Soul Stealer ~ (A Bucky Barnes Love Story)

Be Like Water

"What did yours tell you?" 

Bucky stopped twisting his chair around in a circle, raising his eyebrows.  "She told me to be like water."

"Be like water?"  I was convinced our therapists just said random shit then sat around cracking up watching us try to apply it to real life. 

"What about yours?"

"He told me to embrace myself."

"What the hell does that mean?"

I shrugged, "I have no idea, but I bet I embrace myself before you figure out how to be water."

It was a shock when Steve informed us we would be undergoing twice the amount of therapy this week.  He offered no explanation for the increased appointments, but obviously something had triggered the change.  The fact we were told to go to the conference room and wait after our 100th appointment this week made me twitchy. 

"This is gonna be about HYDRA," I admitted, biting my thumbnail down to the quick.

"You don't know that."  He sat up straighter and cracked his neck before reaching out and prying my fingernail from my mouth.  He knew this was going to be about HYDRA too.  He just wasn't ready to admit it.  "It could be anything."

Like HYDRA.

Or HYDRA.

Or maybe, wait for it, HYDRA.

Thankfully we were saved from debating any further possibilities when the Avengers strolled into the room.  The only people not present were Tony and Bruce who were offsite working on an experiment no one understood, and Thor who was still "out of town".  Steve looked incredibly tense which made me so tense I was afraid I'd tear a muscle.  There wasn't much that rattled Captain America so I was officially spooked.

"We received intel from Fury about another HYDRA base."  The name Fury meant something to Bucky.  His entire body went still and his eyes widened ever so slightly.  Steve put his hands on his hips, eyeing his best friend with sympathy.  "He's alive."

Ah, so Fury was someone the Winter Soldier "tried" to kill.  There weren't a lot of people in that club.  Not many survived an encounter with the Soldier.

Steve pressed a button on a remote and series of pictures displayed on a large screen behind him.  "We have reports that Brock Rumlow is trying to seize control of what's left of HYDRA and they're consolidating here."  He pointed at a picture of the base.  There were dozens of red dots, heat signatures, littered around the compound.  "We can't let HYDRA get a foothold in anything ever again so the plan is to raid the base and take out any hostile forces.  If possible, we take Rumlow alive.  If not..."

Bucky's emotions were surging, pounding through our bond ferociously.  I had no idea who Brock Rumlow was, but I knew one thing, I was glad I wasn't him.

"Do either of you recognize it?" Steve asked though it was obvious the question made him uncomfortable.

Bile was sitting heavy in the back of my throat because yes, I recognized the base.  I should.  It was the last place I was held before I was frozen for 10 years of my life. 

The base was actually a fortress, and was located in Krahennest Thal, Austria.  It was primarily used by General Werner Reinhardt.  He was a particularly sadistic bastard that solidified his place in HYDRA by conducting human experiments on unwilling test subjects. 

"Yes."  Bucky's response was clipped, the man himself hanging on to his control by a mere thread. 

I'd hoped his less than reliable memories meant he would be saved from reliving the horrors that were visited upon us here.  Life never seemed to work out how you wanted.