You Can't Save Everyone

Chapter 14 - Like Catching Smoke

Y/N POV

Revenge

It's a funny thing.

Some people have hearts of gold and never seek it. Instead they live by a motto of 'Everything happens for a reason'. Others waste their lives failing to achieve it.

I find the concept somewhat theatrical but theatrics draw attention... and I wanted their attention.

BUCKY POV

"She's inventive if nothing else" Tony quipped at the view before us.

"Only you would find this amusing Stark" Steve retorted and Tony chuckled breathily.

"I'm just saying, this is pretty creative. The phrase is cliché but she definitely made her point." He replied.

"It's disturbing is what it is" Sam said with a grimace.

We're in an old tube station in London that was no longer in use. That is, no longer in use by the public. We were currently staring at five bodies, strung up by barbed wire over a steel joist and hanging over the disused railway track. On the wall behind them was a message:

'I spy with my little eye, 5 more people who had to die.'

It was written in blood. Classy y/n.

"Do you recognise any of them Bucky?" Natasha asked me.

I nodded. 3 of the men were Hydra, one of them being their chief weapons importer. I didn't know the other two but by the looks of them and the crates littering the platform we were stood on, they were arms dealers.

I didn't reply verbally but I doubt Nat had expected me to. If I wasn't closed off before, I definitely am since y/n's dramatic departure.

"We should get them down, see if there's any info on them." Nat suggested.

"Y/n would've taken anything of value. We're not going to figure out her plan or find her until she wants us to." I explained.

"How the hell did we get here?" Wanda said wondering aloud what most of the team was probably thinking.

Jess scoffed and turned to face us all, "People have always had a habit of underestimating y/n. She's incredibly intelligent and used it to protect us as much as she could in Hydra...", she gazed up at the hanging bodies and spoke quietly, "but it also makes her more dangerous than you could possibly imagine."

Jess had been distant from the rest of us since y/n's departure. The only person she really spoke to was Sam and he'd told us enough to know Jess was taking y/n leaving her behind harder than she let on. She was bitter and angry but most of all? I think she was hurting and was scared that y/n would go too far.

"Does this *Steve gestured to the hanging bodies* give you any idea what she's planning Jess?" Steve asked her.

Jess rolled her eyes, "How many times are you going to ask me that before you accept that for once I'm just as clueless as you?"

"I'm not accusing Jess. You know her better than the rest of us. I just wondered if you can see something here that we can't" He replied tactfully.

Jess and Steve came to blows a few days after y/n left. He wanted to know what she knew and wouldn't back down even when she continuously denied having any knowledge of y/n's plans. They've never properly apologised to each other, Steve just gave up asking. Jess didn't deserve to be on the receiving end of his anger but she knows just as well as the rest of us that it wasn't about her. Steve was just scared and angry after y/n shot me.