Winter's Fire. ~Book Three~

Chapter Fourteen: What Needs to be Done.

They had been driving for too long, Levi decided after an hour had passed since being put in the van. She almost wished that they had killed them on that street, in front of all the people, it would have been better than watching her mother be broken and confused, with the only sound coming from her was the sound of her crying. 
"It was him," Steve said, finally breaking the silence. "He looked right at is like he didn't even know who we were." 
Red reached up to wipe her face clean of dried blood and tears with her sleeve before she spoke up, her voice cracking as she did. "He looked through us, Steve. He didn't even know himself." 
"How's that even possible?" Sam asked, looking between the two of them. "That was like seventy years ago." 
"Zola," Steve said as he leaned his head back against the window behind his head. She could tell that this new found Bucky situation was tearing him up, and she hated that there was no way she could comfort him. "Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on him... whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall, they must have found him and-" 
"And I should have been able to fly down and catch him." Red said. "Otherwise, this wouldn't be happening." 
"This is neither of your faults." Nat said from beside Levi. 
Levi nodded in agreement as she lightly bumped her leg against Steve's, but directed her words toward Red. "Red, if you had tried, you would've taken with him." 
"I guess." Red in a small voice. 
Silently, Levi wondered how this was going to change Red's relationship with Tony. It's not every day that the love of your life seemingly comes back to life. 
"Even when I hard nothing," Steve said as he returned the bump. "I had Red and Bucky." 
The van fell silent again as Levi leaned her head back as well and closed her eyes, silently praying for them to die quickly and painlessly. 
+++
Natasha could feel herself slowly drifting into unconsciousness, she was losing blood so quickly and she felt cold and tired, she couldn't even stop shivering. "We need to get a doctor here. If we don't put pressure on that wound," Sam was saying as he shifted to look her. "She's gonna bleed out here in the truck." 
As the last word left Sam's mouth, Levi tensed up beside her. She forced her eyes to focus back on their surroundings. One of the guards had whipped out an electric rod and jammed it into the other's chest, effectively knocking them out before they took off their helmet, revealing to them that Maria Hill was sitting with them. 
"Ah," she grimaced. "That thing was squeezing my brain." She looked at Steve and Red as she nodded toward Sam. "Who's this guy?" 
"That's Sam Wilson." Red said, sounding relieved as a small smile appeared over her lips. "What are you doing here?" 
Natasha blinked as her ears started to ring. "I'm here to get you out." Hill said before she cut the group free of their bindings and proceeded to cut a hole into the floor of the truck as it stopped at a light. 
They jumped down and onto the street with Hill thankfully leading them into temporary safety. 
+++
As Red, Levinia, Steve, Sam, Natasha and Hill make their getaway, Rumlow and his HYDRA agents park their trucks and vans inside of a tunnel before they come out, most of them holding shovels. 
"Five holes, start digging." Rumlow said. 
As his team started to big, he opened the van doors and saw that not only was everyone gone, but that there was also a burning hole in the floor and there was a guard missing, while the other was knocked out. 
In his sudden burst of anger, he smacked the van door. "We shouldn't have let Red be alone with them." 
"Why?" 
"Because of her fire." Rumlow said before he turned to look at everyone surrounding him and told them their next steps.
+++
 Red held her arm against her chest, cradling it as gently as possible as Hill led them into a secret SHIELD facility that was built into a mountain landscape. "What is this place?" Red asked as she looked around them. 
"You'll see." Hill said. 
As they continued on, Steve set a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze as a pair of doctors came up to them, both of them going up to Tasha and Red, but almost everyone turned to focus their attention on Natasha, even Red who had been forcing back whimpers and tears. 
"GSW. She's lost at least a pint." Hill said as they hurried along. 
"Maybe two." Sam added. 
Red reached up with her uninjured arm to wipe at her face, wincing slightly as she jostled her nose. "She'll need possible bullet removal and at least six stitches inside and out." As she spoke, she reached over to touch Steve's hand and closed her eyes. Why did it have to be Bucky?
"Please make sure Red's nose isn't broken." Steve said to the doctor that wasn't focusing solely on Natasha. "And that her arm gets set." 
"Steve," Levi said softly from over his shoulder. "Have you seen her fucking face? It's obviously broken." 
"Let us take them." One of the doctors said. 
Hill shook her head. "They'll wanna see him first." 
Red let out a semi-annoyed breath and closed her eyes as she leaned against Steve. She just wanted to sleep, that was something she wanted more than anything in this moment, especially since she felt dead on her feet. 
"Him?" Levi asked as they were led to another room. In the room Hill brought them too next, they were in an obvious makeshift but usable hospital room. And in the bed laid Nick Fury, the only other person in the room that was supposed to be dead. 
"About damn time." Fury said as he looked at the five of them. 
Red blinked a few times. "I'm sorry, but can you explain to me how you're alive?" 
"What?" Fury said with a chuckle. "Not happy to see me?" 
Red couldn't help but give a painful smile of her own. "I mean, I am happy to see you, but I think my question is valid." 
He gestured toward the chairs and table across from his bed. "Take a seat and I'll explain everything." 
She gingerly took a seat and finally started to relax her body. Even though she knew they were nowhere near being done, it was nice to be able to take this moment to relax. The moment she and Tasha sat down, the doctors got to work patching them up. Levi sat on the floor between her and Steve, with her head leaned against Steve's leg and Sam decided to stay standing behind them. 
"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and one Hell of a headache." Fury said, giving them a list of his injuries. 
The doctor working on Natasha glanced up from getting her hooked up to an IV. "Don't forget your collapsed lung." 
Fury gave a soft laugh at that. "Oh, let's not forget about that. Otherwise, I'm good." 
Red would have smiled if her arm wasn't suddenly, and painfully, set back into place. "I would definitely define that as good." 
Natasha looked at him, barely showing any sort of emotion as her body took in the much needed fluids. "They cut you open. Your heart stopped." 
"Tetrodotoxin B, slows the pulse to one beat a minute." Fury said as he rested his hands atop his stomach. "Banner developed it for stress, didn't work for him, but we found a use for it." 
"Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?" Steve asked as he reached down to rub Levi's head. 
Across the table from them, Hill cleared her throat. "Any attempt on the Director's life had to look successful." 
Fury nodded as he was handed a glass of water. "Can't kill you if you're already dead." He took slow sip of his drink before he set it down on his bedside table. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust." 
As they were wrapping her arm, Red reached over with her free hand to pick up a bottle of water and took a drink before she patted her shirt to make sure the tags were still there. She thought it was a twisted trick of fate that, after she said she couldn't do this without him, that she now had to it against him.
+++
Bucky remembered falling from a train as he heard a woman scream for him, and when he thought about that scream, he got a fragment of memory of him kneeling before her with a ring. Something about her seemed to draw him in, everything from her blue eyes to her fiery red hair. 
She was Red, his mind told him. Red North.
And then, he had another fragment of memory. 

