible when Steve looked away, a layer of embarrassment adorning his features. He was right and he was so insightful and you wanted to tell him, but that truth involved too many burdens that you weren't willing to pass on to him. You and Peggy were in charge of that investigation, Steve didn't have to carry that burden.

The new album, THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT, arrives April 19. Pre-order now. All’s fair in love and poetry… 🤍

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Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department

Go to Taylor Swift - The Tortured Poets Department.

hi! i published today part 3 of i don't wanna live forever in case you wanna take a look at it! thank u all for the support <33

masterlist

updates! 12-10-23

this is my principal masterlist only, for the time being, focused on bucky barnes!

one-shots

cowboy like me

invisible string

ivy

(in)dispensable

temporal infinity

cursed

disappear

patient zero

life goes on

a piece of heaven

the 5 stages of (my) life

closer

one of those days

not my one

mini-series

the feelings trilogy

bittersweet feelings

mixed feelings

confessed feelings

the outbreak

part 1

part 1.5

part 2

hate is a strong word

part 1

part 2

part 3

i don't wanna live forever

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4 (5k)

part 5 (10%)

series (*) ongoing - (º) completed)

calmly, remember*

lethal double play*

how to break a routine in one year*

three months in

strike one

the part where it gets weird

strike two

this series is under revision, so there will be no updates in near future

read my only steve rogers oneshot here: birthday love present

thank u so much for reading! love u all <3

:(

“how’s the writing going?” i’m glad you asked! my room has never been cleaner and i’ve decided to take up baking

i don't wanna live forever (4)

summary: with the winter soldier in action, you couldn't believe who the person behind the mask was

pairing: bucky barnes x avenger!f!reader

words: 5k

warnings: descriptions of weapons, wounds and blood. i'm not that good narrating action scenes but i tried my best! a russian word poorly translated i'm sorry if it's wrong :(, also English is not my first language so sorry for any mistakes!

note: so we are finally here. the secret's out. i'm just figuring by now that this fic is probably gonna take longer than i expected, but i hope it'll turn out as we all want it! thank u as always for all the support and see u next time! if you guys ever have any questions or request feel free to dm me!

part 1 ; part 2 ; part 3 ; part 5

Another two weeks went by and the wound was practically healed. It was uncomfortable to touch, and you could feel a little pressure inside from the contact with the vibranium. But other than that, you were able to live a normal life.

Fury had informed you in a phone call that you would be on your way back to Washington that day. The agents had no news about the soldier, neither about the places you had visited, nor about the purchase of vibranium in the vicinity of Siberia. With the strong possibility of an assassin on your trail, you were back to square one.

Steve had returned three days earlier, having gone on a mission with Natasha Romanoff, and Fury had left the Helicarrier the day after Steve left, assuring you that he would arrange for you to return to the mainland once the doctors had cleared you.

Of course, you hadn't reckoned on the fact that on your arrival at your apartment, just across from Steve's, everything would be a mess.

Your friend hasn't answered your phone calls, despite your insistence for about twenty minutes, nor has he answered your constant knocking on his apartment door. His inability to reach you puzzled you. The last message you received from him was that he would be waiting for your message to pick you up, which never happened, even though you called him for an hour.

Worried, especially when Nicholas didn't answer your calls either, you found yourself on your way to the Triskelion looking for answers when the burner phone you always carried in your jacket or one of your pockets rang as you were about to walk out of the building.

“Hill,” you answered immediately, relieved that someone was finally trying to get in touch with you.

“Act natural. I want you to leave the building and go to the black van on the left corner. Get in the passenger seat.”

You obeyed, the strange absence of Steve and Fury making more sense in the light of the events of the last few weeks. It had to be him.

You quickly spotted Hill's van and walked towards it, shielding your eyes from the sun with one hand, not bothering to look elsewhere. You got into the car in silence, Hill started the engine and drove down the avenue in silence.

“What's going on?” you asked after several minutes of tense silence.

You noticed Maria's disgruntled face, something that is not usually very clear unless the situation they are in is insurmountable.

“Is it him?” you spoke again at her silence, a layer of cold sweat settling on your hands as you saw her pursing her lips.

