Saved - A Bucky Barnes love story

Show me what you can do

As expected, I slept badly. It's still dark outside when I decide to give up trying to sleep and go to work out instead. I get up and look for my sports gear in the dresser. Black shorts, a black sports bra, a black sweatshirt jacket, black gauntlets and sports shoes later I stand in front of the mirror and tie my hair in a ponytail. When I pull my hair back and expose my neck, I see scars that run down my neck to my collarbone. There are small, punctiform scars that I owe to Rumlow's cigarette butts. He thought it was funny to wake me up again by putting his cigarettes out on me when my body was actually too weak to endure further experiments. For everyone else they should only be faintly visible, but I see them as if they were painted in signal color on my skin. A constant reminder of everything that happened at Hydra. At least everything I can remember. I grab a towel from the bathroom and go into the kitchen. There I get a bottle of water from the fridge and take the elevator down to the gym. On the whole way I don't meet anyone, I guess everyone else is still asleep. I am amazed when I enter the gym which apparently extends over the whole floor. There is really everything your heart desires here. There are the usual training devices that are known from fitness studios. There is a boxing ring, a chamber in which you can do shooting exercises with all kinds of guns, a chamber in which you can shoot with bows and arrows and a chamber in which you can throw knives at targets. I start with a few simple pull-ups before I switch to a wall bars where you hang on a bar and climb higher and higher by moving the bar from rung to rung. Then I run a few miles on the treadmill before going to one of the punching bags. "Nice moves. What else did they teach you there?" asks Thor who at some point just stands next to me. I was so absorbed in my punches that I didn't even notice that he and a few of the others are now in the gym as well. "Pretty much everything" I wipe my face with the towel and take a few sips of water. "I can handle guns and knives and I never miss a target when shooting with a bow." "I'd really like to see that," says Thor, sounding genuinely curious. Well, let's show them what I can do. First I go to the chamber with the guns. I opt for a Beretta 92 with 9 millimeter caliber bullets. On the computer where you can set the difficulties, I set the most difficult setting. This means that the room is almost completely dark and, according to the explanation on the screen, new targets appear every 5 seconds at a distance of 10 meters. A countdown appears on a screen at the end of the room and a loud PING signals that it is about to start. I shoot bullet after bullet until a siren announces the end of the exercise. When the light comes on again, the goals are brought forward so that you can see your results. Each target is punctured right in the center of it. I can't help but smile when I see the amazed faces of the others. Without saying a word, I go into the room with the throwing knives. Seven dummies are set up here that light up on different parts of the body every 4 seconds. The areas that light up are the targets that you have to hit with the knife. Another countdown and a little later I hit all the spots perfectly. Finally, I go to the archery room. First I ask myself what to shoot at, there are no targets or other objects here. But after another countdown has expired, holograms suddenly appear and approach me as if they were attacking me. As soon as I hit them with the arrow, they disappear into thin air. As if I were fighting an army alone, more and more holograms come and pounce on me. But not a single hologram remains intact, I hit them all. "Looks like you have competition now, Clint" I hear Nat say and Clint laughs. "That was impressive. But what about hand-to-hand combat?" asks Nat when I come out of the room. "If you want, I'll show you what it looks like" I say and grin, confident of victory. We get into the boxing ring and start when Thor rings the ring bell. Nat is a worthy opponent but it quickly becomes clear that I am vastly superior to her in terms of stamina. When she is already breathing hard I swing myself up on her, clamp my legs around her neck and bring her to the ground with them. I get her to tap out what the means end of the fight. "Very impressive," she gasps as she lies on the floor of the boxing ring. "That was all well and good. But can you also take on a man?" asks Loki who looks at me confident of victory. Without warning, I grab his arm and throw him over me. With a crack he lands on the floor and gasps for air. "What the ..." he breaks off the sentence because he seems to have no words. "You had to say something, brother" Thor just can't stop laughing. I hold out my hand to Loki to help him up, but I can't help but join in the laughter of the others.