"winter soldier."
you clenched your jaw, your teeth grinding together, eyes glued to bucky's vacant expression. your stomach was in knots. you were against the plan to begin with, but you had no choice but to take zemo's lead on this. that didn't mean you trusted him one bit, not after what he put your friends through. your hand remained firmly tucked against your thigh, where your knife was strapped to your leg.
you could feel your chest rising and falling faster as the man approached zemo from behind, your heart beating harder in your chest. the main reason behind your not wanting to go through with this mission was bucky. you knew how hard he worked every day to remove himself from his past, and here he was, again, placed right in the middle of everything he wanted to forget. the only reason you agreed to it was bucky's reassurance that he could handle it.
but right now, you were reminded of the man you met many years ago for the first time, only without the mask.
the man's hand fell onto zemo's shoulder. "attack," he spoke in the eerily familiar tongue.
he didn't hesitate, his vibranium arm snatched the man's hand away from zemo, you swore you heard something crack. you clutched your knife, yanking it out of it's holder, but before you got any further, sam's hand was restraining you. he didn't look your way, holding his cover, instead you both watched bucky drag the man away from the three of you, twisting his arm behind his back to where you heard another disturbingly loud crack.
you tried to keep your cover, but you couldn't help but flinch watching him use his full force to plough his vibranium arm against the mans chest, knocking him off his feet. his body slammed against the hard floor and you gulped, sam's hand tightening around your wrist when you made to move again.
"hold it," you glanced at sam for a split second, his eyebrows knitted tightly together watching the winter soldier in action, but he knew the consequences if he made to intervene. you could tell it was unsettling sam just as much as it was you, to watch bucky like this. but you had no choice but to stand and watch your boyfriend ruin anyone who came within a foot of him.
the bar was silent, the only sounds to be heard were the muffled groans coming from the man at bucky's feet. you noticed some of the people surrounding the fight had pulled out their phones and began recording the scene. you wanted to snatch them away and crumple them, but resolved to taking a deep breath and biting down on your tongue as hard as you could. you just had to endure for a little while longer and then it would be over.
you watched as bucky took apart two more men who came swinging towards him, zemo's expression was full of more amusement than you cared for. you felt blood trickling in your mouth, the metallic taste filling your taste buds after you had flinched and bit down harder on your tongue.
if sam hadn't been there to physically restrain you, you would've intervened long before this could start. you knew bucky was no longer controlled by zemo, but watching him fight like this was a brutal reminder of everything bucky had done and been through. you dreaded to think how it was making him feel having to slip back into the mindlessly violent nature that had been drilled into him.
sam's eyes darted around, watching bucky take out one guy after the next. zemo couldn't keep himself out of it, he shoved forward a bystander, watching, almost gleefully, as bucky threw a swing at the man, spinning him backwards before delivering another blow so forceful it took out another man standing behind him. your breath hitched in your throat, you couldn't stop yourself from cringing when another man was thrown off his feet, his spine cracking harshly against the metal joists when bucky's metal arm collided with his torso and sent him flying.
your ears were ringing slightly, your throat tightening the longer you watched this go on. "didn't take much for him to fall back into form," you heard zemo lean into sam's ear to mumble this but you caught it. you were going to kill that man yourself after this mission was over.
