Flesh and Bone ◇ Bucky Barnes ◇

Chapter XIII: Tale of Woe

Joana

"What did you do to him?" Joana repeated, only louder. She took rapid steps towards Bucky, hoping that she could do something to help him. Pierce put his arms around her waist and pulled her away from him. "What did you do?"
Pierce shoved her away from Bucky and into the arms of the soldier who seemed to have control over Bucky. He caught her a stopped her from falling over, but held on to her arms to keep her from going back to Bucky.
"So," Pierce said, patting Bucky on the cheek. Joana pulled against the soldier. "Our first experiment is a success. Let's move on to our second."
Joana scowled. She looked over at Bucky.
"You're going to make him kill me," she said, her voice dry. Her eyes were narrowed into slits. Pierce laughed.
"Oh no. Joana, you're more important to us than that. We need you alive," he told her. "What we do need, is to see whether or not you can do what we need you to do."
The door opened again and a few soldiers walked in. They had scowls on their faces as if they were all sucking on lemons all at once.
"We don't want him to kill you, Joana," Pierce said, a coy smile on his face. "We want you to kill them."
Joana's stomach dropped. She looked between Bucky, Pierce, and the soldiers. There were four of them, all large. She could take them down, easy, but kill them?
"No," she said quickly, shaking her head. "No!"
Pierce gave her a smile of pity.
"You say that like you have a choice. Karpov, please." The soldier holding Joana let her go.
"Soldat," Bucky turned to Karpov without blinking. "Ne dvigaytes'."
Bucky (could she even call him Bucky? She had to, Joana assumed. If she stopped calling him Bucky, it would mean she'd given up hope.) nodded his head once. Pierce put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him to the ground. He pulled out a gun and held it to Bucky's head.
"No!" Joana yelled and stepped forwards. Pierce pressed the tip of the gun to Bucky's head.
"Joana," he cooed in a sing-songy voice. "If you don't kill these men, I'll shoot him in the head."
Joana glared at Pierce, her jaw clenching.
"You're bluffing. You need him. If he's your Winter Soldier, then you wouldn't kill him."
Pierce hit Bucky's head with the gun. Bucky jerked to the side, teeth bared. Joana couldn't stop the gasp that came from her mouth.
"Ne dvigaytes!" Karpov yelled as the Winter Soldier started to stand. He straightened himself and let the blood drip down his forehead.
"Kill them, Joana," Pierce instructed. Joana scowled at him. She had to stand her ground, she couldn't let Pierce control her. Pierce hit Bucky again and again and again, until Joana was pleading, begging, screaming for him to stop.
"You want this to stop, Joana?" Pierce yelled at her. "Kill them!"
Joana looked towards the me. One of them cracked their knuckles. She glanced back at Bucky. Blood dripped down his face and he didn't seem to care. Her vision altered and kneeling there on the ground was Bucky in a tuxedo, just like in her dreams, and he was soaked in blood. Looking away, she shook her head.
"I can't let you hurt him," she said, unsure of who she needed to direct the words to. The soldiers took that as an invitation to begin the fight. The four soldiers stepped forward. Even if Joana wasn't about to fight for Bucky's life, their movement triggered something in her mind that told her she needed to fight. She took her stance immediately, hands raised and feet apart.
The first guy swung at her and she ducked to the side, striking him in the side twice with her fists. Walking around him as he groaned, she hooked her foot around his ankle and pulled, dropping him to the floor. She glanced over at Bucky, who sat there, staring blankly forward at nothing. The second man danced around her for a second, standing on the other side of the soldier who was trying to push himself off the ground. Joana stepped on his back, pushing him back to the ground, and threw a punch at the second soldier. He blocked her punch and went for a strike at her stomach. Joana jumped backwards, stepping painfully on the first soldier's fingers.
"This is boring. If you don't pick it up, I'm shooting him," Pierce said, pressing his gun into Bucky's head for effect. She glared at him, her heart filling with rage. She dropped to the ground, grabbing the first soldier's arm. She twisted it behind his back and pushed with all of her might. As he screamed, she could hardly hear the 'crack' of his bone. The other three soldiers ran forward and pulled her off of him.
"Where is the Joana I heard about?" Pierce asked, his voice almost in whine. "Where's the Joana who was a feral dog? I want to see her toady."
That seemed to be code for the soldiers because they suddenly started beating Joana with such ferocity that she was surprised they had withheld themselves before. She didn't take it for long before she started fighting back. Her vision turned red. All thoughts of calm and keeping herself from turning into the demons she tried so hard to fight were gone from her mind. All she could see was blood. All she wanted was to rip their heads off and bathe in their blood.
Once she started fighting back, there was no stopping her. She bit them, drawing blood, and she hit them harder than any man had hit them before. She kicked them and broke their bones and tore their muscles and dug her claws into her skin. All the while, she heard Pierce cackling. He was laughing at her, at her weakness. He was laughing because she wasn't strong enough to control herself.
She sat on the ground, breathing heavily. Her hands were stained red, but she didn't even dare look down. She stared straight ahead at Bucky, who didn't seem to careless that she had just murdered the four men, who were laying on the ground in different positions, in different variations of death. The iron taste of blood was still in her mouth from all the times she bit the soldiers. She hated it. It dripped down her chin and in to the pool of blood she was sitting in.
She looked up at Pierce, her eyes filled with tears and hate. He had a gleeful smile on his face.
"Are you satisfied?" She asked him, her teeth grinding, her throat tight, her words dripping with utter hatred. Pierce looked at her.
"Very."
He smacked Bucky in the head again. Bucky fell to the ground.
"Stay there," Pierce said to Bucky. Bucky's eyes rolled in his head. A tear rolled down Joana's face.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked. Her throat swelled, tears continuing to roll down her face.
Pierce gave the gun back to Karpov.
"Because, my dear." He stood above Joana, looking down at her like dirt on his feet. "It's fun."
With those chilling words ringing in her ears, Pierce and Karpov left her along. As soon as the door slammed shut behind them, she crawled through the blood over to Bucky, who was groaning on the ground. She put his head in her lap, brushing the hair from his sweaty face. Diluted drops of blood fell from her chin and landed on his face. She wiped them off and scrubbed her lips and teeth and chin with her shirt. She started petting Bucky's hair as his eyes opened again.
"Shhh," she whispered to him, her lips trembling. "Shhh, you're okay."
His eyes fully opened and she knew it was Bucky again, not the Winter Soldier.
"Joana?"
A smile grew on her face.
"Bucky."
He looked around the room, his eyes filling with horror. He looked at Joana's face and her hands.
"Joana, what did you do?"
The words hit Joana in the heart so deeply, she didn't know what to say. She lowered her head, tears spilling from her eyes.
"I'm so sorry," she said through the tears, though it only came out as a whisper. Her throat was tight. "I'm so so sorry."