He looked down at his body, seeing that his arm was gone and leaving a trail of blood behind as he was dragged away, and yet, even though he was dying, the thought at the forefront of his mind was if Red was okay. 
The two people who had found him brought him to a lab of some sort and he saw Zola standing over him with a sinister smile on his face. That was a face he never wanted to see again. 
"Sergeant Barnes." He said. 
He could hear Steve yelling for him next. "Bucky, no!" 
"The procedure has already started." Zola said next. 
Bucky turned his head to the side and saw that the doctors were amputating the rest of his arm and replacing it with an odd looking metal one. "You are to be the new fist of HYDRA." Zola said before he turned to face his other men. "Put him on ice." 
He put his hand on the window of the odd sort of freezer he was put into before he was frozen in time. 

"Red!" He yelled as he lashed out and knocked over one of the HYDRA technicians next to him, he slowly raised his head as a gun was pointed at him, and saw that Pierce was joining the small group. 
"Sir, he's.... unstable, erratic." The doctor beside him said. "He keeps muttering a color." 
Pierce put his hands on his hips as he looked at Bucky. "What color?" 
"Red?" Said the doctor, sounding more confused by the second. 
"Agent Red North." That got Bucky's full attention as Pierce sat down in front of him. She was an agent, was she on their side too? And if she was, maybe Pierce could tell him where she was. "Mission report." He said. 
But all Bucky could mutter was Red's name when she came to his mind. 
"Mission report. Now." Pierce repeated as he leaned forward and slapped him across the face. This, for some reason, was what grounded him back into reality. 
Bucky blinked a few times as his eyes focused on the man in front of him. "The man on the bridge... who was he?" And then, Red's face, the way she acted, the way she always smelled like vanilla and burnt wood, how her hands were just small enough to fit perfectly in his hand. "Red..." He whispered. "Where's Red?" 
"Don't worry about Red," Pierce said as he looked into Bucky's eyes. "You met that man earlier this week on another assignment." 
"I knew him," Bucky said, blinking heavily as he slumped back in his seat. "I knew both of them." 
Pierce ignored him all together at this point, not that Bucky blamed him. He could only imagine how crazy he must of sounded, but he knew that he had to get back to her, to protect her from these men, just like he had wanted to when she was being tortured a few weeks ago. 
"Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century, and I need you to it one more time." Pierce said. "Society is at a tipping point, between order and chaos. Tomorrow morning, we're gonna give it a push. But if you don't do your part, I can't do mine, and HYDRA can't give the world the freedom is deserves." 
Bucky sat in silence for a long moment, taking in his words before he raised his head again. "But I knew them." He looked around him, more frantically this time. "Where's Red? I need to get to Red." 
Pierce sighed as he got to his feet. "Prep him." 
"He's been out of cryo-freeze for too long." 
"Then wipe him and start over." 
And as Pierce walked away, a mouthguard was shoved into Bucky's mouth and he closed his eyes. He took in what Red looked like, her voice, his laugh... even her scent before they started to shock him and everything started to fade to black. 
But even then, he knew he loved her. 
+++
They all sat around the table as they both tried to come up with a plan and gorged on food, with Fury giving them one of his famous speeches as he held a picture of himself and Pierce. And Levi thought, of everything they had done the last two days, that this was the most boring part of it. She almost wished she was back on that overpass, punching Rumlow in the face while being shot at. 
"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize, he said "Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility'," he shook his head as he put down the picture. "See? This stuff like this that gives me trust issues." 
Levi nodded slowly as she chews and swallowed a bite of her sandwich and, not even trying to hide the annoyance and loathing she had for him and the situation at hand, said. "You know what give me trust issues? When my boss pretends to be dead while the rest of us risk our necks." 
Steve gave a semi-disappointed sigh as, behind them, Sam chuckled. He set a hand on her knee with a soft. "Levi.." In an instant, she relaxed back in her seat and said nothing as as the group went back to silently eating their food. 
After a moment of the silence, though, Red set her sandwich down with a sigh. "So, what do we do now?" 
Levi still didn't understand why they were letting Red come with them in her condition. She was lucky that all a concrete barrier to face did was break her nose, and even then-while Levi didn't understand why, she knew that didn't have a choice but take her mother with them and that she wouldn't take no for an answer. 
"We have to stop the launch." Nat said as she glanced at Levi, and she knew that they were both thinking the same thing. It would take a miracle for all of them to survive and take out Project Insight at the same time. 
Levi reached down and set her hand over Steve's and gently interlocked their fingers. "And how do you suppose we do that?" 
Steve offered her a smile. "We're Avengers, we'll find a way." 
Sam let out a snort of laughter. "No, you guys are Avengers." 
Levi gave a slight smirk as she winked in Sam's direction. "No, them guys are Avengers, I just sit here and look pretty." 
Steve shook his head with a chuckle, and was about to give a retort when Fury sighed at their shenanigans and said. "I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore." He opened a case beside him and showed them a set of three chips.
