Bound By Purpose

1963: The Lonely Patriot

Soviet Union, December 3rd, 1963

The door to the bar slams shut with the blow of an icy wind behind me as I enter the main room. It's mostly empty with just a few men and women as well as the bartender. No one pays any mind to me as I walk across the room and have a seat at the bar. "Виски" I put the money down while the bartender studies me. He couldn't know I'm out of place. I've been in and out of the bar for weeks getting accustomed to the way of life around here.

It's been a decade and a half and now this is my life. I've been busy as of late with the Cold War raging. I glance behind me to make sure no one unwanted has entered the room. I stretch my fingers out, wanting so badly to have them do something destructive. The last 4 years have been extremely busy. I'm not just a part of SHIELD anymore. I've also integrated myself into the CIA because there is much needed information that the agency possesses. And now I find myself in Russia for which agency I don't know the missions all run together now. Oh yeah I also became a highly decorated official for a mission I did in Korea during the last year of the war. Of course my history of previous companions came to light and instantly I was a hero to everyone. I couldn't walk past a single window in down town New York without seeing the poster of myself with Captain America. So I had to disappear. I went to sleep for 5 years. When Howard had awakened me again the world had forgotten about me and I was able to proceed with caution into the CIA. Now I find myself in the middle of the war for the third time in what has only been a decade of my life but has been over 20 years for the real world. I have my place now, the wounds I had from the loss I experienced while in the SSR... Well they healed with the time I spent sleeping away. It was nice not to have that pit in my stomach when I woke up in 1958 but I can't help but feel it's wrong. It'd been less than a few years to me, but I suppose my brain followed the real time that swirls around me when i go under.

My mind still falls back to Bucky every now and again, like it has now. I down another sip and let it burn away the leftover feelings. I glance behind me as I hear a chair scrape against the wood floor. The two couples in the corner have slipped away, but the hooded drunk man beside me still has his head down on the table, drowned in his drink.

"Seems like we've found ourselves our snake gentlemen." Two men have suddenly come up beside me. The one speaking has a heavily German accented English which I find a little odd.

"What's a German doing so far in the Red country huh." I say turning back to finish my drink.

One man grabs at my long hair and pulls back so I'm looking up at him. I smile before pulling my arms up and flipping myself onto his back. His two men reach me with two guns loaded. One man that I can't see has his gun against my head. I slowly raise my hands up in the air and hop down off the man. He speaks German urging me to kneel down. Keeping my hands up I kneel down next the stool I was sitting on. The two men discuss what they're going to do next so I take the opportunity.

With a quick motion I kick out the stool behind me causing one man to fall over. I grab the one I was sitting on and toss it in between me and the man with the gun. I roll under the bar as I feel gunshots hit the wood behind me. I have no gun so I grab a bottle underneath the bar and pop up throwing it in the face of one of the men. He yells in agony as some of the shards tare across his skin. I get up and over the bar lunging at the man and kicking him square in the chest. I grab the gun from his hand as he crashes onto a table. I turn back to the other three men left and hit two of them. I look back and the masked man is gone. The man who seemed to be the leader is left. I take a few steps forward, gun raised. I check under the bar and scan the stairs and balcony. "Your other guy bailed. The others are dead or wounded." I say stopping a few steps away from him.

"She speaks?" He says. Buying time? Probably.

"Yes she does, and she is not happy." He merely steps back to the bar, sits a stool up right again, has a seat, and then pours a drink. I pull the hammer back becoming uncomfortable with all the shadows in the corners.