“Yes,” Maria nodded, never taking her eyes off the rearview mirror. “He's here.”

“Where's Steve?” your voice almost came out on a thread, fearing the answer was worse than imagined possible. You knew this was coming, but so soon? You felt nauseous at the thought of meeting him once again.

“He escaped with Romanoff,” Maria took a turn, accelerating the car's speed. “They're fine.”

“And Fury?”

“The soldier tried to kill him. Twice.”

You let out a choked exclamation, covering your mouth with both your hands in surprise.

“He's alive,” Hill tried to calm you, when you felt like your heart was going to jump out of your throat. You tried to feel the relief her words brought, but the choking sensation kept growing as the seconds passed. “Steve and Natasha don't know, though. We have to let them think Fury is dead, only then can we get some leverage.”

“God, all this happened in two days?”

“And whatever else is coming. We don't know where he's at or who he's moving near,” Maria shook her head, realizing just barely that you'd left a bit of the suburbs behind. “Fury wants you here.”

A sort of abandoned dam gaped through the trees. Hill pulled the car to the left, hiding it between long logs and bushes.

“What's this supposed to be?”

“You can call it another secret section of SHIELD... or Fury's,” Maria closed the trunk of the car, where she'd been rummaging through something as you climbed down, handing you a bulletproof vest that you didn't hesitate a second to adjust around your torso. “How's the wound?”

“It only hurts to the touch. But I can move fine.”

“Who knew the Supersoldier's weakness would be vibranium.”

Maria opened an unlocked metal fence, mentally wondering if this was really such a safe place to have no security of any kind. A long hallway stretched out in front of you, which felt eternal under the yellow lights, until you turned at the bottom right and there he was. Nicholas Fury.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

“Whatever you did to the soldier, I already made it worse,” Fury coughed, the slight movement of his body causing him to grimace in poorly disguised pain. “Now he's looking to kill us all.”

“And what did you do?”

“Alexander Pierce,” was all he answered, sharing a look with Hill that you didn't know how to decipher.

“The... secretary?”

“Remember Peggy's theory that we could never prove?”

Fury spoke again, your attention completely directed at him. Of course you remembered that. And of course you remembered the way you had flatly denied that possibility out of fear of what that would mean for your friends' legacy. To Steve's legacy. To Bucky's legacy.

There was no need to elaborate, with one look from the Director you knew exactly what he meant.

“Alexander Pierce tried to kill you?”

“It's him, Y/N. The Winter Soldier was the one who killed Howard and Maria Stark in order to get the serum to HYDRA, to create more supersoldiers.”

“We're infiltrated by double agents, that's why it was always so hard to uncover them,” Maria continued, her words barely echoing in your head, never breaking your gaze from Fury.

Eyes crystallizing, you never felt so helpless as you remembered that you had it in your hands to avenge their deaths and didn't. And now he was here, seeking to claim more innocent lives for the benefit of a nefarious organization. No, no, that wasn't going to happen.

“Let me go.”

“No.”

“Fury.”

“No.”

“Nicholas.”

“No, Y/N. You just barely recovered from that vibranium wound, and you want to risk being face to face with that monster again?”

“I wasn't ready at the moment, but I am now. Nicholas, please. I can't sit idly by when Howard's killer is out there,” you frowned at him, your anguished, desperate voice nothing more a reflection of everything you felt in your chest. But Fury was shaking his head once again, ready to give way to no excuses.

“I can't risk you like this again,” Fury barely murmured, your ears catching the words clearly.

“But I won't be alone. Steve and Natasha are there.”

“And they're hiding, too,” Fury assured, clasping his hands over his abdomen.

You frowned, your back slumping against the back of the chair. Hill's sympathetic look on the other side of Fury's gurney angered you. How could they think the best decision was to leave you behind? You weren't the one lying prostrate on a gurney with a bunch of broken bones.

“They're closer to the lion's den than I am right now.”

“But them the soldier doesn't know yet,” Fury pointed at you accusingly, rearranging himself on the bed with a grimace.

