Imagine If You Assembled the Avengers: Volume 1

Warped Reality (Bucky Barnes x reader)

He was coming for you. The Winter Soldier. The skin on your hands was torn and bleeding, bruises were already beginning to take on their darkened hue before your eyes. The dirt covering your face hid the expression of fear you were wearing, and your breaths were ragged after running for miles without reprieve.

And this was how you would end.

You had run for cover in an abandoned building, but the HYDRA agents you were trying to outrun had seen you. When the bricks and wood fell around you after the blast, you knew you were finished. You were trapped. You had become disoriented in the chase and cutoff from your ride to escape, with your only shred of hope now being that your rescuer might be looking and could maybe still save you.

You could try to use your powers of reality warping to help, but it would only be to fool them long enough to escape. Any attempt at using your skills would end terribly; the memory of the people you loved abandoning you long ago out of fear that you would harm them again was now attacking your mind. The only power you felt safe using was mentifery; using the thoughts, memories and imaginations of the other person to manipulate the reality around them, meant to disorient them, but there were too many here to be able to control it that specifically.

His footsteps were getting louder; you could hear him above you, no doubt listening for the sound of your breathing under the rubble.

He never failed, you had heard. If you were his target, you were dead; no one had yet to live to tell of their experiences first-hand, and you knew you were next.

"Give me your hand."

His voice was deep and unnerving, sending a shiver down your spine at its intimidating tone. You looked up and saw his metal hand shoved through the splintered beams that lay around and over you, but you couldn't see his face.

"Why? So you can kill me more easily? Just do it, and be efficient at least."

"I'm not here to kill you."

"Then why are you here? You might have noticed, I'm running from your bosses."

"So am I," he said, pushing his hand further towards you, almost desperately. "We need to move."

~~~

"Why are you running?" the soldier asked, pulling you behind a large tree with him, making quite the display of his sharp-shooting skills on the agents who pursued you. "Get a better offer?"

"Why are you running? HYDRA has made quite the reputation for you. You're famous. Seems a little ungrateful to me."

You immediately realized that you had made an enormous mistake. He spun and grabbed your arms, lifting you in the air and slamming your body against the tree, knocking the breath from your chest with a loud cough. "Ungrateful? You don't know the first thing about what they made me into. If you want to talk about ungrateful, consider yourself for a minute before you speak again."

The force of his action fed your instinct to protect yourself, and as much as you tried to stop, you pushed your way into his mind to find any memory strong enough to distract him so he would release you. The environment began to shift and alter to match what you saw, becoming dark and ominous with the sounds of men yelling, explosions and gunfire surrounding you.

His hands immediately released, dropping you several feet to the ground with such force that you could barely stay upright. The soldier spun around with wide eyes, his senses attacked by what he saw in front of him and within his own mind. You could see his hands begin to shake as he wrung them together, and you tried to stop the imagery but it was too far gone to pull back.