When It Snowed

Chapter 42 - Enlighten Me

"Reaser." Her voice echoed back and forth between Finleys head. It pounded, it throbbed, it felt like it was going to burst. That's why she knew she was in the right place. Her hands were firmly shackled to the floor, meanwhile, she remained on her knees fighting the battle inside of her head. "Can you understand me?" The Widow asked raising her eyebrow from the corner of the room.

Feeling a sharp pain against her temple, Finley scrunched her eyes closed and groaned as she rolled her neck. Then, she was following the Widow's voice to the corner of the room where she saw the red head staring at her. "No. Try Russian."

A smile crept across the assassin's lips.

As another wave washed over Finn, she looked away from the smile and rolled her neck once again with a cry. With that pain came HYDRA's orders. "I want to kill you." Finley announced before she was able to corrected herself. "They want me to kill you."

"They have no connection to you." Romanoff reassured her. "Not here."

"I can hear them."

Pushing away the fuzziness in the back of her head, Finley swallowed hard and bit deep into her lip. The force, the strength she was feeling, it was enough to draw her own crimson blood across her tongue. "I want to break you right leg." As her eyes connected with Natasha's once more, the Russian assasin could see Finley's pupils grow. "I want to start from the ankle and work my way up. Every square inch, every nerve ending you have. All because you got enjoyment from it. It's the one you were trained to use when you danced." This made Natasha straighten. "What you loved doing the most. I can take that away you know? Just come a little-" Again, Finley rolled her head away from the conversation and let out a cry.

"They broke into your mind." Crouching before Finley, Natasha let out a breath and studied her as the Winter Soldier fought HYDRA's words. "They stole everything you were, everything you were going to be. They made you into something that you were never meant to be... I know how that feels."

"Then you know how to get over it. So please Ms. Romanoff-" Finley lunged at the assassin, but Natasha didn't flinch. So, Finley was forced to smile. "Enlighten me."

Suddenly, the door behind Natasha opened. With it, Steve and Bucky both entered the scene. This made Finley's stare soften, but only for a second. Quickly, she was back to the pain she just couldn't fully escape from. "It doesn't matter what you say." Finley grumbled crawling away from them and back to the corner of the room. "I know who you are, I remember who I am, what I've been through, what we've been through. That can't help me anymore."

Swallowing hard, Bucky looked down to her. "What can?"

Slowly, the woman he loved looked up from her feet, from her hands, up his body, and eventually- to his eyes. She was broken, that was clear for everyone to see. It seemed as if remembering, it crushed her spirit in the process. It would crush any logical person who had gone through that situation. "The only way you can help me now Buck, is if you stop my fucking heart from beating." Nobody moved. "I remember what they did, what I did. Every time they touched me, every time they hooked me up, every time they tried to tear me apart-"

Steve stepped forward. "Finn.."

"Every time I pulled the trigger, every life I took, every time I could have stopped myself but didn't." Then, her voice began to pick up. "Every time that I called for you... Every time I cried for you, every time I held out thinking, PRAYING, that you would come for me." Looking at them once more, the vein in her neck started to bulge as her eyes began to water as well. "You were supposed to come for me. BOTH OF YOU. I sat there, day in, day out, thinking, begging that you would realize that I wasn't dead. That you would feel ANYTHING!"

"Finley, I-" Bucky was cut off.

"You let me go!" She cried out. "You let me- you let me fall! You let them have me! You let them do this! I should be dead, I should be gone..." Settling back into the corner, she blinked hard feeling the tear roll down her cheek. "I just want to be gone. So please-" Her nose burried itself deep into her arm. "Leave me alone." There was nothing else for the three of them to say to her. There was nothing else that they could say.

Finley was herself, but at the same time she wasn't. She never spoke like this, she never tore other people down around her in spite of her pity. The words that were coming out of her mouth, they were her feelings, but never in the context of how she would express them. Closing the door behind her, Natasha let out a breath and looked back into the one way mirror. "What she's saying, they're still HYDRA's words. Her pupils dialate every time she talks. It means she's still fighting it, give her time."

"It's our fault, It's my fault." Bucky sighed. "I was starting to see parts of her again, and she wanted to know about her past. Finley wanted to remember, but I should have never pushed her. Not yet, it was too soon."

Steve shook his head. "We had no idea this was going to be the result. Maybe it's best this way..."

"Best?" Bucky questioned his friend. "Look at her."

"I am, you heard Romanoff. Finn is right there, right in front of us, fighting what's in her head. We both know her, or at least who she used to be. If that's the person whose fighting on the inside, it's something that she has to do on her own. At least now she has all the facts and materials that she needs to sort out her past and what happened to her. Now, it's our turn to wait; and we'll wait as long as we have to."

Taking a second to look through the mirror once more, Bucky studied the way she held herself on the floor of her plain white room. She sat balled in a corner, arms shackled to the wall only allowing her so much movement. This way, maybe she couldn't hurt herself. Finley was never known as the type of person to try and hurt herself though. That was the Finley that he was eager to see once again. To him, it made sense, he just couldn't find himself coming to terms with the fact that it was true.

His girl was in there, but she was on the outer shell of the person before him as well. With time, everything would sort itself out. He would have the love of his life in his arms once again, or at least as much of her that he could get. Steve was right, she always liked fighting her own battles on her own.

Yet they would both be here for whatever outcome she was going to give them. All of the Avengers agreed to wait, even Tony.

Eventually, days started to pass, and her development overtime was not in the positive direction. There was always someone monitoring her, making sure she was never intentionally trying to end her life like she had tried to before. Most of the time, they just sat there and watched her, the way she interacted with the room around it.

It almost always consisted of her talking to herself, staring at the floor, refusing to eat, she hadn't slept at all through all shifts the of Avengers. Natasha knew it was because of the mental battle going on within her head. What she was trying to figure out, it wasn't easy. That was something that Romanoff had experience with. The only difference was that Natasha didn't have to try and piece together an entire life.

HYDRA left Finley with nothing. So, she was forced to piece it together herself. Every now and again someone would go in to try and talk to her, but at this point- it seemed that she had no intention of giving them the time of day, nobody that is, but Bucky.

At least when he entered the room, she would stop talking to herself, she would stop rocking, she would stop fighting the battle in her mind and would focus on him instead. Finley didn't even have to look at him, she didn't have to look. Instead, all the girl would do was listen, the scent of him holding the ability to pull her out of her stupor and into the miserable world around her.
Her interactions with everyone weren't getting any better though.

Not yet.

Not at least, until she saw him. Until he finally collected himself enough to go in and tear down her walls. To remind her of what she was, and what she can be- even under HYDRA's control.
Clint Barton went in to remind her of the good that she did. The impossible good that the Winter Soldier did.

All because it started with him, him and that damn mission in Moscow. The day that the Winter Soldier spared Hawkeye.

The day the Winter Soldier failed her first mission.