"What's that?" 
"Once the helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized." Hill explained, keeping her eyes trained on the case and the chops that reside inside. 
"So, what do you want us to do?" Levi asked, still keeping her fingers intertwined with Steve's. She couldn't let it go now, not while they were this close to ending it, not when there was a chance they could all die. 
"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own." Fury told them. 
"One or two won't cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work, because if even one of those ships remains operational, a whole bunch of people are gonna die." Hill told them as if she was trying to remind them what was at stake.
Beside her, Fury looked at each of them, meeting their gaze one by one as he spoke. "We have to assume everyone aboard those careers are HYDRA, we need to get passed them, insert the server blades, and maybe-" he coughed before he cleared his throat and continued. "Maybe we can salvage what's left." 
There was a moment of silence as the group looked at one another and Red set her jaw before she shook her head. "No." 
"Excuse me?" 
Levi couldn't help the grin that spread over her face as she listened to Red speak. "You heard me, Nick." Red said as she glanced at Steve, who gave her an encouraging nod. "We're not saving SHIELD." Hearing a founder of SHIELD say this was... powerful, especially when she had worked so hard to built it up from the ground up. 
Steve nodded in agreement, keeping his eyes on Red for another moment before looking at Fury. "Red's right. We're not salvaging anything. We're not just taking down those carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD." 
Fury opened and closed his mouth as he struggled to find any sort of argument. "SHIELD had nothing to do with it." He said finally. 
"That's bullshit and you know it." Red countered as she awkwardly crossed her arms over her chest. "SHIELD had everything to do with it." 
While they spoke, Levi leaned back in her seat and didn't even try to hide how smug she was feeling and beside her, Sam was looking the exact same way. 
"You gave us this mission, this is how it ends." Steve said, under the table his grip on Levi's hand got ever so slightly tighter. "SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed." 
Fury raised an eyebrow at them. "Why do you think we're meeting in this cave? I noticed." 
"But we didn't notice soon enough!" Red shouted as she stood up so fast and furiously that her chair tipped over and clattered to the ground. "We had to nearly die to realize that HYDRA had taken over." 
"And how many had to pay the price before you did notice?" Steve asked, as if he was riding Red's point. 
Fury looked between the two of them with his good eye before he gave a defeated sigh. "Look, I didn't know about Barnes." 
And that was what seemed to piss Steve off. Bringing Bucky into this was the worst thing Fury could have done. He pulled his hand out of Levi's as he too, got to his feet. "Even if you had, would you have told me? Red? Or would you have compartmentalized that too?!" He leaned his hands on the table as he looked at Fury. "SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes." 
"As a founder of SHIELD, I can confidently tell you that both Peggy and Howard would have wanted this." She let out a shaking breath. "We burn it all to the ground." 
"They're right." Hill said. 
Slowly, Fury looked at them, starting with Nat, who nodded. She clearly agreed with them. And then at Sam, who shook his head. "Don't look at me, I do what they do, just a little slower."
Finally, his eyes landed on Levi, who shrugged. "I'm with them on this, Sir. If they say it's the best way to do it, then it's the best way to do it." 
Fury almost looked impressed as he looked back at Steve and Red. "Well... looks like you two are giving the orders now." 
"You say that like we weren't since the very beginning." Red said before she turned to face the group. "Get Councilwoman Howley on the line, I have a plan." 
"Oh good God, Red has a plan." Levi said with a grin as she got to her feet and joined her and Steve's sides. 
"Hey," Red said as she knocked her shoulder against Levi's. "Not all of my plans are that bad." 
"No," Nat agreed. "But most of them are." 
Red rolled her eyes at that. "Can you guys just trust me on this?" She turned to leave the room as she scratched at her chest. "We're running low on time, people. Wheels up in an hour." 
Levi laughed as she looked up at Steve and then turned her gaze to Natasha and Sam. "You all heard the woman. Wheels up in an hour." 
As she left the room with Natasha to get ready for Hawley, Levi realized that she had to tell Steve how she really felt about him, despite the fact that it was likely very obvious at that point given how close they had been since the kiss at mall.
+++
As Councilwoman Hawley arrived on the scene in a helicopter, Steve and Red stood on a bridge as they watched the sun rise over what little of DC they could see. 
"Nothing is gonna be the same after this." She said as she held her broken arm against her chest, grasping at Bucky's tags. Just under the ring that turned into her staff, was the engagement ring he had used to ask her to marry him. 
"I know." He said, keeping his eyes on the city. 
She turned to look at him. "You know, we'll have to get him back, right?" 
He nodded before he looked down at her. "I know that too, but we'll probably be alone in that quest." 
"We will be," Red said with a sigh. "But it'll be worth it." She closed her eyes and took his hand in her free one. She rarely, if ever, used the magic her mother had taught her when she was a child, but if ever there was a moment, it would be now. She kept her eyes closed as she showed him one of his favorite memories of the three of them. 