You looked at Fury, his one eye daring you to contradict him. It was probably true, you weren't going to deny it. But that didn't give them too much of an advantage, if it was true that many SHIELD agents really were part of HYDRA. Natasha and Steve wouldn't be able to do much if, in addition to the soldier, a hundred double agents showed up to stop them. Maybe even the three of them wouldn't be enough, but you weren't willing to stand by and do nothing. Not when you had the opportunity so close. Fury might not see it the same way, but you couldn't demand it of him when he hadn't gone through what you had gone through so many years before. He didn't see the blank stare of a young Tony, regretting and chastising himself for what had happened, for something completely out of his control.

Fury wasn't going to accede to your wishes, that much was certain. But the good thing was that as a protected subject of SHIELD, you had your own wild cards within the agency, like bypassing the Director's orders when you saw fit, as in the case of anything deemed an emergency.

“Well, try to stop me.”

You stood up, turned around and started walking in the direction of the exit, the expansive hallway welcoming you once again.

“Y/N,” Fury exclaimed, his body leaning forward as if he had truly believed he could follow you with so many wounds on his body. “Hill.”

As Maria approached you, you raised your hand, her feet stopping almost instantly.

“No,” you looked at her and then looked back at Fury.

“Fuck, Agent Carter really has no idea what she did giving you those powers.”

“You know damn well I can take good care of myself, just as well as she can. I'm not going to let him get away this time.”

“That's what worries me. You're so consumed by this idea of revenge that you'd sacrifice anything.”

“And you wouldn't?”

Fury frowned, the words he intended to counterattack with dying in his throat.

“If you'd had to go through the death of one of your best friends, knowing it had been a murder that would never be investigated as such and go unpunished. When after spending years and years trying to seek justice, life brings you home empty-handed. Do you have any idea how that feels, Nicholas? Maybe I'd be willing to sacrifice anything to punish the killer of Tony's parents, yes, but I swear I'm not leaving this world if I don't take him with me.”

The man on the gurney sighed, sharing a look with Hill to which she responded by lifting her shoulders. The defeated sigh Fury let out was enough of an answer you needed, but he added:

“Let me tell you something first.”

-

You were trying to follow the black car that was moving at high speed across the bridge. You had no way of communicating with Steve because he clearly didn't have his burner phone with him and neither did Natasha, as Hill had tried to contact her before meeting you with no result.

You had identified four people in the car, one of them being Natasha's reddish hair, before an armored van completely blocked your view. Steve must've been with her in the car, but you had no idea who the other two people accompanying them were.

That is, until you saw him.

The Winter Soldier, getting out of the armored van and moving to jump into the black car where Steve and Natasha were, the panic that ran through your body forcing you to press the accelerator to the maximum.

Despite the armored van blocking your path, you could tell from the left as the soldier smashed the back door glass, your blood freezing for a minute until you recognized Jasper Sitwell flying out through the window, courtesy of the tug the soldier gave him until he landed in the opposite lane of the bridge.

The sound of gunfire alerted you, moving to try to pass the van once again, when you heard a car brake followed by the screech of metal against the ground. The van suddenly sped up, clearing a path for you now that it didn't seem focused on blocking your way, and you caught up to its pace by the time it slammed into the trunk of the car Steve was in. The pickup took the car over the front, with the soldier gaining momentum to get on the roof of the car and not resting until he was able to wrench off the steering wheel and turn back to get into the armored truck.

You kept pace with the van, trying to catch up with the black car, when a second hit on the trunk caused them to lose control of the car. You slammed on the brakes when, before your heart could leap out of your mouth, you saw three people roll against the road using one of the car doors. You didn't have time to react when the soldier threw a grenade in the direction of your companions, Steve pushing Natasha and the impact pushing him so hard that he ended up flying under the bridge.

You opened the car door, getting out as quickly as possible and impacting Natasha in the process. Neither of you had time to say anything as the hail of bullets began.

“Run,” you exclaimed over the noise, pointing to the opposite lane of the bridge. “I'll cover you.”

You pulled out the dual pistols you packed in your belt, using your car as a shield as you fired in the direction of the soldier and his henchmen, hoping Natasha hadn't wasted a single minute. However, with the grenade launcher at hand, it was hard for you to get far. The moment Natasha jumped off the bridge, you didn't waste a second running in the direction Steve had fallen when the shell hit him, the sound of the bullets barely grazing you, the soldier in your peripheral vision walking in your direction.

