BATTLE BORN ; Bucky Barnes

twelve ;

They needed supplies, but didn't want to go to town, so Bucky insisted on hunting. The woods were a five minute walk, and they were so large that they hadn't been fully mapped, so they promised to stick to the outskirts so they didn't loose the way. Twenty minutes into hunting and there was someone firing at them, they couldn't quite make out who. There were arrows, which she would have usually said were Clint's. But these looked homemade.
"Maybe Ukraine wasn't such a good idea." Bucky said, hot breath tickling her ear. Another volley of arrows flew above their heads, and they dropped down into the snow on their stomachs to avoid getting hit. This time the arrows came from a different direction, and it seemed like two different archers were shooting at each other, but Scout and Bucky were caught in the crossfire. Scout stood up again, the snow freezing her abdominals, only to fall down again, a strangled scream escaping her lips as her shoulder was pierced by an arrow. Bucky cradled her body, unsure of what to do. Then in a blur of white and grey, they were saved. The archer that was fighting from behind them, ran up, violently curly blonde hair flying all over the place. She picked Scout up. A hood covered her face, only her wild blonde hair visible from under it.
"Come." She ordered Bucky, her accent heavy and Ukrainian. He followed her, managing not to get hit with any more arrows in the process. They found themselves in a hut. Their mystery saviour took off their large winter-y camouflage coat, and lay Scout down on her sofa. The hut was lit by a roaring fire that crackled in the fireplace. It was dim and small, but it had steps leading downstairs and a concrete floor, leading Bucky to believe that there was more to this place than he'd first thought. The woman peeled Scout's bloodstained clothes off layer by layer, until she was just in her sports bra. The woman began working on Scout's wound, leaving Bucky standing in the doorway feeling helpless. He watched as Scout's eyes fluttered open, and he rushed over to her.
"Hey." He said softly. "Hey, you're safe now." She smiled up at him weakly. The girl with the crazy hair rushed out of the room, then quickly back in, taking out the arrow with one violent pull, and Scout screamed bloody murder. The saviour put a sort of salve on the wound, and wrapped it with cloth make-shift bandages. Scout was focusing on Bucky, his voice, his hair, his face. Everything was centring her. Then she spotted the saviour, and screamed again, even louder and more violent than the first time. The girl looked exactly like her. With her hair pulled back out of her face, the two were identical. The saviour noticed too, gasping, and muttering something in Ukrainian, making the sign of the cross and backing away.
"What's your name?" Scout asked quietly, after recovering from her shock. "Who are you?" She asked.
"Emmaline." The girl said, but it sounded more like eh-mar-lee-ine, like she had trouble with her own name, doubling up on sounds and stumbling over syllables. That was when Scout began to cry, years rolling down her cheeks, making her face hot.
"What? What is wrong?" Emmaline asked. All of her 'w's sounded like V's.
"Did you have a sister, a twin?" Scout asked in Ukrainian.
"She died, yes."
"No, she didn't. I had a sister called Emmaline, we were twins. My name is Georgiana, we were tested on, you have powers, do you not?" Emmaline made the sign of the cross again.
"How do you know this?" She asked.
"Because I'm your sister." Scout said back.
"No, she was killed when she tried to escape. She died. They killed my sister. You- you are lying!" Emmaline began pacing, back and forth, her hair bouncing with every step. Scout decided to leave it, she was so set on it that she wasn't going to change any time soon, so she would just leave the idea be.
"Is there any food?" Bucky asked. The reason that they had entered the woods was because they didn't want to drain the bunker of supplies, and they were hungry.
"Food." Emmaline repeated. "Food." And she walked into the kitchen area. Once out of earshot, Bucky sat down next to Scout, and shifted her head so that she was resting it on his lap. He stroked her hair, he still hadn't caught onto the fact that she was tougher than she looked, pushing a strand of hair out of her face, she absently smiled at him. Her shoulder was wrapped, but even with the roaring fire she was shaking from the cold. Her clothes soaked though with blood and water so she couldn't wear those again. Bucky pulled off his jacket, carefully laying it over her stomach and chest. She smiled at him again, feeling weak, so she closed her eyes. Emmaline charged back in with ferocity, placing a few pieces of toast on the table.
"Not poisoned." She said to the two sceptical super spies, and took a bite out of one to prove it. Bucky dug in, hungry from their travels.

