You're My Mission

Another silenced shot and another Hydra guard fell to the ground. I anxiously fiddled with a twig as I laid next to Bucky amongst the foliage, waiting for him to finish using his sniper rifle to eliminate the patrols around the base. He was an excellent shot and probably could have hit all of the guards within half a minute, but he was restricted by Steve’s orders to only shoot so their bodies would be hidden, hence allowing us to keep our advantage of surprise for as long as possible.

“You know, I’m kinda surprised Steve let us be a team,” I commented. Bucky didn’t move, his eyes focused through the scope, and a second later he pulled the trigger again.

“Why is that?” he asked while reloading the gun, not meeting my eyes because he was too focused on the weapon.

“The two ex-Hydra agents put together to sneak in through the back of the facility? Sounds like potential for betrayal,” I pointed out.

Steve’s plan was for Bucky to take out the guards, then for him and I to take the backdoor while Steve and Natasha went through the front. Sam would fly to the roof and we’d all place bombs in structurally significant places and get out, detonating them as soon as possible so Hydra lost men, data and resources. Whilst I had full confidence we were going to succeed, I couldn’t help but be bothered by Steve’s intentions of teaming Bucky and I together.

“So he’s doing it to prove we can be trusted,” Bucky suggested before he regained his focus, shifting his aim to the left as he selected his next target.

“You really think so?” I asked, doubtful.

“Don’t see why not.”

He fired again.

“That’s the last one. Let’s go,” Bucky ordered. He set aside the sniper rifle and we stood, holding automatic guns at the ready as we hurried across the clearing and to the fence surrounding the Hydra base. Instead of scaling the barrier that was topped with barbed wire or picking the lock, Bucky effortlessly ripped the lock apart and then kicked the gate open. We dashed around the crates and vehicles scattered in the area, occasionally jumping over one of Bucky’s victims, until we reached the main back door. I stood to the left of it and Bucky to the right, guns lowered as we mentally prepared ourselves.

“We’re in position,” I said while pressing a finger to my ear, activating my earpiece and transmitting the message to the other three people on the team.

“Copy that. Move in,” Steve replied and I looked up at Bucky. He had already been watching me with a smile on his face, and I couldn’t help but grin.

“You ready?” I asked.

Bucky suddenly came forwards. I was pulled into a powerful kiss and despite instinct telling me to focus, stay alert, and move on with the mission, I didn’t pull away.

“Come to me if you need anything?” I breathed, tracing a finger down the side of his face. I savoured the moment, glad to finally be on a mission with the man I had seen hiding behind the blue eyes that had captivated me when he was the Winter Soldier.

“Always,” Bucky promised. He pecked me one more time before shifting back into his position and nodding at the door. His gun was at the ready and I reached out, grabbing the handle and swinging the door open to shield myself while allowing Bucky to storm inside. A couple of short bursts of gunfire occurred before I rounded the door and followed Bucky, glad to see he was still standing and powering his way down the corridor.

A horde of Hydra agents fired at us as they appeared at the end, coming from both sides. We dodged through a doorway and Bucky reloaded. I held my hand out so he didn’t move forwards to fire and I used my other hand to pull a grenade from a compartment on my bulletproof vest. The modern device was activated by jabbing my thumb into it and compressing the active ingredients together, something Tony had claimed was inspired by his father’s work, and I launched the bomb around the corner. We blocked our ears but it felt like that hardly shielded us from the bang. I rounded the corner with a raised gun but it was pointless. The crumpled walls were splattered with blood and flesh and I felt a hint of remorse at the sight. Bucky pressed on through the scene and I followed, shaking off the guilt and focusing on our task.

It saddened me the way that we expertly made our way through the Hydra base to their server room. Out of all the talents in the world to possess, we were good marksmen and therefore had to watch people die at our hands. I understood that what we were doing was for the greater good, that people in Hydra had ruined lives such as Bucky’s, but the further we progressed the more I doubted that this was the type of revenge I was searching for. Bucky secured the bomb to a support beam while I kept watch, his jaw locked as he focused on completing his mission. It was a relief to hear Sam and Steve’s voices come over my earpiece to say they had also been successful and were heading for our rendezvous point.

As Bucky and I retraced our steps, we came across a heavily armoured Hydra agent with a flamethrower. Instead of taking him on, we slipped into a side room and took a detour through some laboratory space. I crashed into Bucky’s back as he suddenly halted, staring at a particular machine in the abandoned lab. Before following his gaze, I looked over his face and noticed just how pained he was by seeing the device, and tears were even forming in the corners of his eyes.

“They… They’ve frozen others too,” he breathed and then I understood that what we were looking at was a cryo machine. Seeing his distress break his tough exterior only filled me with wrath.

“Let’s make them pay,” I suggested as flames licked the doorway behind us. Adamant to get Bucky moving again, I shoved him forwards. More determined than ever, we made it out and dodged a rain of bullets from the roof, spotting Sam also fleeing above us.

“Is everyone clear? I repeat, is everyone out of the building?” Steve shouted over the earpiece.

“I’m in the air!” was Sam’s response. Bucky and I ran into the cover of the foliage we had been hiding in earlier and he lifted his sniper rifle, strapping it to his back.

“Blow the place,” he answered Steve. A second later and Steve must have hit the detonation button. The whole building went up in flames and crumbled to the ground as debris flew out at all angles. A shockwave knocked me back a few steps, but Bucky remained still, staring on at the carnage.

It felt like an eternity passed before he finally turned around to begin walking to the rendezvous point.

“One down,” he muttered coldly when he passed me. As we walked together to meet the others, I began to wonder exactly how much of the Winter Soldier was still inside Bucky.