You found Natasha the moment you hit the ground, the serum helping you keep your balance and she wasted no time in grabbing your arm to pull you into the shade.

“He's a fucking lunatic,” Natasha pointed at his shadow over the bridge at you, moving in stealth for both of you to shoot when his gaze was on a bus that had overturned.

If you hit him, there was no time to know, running straight for cover behind the bus. When the sound of bullets returned, a mutual nod between Natasha and you was enough for both of you to aim directly at the soldier, firing repeatedly.

“Run,” Natasha exclaimed, her pistols steady in her hands.

You wasted no time, instantly moving in the direction of the sidewalk, firing sporadically backwards to get Natasha to your side.

“How did you get here?” the overloaded, muffled voice of Natasha startled you, finding her crouching next to a car activating the voice engine of a holopad.

“All SHIELD cars have a tracker,” you barely replied, trying to keep your breathing in check, glancing over your shoulder in the direction they had left the soldier.

Natasha made an affirmative sound, leaving the holopad with a voice recording right at the bottom of a car tire.

“This will give us enough time to take him by surprise. Come on,” she moved to the other side of the sidewalk, moving between the altered bodies of civilians to camouflage herself before finding cover behind one of the cars, her feline gaze fixed on the approaching soldier. “If Steve finds out you're here, he's going to fall on his ass.”

“I've been in worse battles.”

“Girl, you have no idea what we've seen.”

You frowned at her, the mystery behind her words leaving much to be desired. Before the soldier got any closer, when he was distracted falling into Natasha's trap, she signaled you with two fingers to move to the right, down the path they had taken to get there, and you knew she was expecting she couldn't hold him off for long and needed you for support.

When the bomb behind the car exploded, Natasha jumped over the car and took the soldier by surprise falling on his shoulders, both struggling hard until he threw her against a car ready to shoot her, when Natasha threw a small shock device at him that neutralized his arm and gave him enough time to gesture a run in your direction.

Natasha took the lead, alerting the civilians and trying to get as far away from the soldier as she could, when one of his bullets hit her and you cursed between your teeth. You watched him move to the right, looking to shoot Natasha from behind and didn't think twice before you took momentum and jumped on him, crossing your legs around his torso and using your right arm to cut off his breath.

He dropped his weapon, the thud attracting the redhead's attention. You barely managed to make a running gesture with your hands as the soldier slammed into your side until your legs gave way from his grip and, grabbing you from torso height, flipped you over until you crashed your back against the hood of the car you two had been struggling over.

When you saw him pull one of his knives out of his pants, you arched up quickly, jumping out of the car and taking a defensive position in front of him, who had remained kneeling in front of the place you had occupied.

Just at that moment you noticed that part of his mask had fallen off, finding yourself face to face with blue eyes that almost made you lose your balance.

God, those eyes felt so familiar. If it wasn't because you knew he had died you would believe it was him, because you would recognize those eyes anywhere in the world.

The soldier stood up, getting out of the car and approaching you as if you were his prey.

“Zhivoy,” he muttered, moving the knife between his fingers and cocking his head to the side without taking his eyes off you. You recognized the Russian instantly, barely having a second to process it when the fight started.

You heard a curse behind you followed by quickened footsteps that you quickly recognized as Steve's, and that was enough of a distraction for the soldier to pounce on you.

You narrowly dodged his first attack, managing the speed to your advantage, ready to block it when he lunged a second time. His blade grazed your forearm, but the pain was nothing and you didn't let it distract you from attacking him, sending a strong kick into his torso after you neutralized one of his arms.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Why don't you have your fucking burner phone?” overly concerned for your friend's well-being, you could barely process what he had told you, trying to pull more bullets from your belt to load one of your pistols, finding the cartridge completely empty. You both stared at the soldier, Steve ready to leap into action the moment he stood up.

“You shouldn't be here,” was what Steve said, before lunging at the soldier the moment that one put his feet on the ground.

You seized the moment to go to Natasha, pulling out of your pockets a spray painkiller that you knew you would need to apply to Natasha's shoulder.

“You really are prepared for anything.”