Red and Bucky had followed Steve back to the apartment after his mother's funeral, she was tucked under Bucky's arm and she remembered that he was trying to keep her warm. 
"We tried to find you after." Bucky was saying as they approached the door. "My folks wanted to give you a ride from the cemetery." 
"I know, I'm sorry. I just-" Steve sighed. "I just kind of wanted be alone." 
Red nodded and reached out to grasp his hand. "Which is understandable, we were just worried, that's all." 
"I'm sorry for worrying you, Red." He gave her a sad smile as he weakly squeezed her hand. "Thank you both for coming back with me." 
Bucky smiled as he nodded. "It's not a problem." He put his free hand into his pocket and gave Steve a serious look. "How was it?" 
Steve gave a halfhearted shrug. "It was alright. She's with dad." 
Bucky and Red looked at each other before he tried to bring up what they had talked about in the car ride there, and while they both knew that Steve would shoot it down, neither of them wanted Steve to be alone. "We were gonna ask-" 
"I know what you're going to say, Buck, I just-" 
"We can put the couch cushions on the floor like when we were kids. It'll be fun." Bucky said with a little smirk. "All you gotta do is shine my shoes, and take out the trash." 
They had finally made it to the apartment door, and Red wrapped her arms around Bucky's middle while they watched Steve struggle to find his house keys. She had a suspicion that he had accidentally dropped them between there and the cemetery. 
Bucky kicked aside a brick to reveal a spare key that was hiding under it. "Come on." He said, looking a little disappointed that that was the best hiding spot that Steve could find. 
Red chewed on the inside of her cheek before she said. "Steve, we could get take out and eat in. That new place just opened up and it will be fun." She was really just struggling to find any way to get him to let them help him. 
"Thank you, both of you." Steve said with a gentle, but tired, smile. "But I can get by on my own." 
"The thing is, you don't have too," Bucky gave Steve a friendly pat on the shoulder. "We're with you to the end of the line, Pal." 

