Infatuation | Bucky Barnes

Chapter Seven

A/N: If you're a returning reader, please check out the announcement on my profile. It pertains to this story. Also, please do not post spoilers on here if you've already read the book. Thank you!

"I'm getting better." Catherine exclaimed as she flipped the knife around in her hand.

"Looks like it. Maybe instead of cutting multiple fingers off, you'll cut just cut one off." He teased her.

She tisked. "I don't know. It might not be so bad. You lost a whole arm and you seem to be managing pretty well. A finger may not be bad. Maybe they'll replace it and I'll be like Inspector Gadget."

James looked at her confused. "Inspector Gadget?"

"You don't know who that is it? How old are you?" She asked with a bit of attitude.

Old enough, he thought. At age sixteen Catherine was a typical teenager. While she had been raised by a terrorist organization and trained to kill, mentally she still had teenage tendencies. For one, she had an attitude. Although they didn't know if that was from her lineage or age. She was starting to look more like her mother and it killed him. He could still remember the way his hand felt around her mother's throat. He could still hear her cries.

"James?" Catherine asked, noting the way his hands were balled up in fists suddenly. "You okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." He lied. She went to start flipping it again and he reached out and grabbed it suddenly. "It's starting to annoy me."

"But when you do it, it's not annoying?" She asked. 

"I do it correctly."

"You're no fun." She pouted.

"I'm not supposed to be fun. I'm supposed to train you." He said and handed her the knife back. "Speaking of which, we have a field trip."

Catherine cocked her head in confusion. "What's a field trip?"

Sometimes he forget how sheltered she actually was. "It's when you leave your normal learning environment."

"Oh. Like when we went to that village last year?" She asked.

"Yes. We're going to one of the Widow's training centers. It's been a year since you've trained with them."

She remembered why it had been so long. It was because of Natasha escaping the program. No one had for-saw that happening. They had searched and searched for her for weeks, but came up empty handed. She was a trained assassin after all. No one had heard from her in a year either. Because of her actions, Catherine was kept separate from the widows. Karpov as well as the leader of Widow program, Dreykov didn't want anyone else to get any ideas of running away.

"This session is going to be vital Catherine. Both Karpov and Dreykov will be watching. They're assessing you as well as the others to see if they're ready for missions. Understand?" He asked.

"I understand."

"Good. Now go get ready. The convoy leaves in thirty minutes." He informed her.

She stood from the metal chair she was sitting in and began to make her way through the base. It was an abnormally quiet day on the base which was rare. No one was running around. There was a skeleton crew running the operations. Other than that it felt empty. Once she reached her room, she began to rummage through her clothes to find something to train in. She settled on a pair of black leggings, black combat boots, and a long sleeve black workout shirt.

It was simple, but comfortable enough to move around. Weapons were not permitted unless on a mission so she left her utility belt on her desk. The last thing she did was braid her hair into two French braids and twisted them into a bun. She found James as well as several guard and Karpov standing in the garage. James was dressed in his full Winter Soldier uniform including the mask and goggles. She always found him terrifying in it.