;

The place was shiny. Very shiny, the walls were made of concrete, and the floors tiled. There were no windows, no art. The two girls had a room to themselves, if it could be called a room. It was around five grown-up steps by seven, and they had no beds, just a dingy mattress on the floor and two ratty blankets. Though, they never realised how harsh the conditions were, they'd never known anything else. Every day when the woke there'd be cereal and milk on the floor, and then after finishing they'd be taken to the white rooms with the white coats. They'd be carried some days, when they were too weak to walk. They'd be dragged other days, kicking and screaming. It was one of the days that they'd be carried, they couldn't fight back. They were carried into another room, the white room, and lay down on a silver shiny table, their legs were stick thin and their ribs were showing. The experiments were taking their toll. The girl, the one that practically looked bald because of the buzz cut they'd given her blonde hair cried as a needle entered the inside of her elbow and the one with darker buzzed hair whimpered. As the nurse neared her with the needle, she tried, with her tiny wrists and ankles, to shuffle back, fear evident in her eyes. That was when the strangest thing happened. The wind began to pick up. In an underground facility. The nurses hair was whipping around her face, and the needle she was holding was blown out of her hands. Papers on the desk began blowing around the room.
"Page Dr. Windsor!" One of the other nurses said. "It's happening." The room was in chaos, the girl, fragile as she was, stood up and walked to her sister who was unconscious from the serum in the needle. She stood protectively around the girl, glaring anyone in the room. The girl, the conscious one, fuelled the wind with her fear, terrified what they'd done to her sister. Lifting the girl in her arms, she set off on one of her many failed escape attempts. She navigated the corridors all the way to the end of the science area and to some of the lifts. She was stopped by around forty men.

The next attempt to escape came months later, they'd given them more DNA therapy and drugs, and both had emerged with powers. The first, could control the elements with ease, causing plants to grow in her presence, fires to roar and the wind to pick up, water would bend to her will, as would anything else. She was powerful, and had to be kept away from her sister when she was angry. The second, had at first exhibited no sighs of powers, until she began controlling people. She could read and manipulate their thoughts, she could enter anyone's head and confuse, or worse, leave them permanently damaged by her meddling. With one sister perfecting their elemental control, and the other causing people to go crazy, the two were kept in seperate rooms for safety. They missed each other. The final escape attempt that they made was on the 24th of December. They were using their powers, the first made the tiled floor slippy and the other was changing the mids of any person who tried to stop them. They made it into the elevators before the telepath passed out. Her sister scooped her up, holding her close, tears in her eyes. The elevator dinged, and for the first time in her life, she saw sunlight.

;

Scout woke a few hours later, in a comfortable bed. There was a baby crying, and she wasn't sure wether it was her imagination.
"Shhhhh dytyna." Emmaline's voice said, coming from the other room. Scout opened her eyes, to her left, James was sleeping soundly, for the first time in a while. Scout stood up, trying desperately not to wake James. She exited the room silently, going to find the girl who she'd thought was her sister.
"Em?" Scout asked in a whisper. The blonde looked up, and in that moment, Emmaline remembered. Flashes of a life she'd escaped from.
"Seestra." She said, tears in her eyes. She had a small child in her arms, maybe a few months old.
"Is this your child?" Scout asked, and Emmaline nodded. "May I hold her?" Emmaline nodded again, and handed the child to Scout, who's heart fluttered when the child rested their head on her chest. The child closed their eyes and fell asleep. They looked remarkably like their mother, but with freckles dashed across their nose and cheeks.
"What's their name?" Scout asked
"Artemis." Emmaline replied. "She's beautiful, isn't she?" Scout just nodded, stroking the babies tiny patch of hair.
"She looks just like you." Scout said.
"I look just like you." Said Emmaline.
"We're twins." Scout murmured, stroking Artemis' hair.
"Your name is Georgiana?" Emmaline asked. Scout nodded,
"Yes, but most people call me Scout."
"Scatt?" Enmaline tried to pronounce the nickname.
"Yeah I guess." Scout conceded. It was a tricky name to pronounce in Emmaline's accent. The two girls stayed up until the break of dawn, nursing the baby to sleep and quietly sharing their stories, how they came to be where they were. Silent tears were exchanged and many hugs. It was strange to be reunited to someone that they'd though dead. It wasn't home, but it was family, and that was something Scout never had much of. Looking over her shoulder at Bucky who was still sound asleep in the bed, she realised that she wasn't entirely alone anymore.