Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter XXXIII - Frequency

She couldn't seem to breathe the air was so thin. His grip on her waist only tightened as she struggled against him and he laughed freely as he sped away with inhumane speed. Eventually the nausea and the dizziness and the feeling like gravity had been suspended pulled her into darkness and the world continued to speed away beneath her.

*

Pietro Maximoff held her steady as her body went limp. Perhaps, he thought as her head smacked against his back, throwing her over his shoulder like that wasn't the best method of getting her to go with him. He stopped in a clearing, hundreds of miles from the quiet street he'd taken her from and dropped her to the floor.

She was pretty. Her hair was a mess of curls that seemed to stick out in odd directions, probably from sleeping awkwardly, and her features were soft and dainty. She looked harmless and yet Ultron had said she was as powerful as his sister. He circled where she now lay peacefully and assessed her. Wanda was small too, it's why she was considered such a great asset before HYDRA's experiments. He could hear Strucker in his mind now.

"If this doesn't kill her she will be unstoppable. She is unassuming, weak looking. The perfect secret."

Maybe this girl was the perfect secret too.

He lifted her once more, taking care not to wake her - it was easier if she didn't struggle - this time cradling her against his chest as he began to run. If he were to make it to the jet in time to get back to Sokovia, and back to his sister, then he couldn't stop again.

*

"He should be here by now." The ghostly girl paced as she waited. "He's been gone for too long." The girl's skin was pale and her hair was unnaturally dark creating a deathlike pallor. She was small, unassuming, and incredibly powerful. Her eyes flickered with fear as she stepped into the remnants of the abandoned church.

"Have patience my child." Ultron loomed over her. He was no longer a mess of mangled machinery. His frame was tall and broad and his eyes were a glowing red seven feet from the ground. He had lost the first battle against the scourge of The Avengers and he would not lose again. Not now. Not once their little weapon had been taken care of. "If he has failed we will simply find a new way."

"If he has failed, I will end you." She spat back. Venom coursing through her veins at the idea her brother had been sent to a fight he could not win. She glared as red wisps flickered at her finger tips. She took small, deliberate steps towards the machine that stood in the darkness and her eyes began to glow.

His laugh was acidic.

"Have patience," he repeated as he sat back and waited.

*

"Sam?" Natasha's head snapped towards the door as Wilson crashed into the living room, his eyes wide and panicked. He threw his pack to the ground as he charged through the room, fear blinding him.

"What's happened?" Thor boomed as he got to his feet, his voice reverberating around the empty space as he grabbed Sam by the shoulders and tried to make him look him in the eyes.

"She's - someone - Where the hell is Stark?" His head swung around the empty room. Sam couldn't piece it together. One second she had been there and the next.... the next she was no where to be seen. "And Steve? Where's Steve!?"

"Sam," Natasha approached him slowly as he gave into his panic, "where's Lizzie?"

When he stopped moving, stopped pulling from Thor's grip and turning, stopped clawing at his own chest, he looked into her eyes and she saw the tears and the pain.

"I don't know," he choked. "Some punk ass kid - he was fast and he took her and - I - he said Ultron needs her."

*

Steve watched as Bucky's features shifted in the dim lamplight of the hallway. He'd seen pain as he had detailed the life he had forgotten. He had heard the shattering of what Bucky thought he knew.

"So she was mine... and I - I left her?"

"No Buck, you died. Well, you know what I mean. You would never have left her. You and Lizzie - well no one can explain how connected you were. You were hers entirely."

"I feel it Steve. I feel connected to her but..." his voice was a strangled whisper. "Why don't I remember her?"

Now his eyes grew darker and his jaw tightened. There was an ice inside him that Steve recognised. Ice that ran through his veins and twisted his smile into a grimace. Ice that flashed beneath the surface and turned his ocean eyes cold and dark. An ice that Steve had only seen a few times. An ice that meant one thing and one thing only: Bucky was no longer acting as Bucky.

"Hey -" Steve spoke firmly as he placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to pull his best friend back as Sam's confession floated in the air and hung on their skin. "Look at me Buck. Stark tracks us all - if she's got the tags then we've got her. Don't do - Bucky!?"

Bucky pushed away and charged in from the corridor, pain and anger sweeping through him like tidal waves and tsunamis. His fury radiated from him and the room went silent.

"Bucky, I -" Sam's voice was cut off by the crushing sensation of metal on his windpipe. As he clawed for breath, his nails catching in the grooves of the metallic knuckles, he stared into the ice blue rage that burned in Bucky's eyes.

"I swear to God Pigeon Brains," his voice was a low growl: threatening, intimidating... deadly. "If anything happens to her - anything - one single bruise - I will end you." Sam shook as he pushed him back against the wall. "Do you understand me?"

He dropped him to the floor, leaving him gasping for breath, and stalked out of the room and to Tony's lab. If Tony had a tracker on her then he was going to be the one to follow it.

He was going to get his girl back.

*

Icy air whispered and washed over her as she lay, freezing, on the stones. Sharp, jagged rocks seemed to dig into her skin, scratching at her, waking her as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The smell of stale and stagnant water seemed to cling to the atmosphere and she breathed in the dust and dirt as she came to her senses. She kept her eyes closed, hoping that she would be left alone as long as she appeared to be unconscious and she listened closely for signs of life and signs of death.

As she lay breathing slowly, Elizabeth noted the faint traces of hushed conversation that carried on the breeze and she strained to hear it, fearful of the man with the blond hair inside the streak of blue.

Elizabeth could sense him there - he hummed with power as he stood just feet from her head. His entire being seemed to sing out in a frequency Elizabeth was now beginning to recognise. It was almost as if she could feel the speed at which his atoms absorbed energy. She recoiled from his power, ignoring the protest of her freezing limbs.

Beside the man was someone else. Someone with more strength; more control. They vibrated on a different frequency - they sent tiny shockwaves of energy through the atmosphere as they stood watching her and Elizabeth felt her body shiver once again, this time not from the cold, but from the terror this energy brought to her. Her power seemed to call out to this stranger, it wanted to wrap itself up in the familiarity of connection and Elizabeth Halsted feared what might happen if it succeeded.