Their thoughts of Bucky were interrupted when Sam cleared his throat and joined them on the bridge. "He's gonna be there, you know?" 
Steve nodded. "We know." 
Sam hesitated for a few seconds, seemingly struggling with his words before he finally said. "Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now... I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop." 
Steve shook his head as he looked down at the ground. "I don't think I can do that." 
Red held the bog tags as tight in her hand as she could as she kept her eyes on the city. "I know I can't do that, he's Bucky-our Bucky..." She then looked down at the ring he had given her all that time ago. "He's my James." 
Sam sighed as he set a hand on her shoulder. "And I understand that, but he might not give you a choice, Red. He doesn't know either of you," he gently turned her around to face him. "If he did, he wouldn't have hurt you like this." 
"He will remember." Steve said with a hopeful smile before the three of them fell silent again. 
Red cleared her throat as she looked up at the two of them. "I saw him, you know... when HYDRA took me a couple weeks ago.." she felt her breath shaking with her words as she spoke. "He was in the next room over, I just didn't remember it until I looked at him today, Pierce said that they wanted a matching set." She forced the memory of hearing him yell for her as she was electrocuted and forced into complying. 
"They must have wiped your memory." Sam said as he gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze.
Steve, who must not have known how to react to that, said. "Gear up, it's almost time." And he started to walk away with Red trailing behind him. 
"You two gonna wear that?" Sam asked as he jogged to catch up with them. 
Steve chuckled. "No, if you're gonna fight a war, you gotta wear a uniform." 
Red turned around to float backwards as she looked at Sam. "Is there anything else we need to know?" 
Sam smiled as he looked up at her. "Hawley is here. Nat is getting prepped for take off, she'll be heading out from where Hawley is supposed to be." 
Red raised an eyebrow. "Which is where?" 
"Some very expensive hotel in New York. Lev is teleporting her there and then coming back." 
Red nodded. "Good, then we all meet in about an hour outside of the compound." 
"Well be there. Watch each other's six!" He called over his shoulder as he finally turned around and jogged away from them. 
Together, Steve and Red headed to the Smithsonian to get their old Howling Commandoes suit back from the display, and as they snuck away, Red heard the nightguard drop his flashlight with an exclamation of. "Oh man, I'm so fired!" 
+++
After Levinia had gotten back from dropping Natasha off and gotten ready for the fight of her life, she sat on a rock and messaged Gamora as she waited for Red and Steve to come back. 

