Torn

- |THE TRUTH| -

Katia sat at the dinner table and ate the delivered Chinese food as quickly as possible so that she could check her texts. Her newfound biological father hadn't answered her text yet. The four adults at the table stared as she wolfed down the eight fried pork dumplings on her plate. When she finally finished she looked up at them. "What? I was hungry... can I go to my room now?"

"Sure..." Natasha says, wondering why her daughter is acting so odd.

Katia rushes to her bedroom and picks up her phone. The text was marked as read. She decided to FaceTime to see what was wrong. The phone rang a few times before he picked up. "Kat, I'm kind of busy right now..."

"Where are you?" Katia asked. She saw the night sky in the background along with some high-tech controls.

"Well, I'm kind of... in space." He said. He moved the phone around to show himself floating in a spaceship.

"Oh wow. Let me guess, SHIELD business?"

"Yep." He looked around frantically. "Can I call you back once I get onto solid ground?"

"Yeah sure. Stay safe." She said. He nodded and hung up before Katia could say 'I love you.' There must've been something more important going on. She heard a knock on her door. "Uh... Come in!" She got out a random folder to make it look like she was doing homework.

"Can I ask you something?" Bucky said, opening the door. "And just be honest, okay?"

Katia hesitated. "Yeah, sure," she said slowly.

Bucky peaked his head out into the hallway to check if anyone could be listening. "What happened in 2014?"

"What?" Katia uttered out. She was taken by surprise. "You mean like... the fall of SHIELD? Cause you were there, so-"

"We both know that's not what I mean," Bucky said softly. "It's just flashing images whenever I go to sleep. But you were there... I need to know what happened, please."

Katia stayed still for a moment. She finally sighed and got up to close the door behind them. "You can't tell Natasha. Promise me you won't tell her."

"I promise."

"Okay." She inhaled deeply and exhaled with an exasperated sigh. "I had just turned 13 and Nat wanted me to get out and explore DC. So I did. And that's when I came across the abandoned bank. There was something sketchy about it so I obviously had to check it out. And there were all these rooms - a lab. And I found some weird crystals called terrigen crystals. But I accidentally dropped them and there was this weird mist... And this doesn't really have any importance yet so I'll just move on... So I walked down the halls some more and there you were in your whole Winter Soldier getup and next thing I know, I'm in an interrogation room."

"A Hydra interrogation room? But they would've tortured you." Bucky said, concerned.

"Exactly." Katia pulled up the sleeve of her sweater to reveal faint scars along her arms. "And they did. They knew I used to belong to the Red Room so they thought that I was on a mission. And when I didn't give any answers... well, they had a plan b."

Bucky was now invested in the sad story of the tortured girl. "What was the plan b?" Katia sighed and nodded to his metal arm. Bucky followed her gaze and then looked back up. Hydra made him torture a kid. All of a sudden, he was feeling a mix of horror, sadness, and rage.

"Yep. I got away though, thanks to the terrigen." Katia said. "The crystals gave me these abilities..." She reached her hand up and a spark of electricity was emitted from her hand, making the lightbulb go out. "Shit. I'm still kinda working on that." Katia looked at Bucky, who was blankly staring at the ground. "Uh... no hard feelings though. You're actually a pretty cool person." It didn't seem to help very much. "Alright, why don't we change the subject, huh?"

"Yeah... sure..." Bucky said. Although, he was definitely going to have nightmares.

Suddenly Katia's phone started ringing, breaking the solemn silence of the room. It was a facetime from Peter. Katia panicked and moved out of the way so that Bucky wouldn't be in the frame."Hey, Peter... what's up?"

Bucky looked at her in confusion. "Это кто?" (who is that?) He said, in Russian so that the person on the phone wouldn't understand.

Katia rolled her eyes. "Мой парень." (My boyfriend.) She answered.

"Who are you talking to in Russian?" Peter inquired through the phone.

"Uh... my... my uncle. He just got here from Russia. Super old too. Like a hundred or something and he only understands Russian so... yeah." She said, earning an annoyed look from Bucky which almost made her laugh.

"Oh, okay that's good cause I'm in a bit of a situation right now."

"What kind of a situation?" Katia asked. She saw that the background was a bunch of shipping containers. "Wait, where are you?"

"Well, I found the guy who had the purple alien glowy thing, and now I'm trapped in some high-security storage area where they keep them in bulk," Peter said. "And I don't know how to get out."

Bucky looked at Katia curiously. She ignored him. "Have you asked the suit lady to get you out yet?"

"Yeah, but she couldn't do it!"

Katia let out a string of Russian curses and walked over to her computer. "Send me your location. I'll see what I can do."

Just before they hung up, Bucky got a glimpse of the screen. "You're dating the Spider kid?" He asked, almost laughing.

"Yes, and his name is Peter... actually, I probably shouldn't have told you that," Katia said, turning back to the computer. "What's it to you anyway? Do you guys have some sort of beef or something?"

"I fought him at the airport," Bucky said. "That kid is annoying. He's also a bit too much like Steve for his own good."

"Huh, so that's were he was that week." Katia said to herself. When she finally was able to get through the firewall and upload a virus in the security system, she turned to Bucky. "What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Do you... you know... like anyone?" Katia asked.

Bucky panicked for a reason unbeknownst to himself. He covered it up with a sarcastic laugh. "What is this? high school?" Katia have him a look. "Fine. No I don't 'like' anyone."

Katia almost burst out laughing. "I don't have to be a super spy to know that you're lying, Buck. Now spill."

"You'll never get it out of me." He countered.

"I have my ways." Katia said, leaning forward.

"Well, that wasn't creepy at all."

"I get that a lot." She shrugged. "But if you need any advice, just ask."