Around the chaos, you managed as best you could to move Natasha as far out of range of the mess as possible, and turned just barely to see the soldier throw Steve's shield at him, who dodged it just barely without stopping running. When you saw the knife in the soldier's hands, a scream almost left your throat.

Steve and the soldier began a hand to hand fight that you could barely follow, looking in every direction for anything that might help your friend. But with nothing but your own strength to defend him, you moved in his direction as the soldier lifted him by the neck and threw him.

About to fall with the fist of his metal arm, you pushed him to the side causing him to lose his balance, helping Steve to his feet before resuming the hand to hand.

The soldier passed his furious glare over you before heading straight for Steve, the same blond pushing you aside and meeting the soldier fist to fist.

You stepped in between the two once again as the soldier pulled out a blade and you intercepted his arm midway, hitting the weak spots necessary for his hand to open and release the blade. His blue eyes met yours for a second, before he furiously grabbed both of your hands by the wrists, which held his right hand, with his metal hand, to raise them above your head and send you to the ground with a kick to your entire torso. He didn't walk away without first exclaiming again, “Zhivoy.”

Steve snarled, once again taking possession of his shield and closing in on the soldier before he could approach you once more. Retrieving the blade from somewhere on his belt, you heard them struggling against each other, but only one thought kept running through your head, racing your heart in a panic.

His eyes are so like Bucky's.

But that couldn't be possible. Bucky's fall was not to survive, how could he have survived? Worse, how could he have survived to become that?

How could Bucky be the one responsible that you had been looking for for so many years?

Hating to allow senseless emotions to take over your rational side, you rose once more raising your legs and landing on your feet, just for the moment when Steve slammed his shield into the forearm of his metal arm and turned to grab the soldier on his back, pushing him with his own back so that he fell off the other side of the road.

But your breath caught in your throat as you heard his voice, barely a whimper before Steve sent him flying across. The blond turned to look at you in concern, for the sound you had let out almost sounded like a groan of pain, when your horrified gaze met his among the masses of air.

For a moment, it seemed like everything around you stopped.

Steve frowned and in a split second turned his head away, tears making their way into your eyes without you being able to take a moment to fully process what you were seeing. Everything sounded a little slower, Steve's defensiveness soon faltering as he understood why you had sent him that look.

The soldier's mask on the ground, his head turned in your direction, that face you never thought you'd see again.

“Bucky?” Steve was the one who spoke, in stupefaction, and the soldier's face contracted in anger.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

With tears rolling down your cheeks and Steve's frozen stance, neither of you reacted when the soldier raised the gun in your direction, you for a split second regaining your consciousness and moving towards your friend when the sound of metal and a man appeared behind the soldier, large metal wings standing out behind the man who had just pushed the soldier out of the way.

You froze midway through holding Steve's arm, your hand sliding down his pants barely catching his attention.

The frightened look on the soldier's face, on Bucky's face, which he returned to them as he stood up, didn't stop you this time from reacting as he raised his gun at Steve once more, pulling your friend behind you, leaving your back exposed until you heard an explosion and noticed the pale Natasha a few steps behind, the missile launcher in her hands. You wanted to thank her, but you were too overwhelmed to think too much about it, to process fast enough what was happening. You had barely noticed that Steve had put the shield right behind you, holding you tightly against his chest.

When the explosion dissipated, the soldier was gone.

The sound of sirens and cars too far away, as Steve released his grip and looked in every direction he could to see if he could see him again. But the cars surrounded them with ease, Steve's clear eyes falling on yours, his expression a replica of yours, stupefaction and sadness reigning in them.

-

You didn't quite remember the journey or what had happened to make you end up back at the abandoned dam in front of Fury, Natasha finally having her shoulder tended to. They must've been talking for a while, because you felt their gazes on you, as heavy as the overwhelming pain that had fallen on your shoulders.

It couldn't be hard now. No. You couldn't back out after all these years… You really couldn't…

You couldn't even look Fury in the face.

When you felt a squeeze on your shoulder, even though you knew it was Steve, you couldn't find the strength to lift your head to look at him.

The conversation had moved to a nearby table and you were almost surprised to see Fury sitting there as if he didn't have some broken ribs, but you tried to pay attention because you couldn't risk failing at this plan.