I think that it's important for you to do this. 

I know. I'm just... I don't know how to do it. I keep thinking that everything is going to get better, and it just doesn't. Everything is moving so fast, and I'm afraid of it all crashing and burning. 

She could almost hear the sisterly sigh Gamora would have given as she read the next message. You're not just doing this for you, Levinia. You are also doing this for Red and team you now call your family. 

Now Levi let out a sigh, knowing, and hating, that Gamora was right. She had to be brave for her little family. Then I guess I can do this. 

You know, I know you can. Good luck, Levi. 

I'll talk to you later. Thanks, Gamora. 

As she stood up, she shoved her communicator into her backpack and went back inside. By now, Natasha would have already been on her way to meet up with the other council members and Pierce. In a few minutes-as soon as Steve and her mother got back-they'd be taking on the whole of HYDRA and, hopefully, win. 
Sure enough, as the sun finished rising in the sky, Red and Steve finally came back. She looked up at him and gave a stressed smile as her tech formed around her body and stopped at the base of her throat. 
"Hey, Steve..." she started as she struggled to make eye contact with him. It shouldn't be this hard, especially when she considered the fact that she already made out with him in the middle of a public mall. "Can I tell something? Before we go out there and fight for our lives?" 
Sam and Red, who had been finishing up getting geared up and ready to go, made themselves very scarce rather quickly. 
Steve turned to face her after he finished fastening his belt. "Yeah, what's going on, Lev?" 
She took a nervous breath as the butterflies in her stomach turned into a swarm of angry bees. "The last couple days, what with the running and the nearly dying... made me realize that I don't want to die before I tell you that I have f-feelings for you." 
Steve, who looked both shocked and taken off guard, leaned against the table and blinked a few times. "What?" 
Levi sighed as she stood in front of him. "Steve, I have feelings for you... real feelings, like.. I'm-I'm-" she silently curse herself as she stammered over her words. She had taken on whole armies of Thanos's enemies, and this was the scariest thing she'd ever done? "Tragically and irreversibly in love with you, and-and I can't not tell you if we're meant to fight HYDRA in like twenty minutes." 
Without answering her, Steve leaned forward and carefully took her face into his hands before he pressed his lips against hers. And this kiss was different from their first one, the first one happened in a desperate attempt to keep from being spotted by Rumlow, there was no time to put any feeling behind it. 
But this one, Levi thought as her eyes fluttered shut and returned the pressure, spoke the unspoken words that have passed between them since they left the mall. It told her, however sudden this one was, that he felt the same way about her, that she felt for him. 
His hands left her face and found their way to her hips, giving them a gentle squeeze before he turned them around and pressed her against the table. Levi felt her breath catching in the back of her throat as he finally pulled back and leaned his forehead against hers, she hadn't realized that her head as spinning until just then. 
"Was that good?" He asked breathlessly as one of his hands reached up to cup her cheek again. 
Levi swallowed as she nodded. "Y-yeah, that felt great." 
Steve smiled as he pressed one last kiss to her lips and pulled away from her entirely. "Good. Are you ready to go fight now?" 
That was when she remembered that they had a fight with HYDRA coming for them, that they had to take out three helicarriers and somehow survive the whole endeavor. Levi nodded as she cleared her throat again. "Yeah, I think I can do that." 
"When we're done, I'll take you out for that pizza you've been talking about." He pressed a final kiss to her forehead and grasped her hand as they walked out of the room. 
When they met back up with Sam and Red, they both smirked at them as they walked together. "So," Red said as her smirk turned into a grin. "Ready to take on the world?" 
Levi blew a piece of her hair out of her face and finally grinned. "I'm pretty sure I can take on the entire galaxy at this point, but for now, yes... the world will do." 
Sam chuckled as he patted her shoulder. "Good job." 
Now that everything was out in the open, Levi felt as if she was ready to fight HYDRA and she knew, in that moment, that they would win. 
+++
With Hill following behind them, they walked to the compound where they'd be having their final fight. But as they approached, Red couldn't stop thinking about Bucky. Was he waiting for her to come and get him? Or was he still stuck in the mind of the Winter Solider? 
She took a moment to think about the night they both left to Steve to help in the war, the night she realized that she wasn't ready for them to separated. 

