Cornelia Street - Avengers

With You I Fall

"In my body, I fight fire. With the snow, my hell is cold. In my body, I have a soft light. I've become the only thing I hate."

2016

(Body, SYML)

...

Lucia didn't look up as she sat on the bench of the van, guns pointed at her chest and heart by those she had once called her former co-workers. Former friends even. Those who had known her from when she was a scared eighteen-year-old with nothing to her name but a broken memory and a name she didn't feel was her own. 

She didn't look up from her hands as Rumlow's stare burnt holes into her head as he locked them in the van. She knew she couldn't stomach looking into the eyes of someone she would have once gone to when she needed. So, she didn't.

She couldn't watch him and ultimately discover whether or not he felt guilt or contentment at their capture. She couldn't bear it. All she could focus on was seeing James' eyes as he looked at her and Steve, layers beyond layers of confusion and agony built up in one look. 

One look of confusion at the man he used to protect. Used to call his friend. And then the way James looked at her. It almost knocked the breath from her lungs when she pictured it.

She wanted to drift into a deep slumber when a laugh pulled her back to the present. Brutal and rough, and she recognised the mockery in it. "How does it feel?" Rumlow leaned closer into the van, "Knowing he became the monster you never wanted to be."

Lucia still didn't spare him a glance, she just grit her teeth. "Call him a monster again, and I'll show you a real one," she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear.

Rumlow scoffed, "Can't wait to get my hands on you," he spat.

She smiled down at the floor, "I'd like to see you try."

His final reply was the slamming of the back doors, and finally, silence enveloped the van. Too exhausted to cling to her anger or her pain, she let herself focus on the spotting of her vision instead. 

They all had no idea where they were going to be taken, Lucia assumed SHIELD, but who knew now that HYDRA finally had them right where they wanted them? Able to control them however they wished. Lucia's stomach churned as she heard Sam speak up from beside her on the bench.

"You said Bucky. You knew him... the Winter Soldier," Sam spoke up, directed at Steve who merely stared down at the floor, gaze vacant.

"He looked right at me like he didn't even know me," the blond murmured, eyes flicking up to hers before falling back to the floor.

"How is that possible Steve, that was like seventy years ago," Sam countered, shaking his head.

"It was Zola. In '43 Bucky's whole unit was captured. He was experimented on and whatever Zola did to him must've helped Bucky survive that fall from the train," Steve said sadly, "They must have found him and..."

Natasha sucked in an uneven breath, face paling even more as she used all her energy to speak to her friend. "Steve, none of that is your fault."

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky."

Her sorrow deepened, her frustration mounting as she felt parts of herself clawing inside her. She was no longer the only one affected, HYDRA hurting her was one thing, but now in her freedom, she was reminded of the ways in which they were breaking those she loved on the outside.

Perhaps she didn't know James at all, not as well as she thought, but the man in her training room, the one who fixed her wounds and showed her peace was not like the man on the bridge. And similarly, the man on the bridge was not the man in Steve's mind.