Back to You [An Endgame Continuation]

The Asset

Here's a Bucky edit I made as a thank you for 14K! Enjoy! <3
XxLauren_Luv

Belarus, Soviet Union
November 17, 1945

Ｔｈｅ Ａｓｓｅｔ
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
p.o.v: Elena

Everyone lurched forward in their seat straps as the landing gear made impact on the runway. A couple girls flinched, awoken by the sudden movement, but I was already awake, my eyes studying the bright red lightbulb above us. It drowned the entire cargo bay in the color of blood and made the occasional smears of it on our clothes appear as black as ink.

I exhaled a visible breath and felt the shoulders of the girls strapped in next to me trembling from the cold. It was a three hour trip from Kiev, and staying warm for this long without a heat source was beginning to exhaust whatever energy that had remained after the night's mission.

I writhed in the straps digging into my skin and glanced over at the weapons pile that was tied down near the end of the plane. They had stripped us of all of our guns and knives before taking off, as if without them we weren't a threat. As if our bodies weren't weapons themselves.

The red light fizzled out once the plane rolled into the hangar, and we all sat suspended in dark silence for a moment until the loading dock began to descend and allow in the familiar tungsten light.

As we waited for Madam Krushev, I heard a careful whisper in my ear.

"So how many did you get?"

I connected the voice to that of Belle, the paper thin French girl who was sitting to my right.

"I got 83, but the girls are saying you took out the entire east wing. Is that true?" She asked, and the undercurrent of excitement in her tone made it feel like we were comparing scores at a carnival game. The number of hostiles we eliminated was supposed to be confidential, and I hoped my silence served as a reminder.

We squinted as the cargo bay flooded with golden light, and after a moment of the ramp lowering to the ground, a tall lanky shadow began to spread out onto the floor, accompanied by a stiff-spined woman with pale skin and raven curls that were woven together on the top of her head like a bird's nest.

Her eyes, which also resembled that of a predatory bird, scanned the cargo bay, and she made note each of our physical conditions as the instructors began to file in and release us from the straps that bound each of our limbs to the plane.

"Get in line and prepare to turn in your earpieces for scanning," Madam Krushev commanded as we began to shuffle out into the hangar.

When I became the last person to join the line, I felt the flat circular device that had been placed behind my ear. It was about the size of a dime, and it was a relatively new method to measuring how many enemies we eliminated on the field. Before, all they had to rely on was our word, but now they had a device that would survey each of our movements and calculate how many hostiles we engaged and killed. If you tried to take it off while it was activated, it would self destruct, and if you were lucky, you'd only lose an ear.

Now I held it in my hand, waiting for an instructor to make their way down the line and document my record of tonight's attack on the Ukrainian nuclear plant. The man's expression was flat and disengaged as he stopped in front of each person, although I caught his brow flinch slightly when Belle's number appeared on his scanner's screen.