fugue // stucky

5. Red Room

"Thought you lost me, huh. The 'ole bump and grind. This ain't my first rodeo," I hear a feminine voice say. I run towards the sound, my metal arm outstretched to kill. I feel a shift in the floorboards and the light flicks on.

"Bucky-"

"Who are you!" I yell at the top of my lungs, my hand pushing itself against her neck, "what do you want?"

Terror flashes over her features, her hands grip around my metal one. I squeeze tighter and her left hand goes to grasping the gun on her hip. My eyes flash down to where her finger is on the trigger and I map out the hidden weapons around my flat. There's a barbed hunting knife in the drawer next to me. I release her and she gasps for breath, I back up. Slowly, I reach my hand over, trying to act calm.

"Bucky," she starts again, noticing my settling and falling for it. Her fingers slip down to her sides and I take the opportunity to yank the knife from the drawer and put it to her uncovered neck.

"How do you know my name?" I say in a chillng whisper.

"We were friends-" she chokes, looking at me through wild eyes, "we were," she pauses, looking for a word, "co-workers."

I push the knife point farther into her sternum, "if this is a set up of any kind-"

"It's not! Bucky, it's not," she goes from a shout to a whisper. I look at her expression. She's terrified. Guilt washes over me and I pull away. She automatically relaxes.

"Co-workers?" I raise a brow and stab my knife into the wooden cutting board. I don't know why I even have the weapons. Something told me to have them, I guess the same something that just caused me to put a knife to someone's throat.

"Yes. We were together in the Red Room Acadamy," she stops, seeing if I understand. I guess my lost expression served her enough, "a program during the Cold War to train assassins," she sighs, "it was formed because of you," she looks at the ground and mutters quietly, "because you were such a great success."

"Success?" I ask. What is going on?

"The Winter Soldier," she whispers, "do you at least remember him?" Pain flashes over her. I feel bad for not remembering. I grab a book close to me and flip through the pages until I come to a picture of a man that looks like me in a... freezer? I look over at the description. Zima Soldat, 1957.

"Him, right?" I point. She leans over the small counter and nods.

"That's you. Or, at least the brainwashed for seventy years you."

"I remember now," I say, saving both of us the time. My head aches as I remember being whipped and shocked and beaten. I close my eyes and breathe softly through my nose.

"You were such a good assassin, that the Soviets wanted more. So, they created Red Room Academy. There were the Black Widows, the girls, and the Wolf Spiders, the boys. The Wolf Spiders were quick to die off. I'm the only Black Widow left," she looks at the floor.

"What about me? What was I?"

"You were... like a pet. A trophy. You walked the halls to remind us what we had to live up to. What we had to achieve. If we didn't meet that standard, we were punished, or simply 'discarded,'" she shudders at the word.