“What's that?” the man standing to the side of Steve, who had introduced him to you as Sam a couple of minutes earlier, turned to Fury, who was showing the programming cards you were to use on the mission.

“Once the helicarriers reach nine hundred meters altitude, they will triangulate with the Project satellites and be weapons,” Maria explained to them, flipping her computer to show the plan visualization.

“Intercept those transporters and replace their targets with ours,” Fury complemented, the images becoming clearer on the blue screen.

“One or two won't be enough,” Maria spoke again, her eyes sweeping over those of everyone around. “We must intercept all three of them, because if one of those ships keeps running, a lot of people will die.”

Steve's hand found your shoulder again, apparently noticing how hard you were trying to stay present in the conversation, moving your intertwined hands on your lap tirelessly. Your head kept coming back to that moment in the road, his frightened look enlarging the hole in your chest, the uncertainty of not knowing what had happened to him after that, where he was at that moment, if he was even okay.

But at the same time the rejection, the sadness, the heaviness? How could you stand there and blame him when he didn't even seem to remember who he was? You had spent years looking for that culprit, looking to bring peace to the memory of Tony's parents, and now that you knew who he was, why didn't you feel calmer? Why did the pit in your stomach feel deeper and deeper? Why was your heart pounding with fear because you didn't know where he was?

“Look, I didn't know about Barnes,” Fury's words made you raise your head, his sorrowful gaze directed at your friend and momentarily passing over you. Steve's hand on your shoulder tensed slightly, leaning forward a little, his attitude more hostile than you remembered in the few minutes you'd left the conversation.

“Even if you had known, would you have told us? Or would you have compartmentalized too?” Steve's hard expression gave way to no claim, his hand firm on your shoulder. “SHIELD, HYDRA… it will all go away.”

-

The green views from the dam's high trail were pretty enough that you could distract your mind for a moment, the weight of Steve's presence at your side keeping you anchored to reality.

“Y/N,” Steve was the first to speak after spending several seconds in silence, his arms resting on the railing with his hands clasped together. “There was something I heard about and I… I don't know how to process it, but I think you have the answer.”

Your body didn't bother to react to his words, barely shaking your head in a subtle nod prompting him to speak.

“With Natasha we used a flash drive that led us to the coordinates of some… old SHIELD facility. There, at the time, Zola was alive,” Steve paused, your brow barely furrowing as the information caught your attention. “Well, his brain was alive because of technology. Everything was a machine. But the point is, he said something, that HYDRA makes a lot of things look like accidents when they're not, and he showed us a picture of Howard and Maria's accident.”

You half-opened your lips, taking a deep breath, too emotionally drained to care too much about what you knew he was going to ask.

“Maybe I wouldn't have made the connection if I hadn't stayed in that room to listen to you and Fury, but those mystery accidents you said were connected to the Winter Soldier, was theirs one of those?”

You felt his gaze on your profile as a lone tear ran down your cheek. There was nothing more you could say to him, at that point it was more than fair for you to give him a concrete answer.

“That's why you stayed after Howard's funeral, besides Peggy. She told me you had spent a lot of time investigating something you couldn't tell Tony. That's why you're running away from him everytime.”

Surely it was because you felt guilty, but more tears ran down your cheeks as Steve beside you only sighed.

“Why didn't you just… tell me?”

“I don't know, I didn't… I didn't want you to carry that around. You'd barely been back, knowing about his death had to be too much already, and I couldn't add to the fact that it hadn't been an accident. You have no idea how long I've been carrying this weight on my shoulders trying to find the culprit… and now… now this…”

“I wouldn't have minded sharing that with you,” Steve frowned. “It would've helped either way.”

“I'm sorry," you whispered in the middle of a sob, his deep breath sounding close as he wrapped his arms around your shoulders. “I'm so sorry, Steve.”

“It's okay, it's okay,” his soothing, comforting voice sent you spiraling, not understanding how he could put it all aside and accept your apology without further explanation. His hand running up and down your back caused emotions to explode inside you, your body breaking into a sob that Steve was already expecting, his arms holding you tightly as you cried your soul out.

You didn't deserve someone like him in your life. You seemed to be doing him more harm than good.

-

tag: @rubyxx16