They had been leaving a diner and heading toward the theater where they'd be getting Steve for a science expo that Bucky wanted to check out before he was shipped off to London. And while he knew that Red was heading out to New Jersey to help Howard Stark in this efforts in the war, he didn't know that she was a part of the SSR and would potentially be fighting too. 
It was a secret she wished that she never had to keep from him. 
With winter quickly approaching, Red shivered as they walked, silently cursing at herself as she did. She was made of fire, there was no reason that she should be this cold. 
Bucky quickly took off his jacket and set it on her shoulders with a chuckle. "You'll catch a cold if you aren't careful, Red." 
Red rolled her eyes but still happily wrapped it around her body. "I'm made of fire, I doubt I'll catch a cold." 
"No, you wish you were made of fire." He said with a small smirk as he took her hand and interlocked their fingers. "But I like that about you." 
Red smiled as she looked up at him. "I'm glad you like it." She had started to say something more when she suddenly sneezed and coughed. "Damn it." 
"I told you you'd get sick." He said with a laugh as he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. "Here. Let me warm you up." He rubbed her arms and back as she shivered, and after a few seconds, she was able to take in his warmth and relax against him with her eyes closed. 
"When do you leave?" It was a question she had asked over a dozen times and the answer was always different as the houses when on. 
He glanced at his watch. "In about fifteen hours, we need to get Steve soon... hopefully he hasn't found himself in any trouble." 
"It's Steve, he is trouble." 
"You say that like you aren't also made of trouble." 
She let out a soft laugh. "Me? Trouble? Pffft, never." 
He grinned as he looked down at her. "I'll let you know get away with it this time, only because I'll be leaving soon." 
Red sighed as she leaned her forehead against his chest. "Don't remind me." She hated the thought of being away from him for any period of time, let alone this months long one that meant they wouldn't see each other for a very long time. 
"Hey," he said softly as he gently tilted her chin up to look at him. "I'll be home soon, and then everything will be okay again." 
"Promise?" 
"I promise." He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I will always come home to you, remember?" 
Red nodded as she looked up and into his eyes, he was always able to calm her down just by looking at her. "I know, I just..." She sighed. "I worry." 
"I know you do, but I'll write to you whenever I have a chance." He smiled as he pressed his forehead against hers. "But I will always come home to you." 
Red smiled as she closed her eyes. "I love you, James." 
"I love you too, Red." 

A single tear rolled down her cheek as she forced herself out of her memory with one thought running through her mind. 
If she had to fight the love of her life, she'd die before she killed him.