The Break of Winter ▸B. Barnes

Chapter 8

Liv's POV
2016, 2 years later

It had been 2 years since I last saw Steve and Bucky, and I now had most of my memories back. However, I was scared to go back to them. Not only did me being with them put them both in danger, but I also didn't want them to get their hopes up. Yes, I have my memories back. But that doesn't mean I'm the same person.

        I take my bag of groceries and thank the cashier. On the way back to my apartment, I start to get the feeling that something is extremely wrong. I walk to a nearby shop and before I get to the counter, the owner looks at me with fear and runs off. Confused, I pick a newspaper up off the stand and see the front page has a picture of me, stating in Romanian "Winter Soldier wanted for bombing in Vienna."

"What the hell?" I ask under my breath. I take a quick glimpse around to see if anyone had noticed me before pulling my hood up and make my way back to my apartment.

    Right as I'm about to open my door, the feeling that something is off intensifies. Someone's in my apartment. Damnit I left the door unlocked. Luckily, if the door is unlocked it'll be much easier to sneak in. Grateful for my training, I creep in silently to find Bucky in my apartment looking through my journal. He turns his head slightly to the side, indicating he knew I was there, but didn't turn to look at me. "Heads up, Buck. German special forces approaching from the south," I heard a man's voice say through an earpiece.

"You know, it's not very nice to look through a lady's stuff," I say.

"You remember me?" Bucky asks.

"Tou already know that I know who you are. I don't remember much except that you were important to me. The rest I read in a museum." I reply coldly. I couldn't afford to get attached. I was a wanted criminal and I couldn't let him get hurt because of me.

"I know you're nervous, you have plenty reason to be," He said calmly, changing the subject. "But you're lying."

"I wasn't in Vienna. I don't do that anymore," I change the subject like he did. He started to grow impatient.

"The people who think you are are headed here now, and they aren't planning on taking you alive."

"That's smart, good strategy." I hear footsteps above us.

"They're on the roof. We're compromised." I hear Steve say through the earpiece.

"This doesn't have to end in a fight, Liv," He tries one last time to get me to leave with him. I sigh and remove the glove covering my metal arm.

"It always ends in a fight."

At the last minute, Steve slips in through the window. "We got less than five seconds."

"Breach, breach, breach!" The man from before warns. A grenade is thrown through the window that Steve had just come in through, but he quickly covers it with his shield. Cops start storming in from every potential exit, leaving us no choice but to fight them off. After taking out a few, Bucky tries to slow me down.

"Liv, stop, you're going to kill someone!" I use both of our momentum to throw him on the ground. I punch inches away from his head with my metal arm and leave a hole in the floor to grab my emergency backpack.

"I'm not going to kill anyone." It's true. I'm ratified to add to my already extensive list of kills. I put the journal that Bucky was reading into the bag and throw it onto the roof of the building across from mine. I fight off a few more cops before jumping onto the roof and taking off with my bag. However, I don't get very far because I'm tackled by a man wearing a catsuit. "Wow, someone has a thing for cats," I say sarcastically. He immediately starts trying to take me down. Our skill levels are relatively equal, so we don't get many damaging hits on each other. Eventually, however he starts to overpower me and throws me against a container. I grab a bar I find next to me and start using it to block his attacks. Just when things couldn't seem to get more inconvenient, a helicopter comes in and starts shooting at us. I block the bullets that I can with my metal arm, but luckily a winged man, who I assume is the man from earlier, flies in and takes out the helicopter. I use this as my chance to escape, and grab my backpack before sprinting away from the scene. Unfortunately, the cat man was close behind me. I jump down into a tunnel full a traffic, hoping to lose him, but he was still following me with Bucky, Steve, and the winged man close behind him. I weave between cars before I come across a man on a motorcycle. I pulled it out from under him and hopped onto the bike. I heard sirens, but I didn't dare turn around. Suddenly, the cat man attacked me again from behind. He pulled the bike over to the side and I had to lean on my metal arm, which was making sparks as it slid across the concrete. While he was off balance, I was able to kick him off of me. I threw a bomb on top of the exit of the tunnel, which caused part of it to crumble. I had hoped it would trap the man in the tunnel and allow me to escape, but he got through and sliced the tire of the motorcycle. Honestly, it was kind of upsetting because I was becoming a bit attached to the bike. As usual, Steve, Bucky, and the bird man came through right behind him. Bucky's tackled the cat man, but before he could do anything we were surrounded by police cars. Then, a suit that resembled the one Tony Stark uses lands in front of us.

"Stand down, now." He orders, pointing his weapons at us. "Congratulations, gentlemen," he turns to Bucky and Steve. "You're both criminals."