Winter Is Coming (A Bucky Barnes Fanfic)

Chapter 18: Jack Frost: the Personification of Winter

"The heart can get really cold if all they've known is winter." -Benjamin Alire Saenz

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The freezer door opens slowly with a sickening groan and the crunch of ice. Harley stands staring at it. No one comes through; it opens just enough for her to get out. Approaching it carefully, Harley peers into the hallway to see no one.

Shrugging but still very cautious, Harley exits her death sentence and starts warming up instantly. The ice melts off of her suit, and the fire in her starts warming again slowly, but surely.

Harley rubs her hands together as she walks to exhilarate the warming. She wonders why the door opened so slightly. If it was Bucky or Steve they would've stuck around, but if it was Hydra they would've saw her out and led her somewhere else.

Shaking these thoughts away for later, Harley focuses on finding Steve. She tries to remember what the room looked like in the picture. It was mostly cement walls and floors, and pipes were lining the ceiling, so perhaps a basement?

Spotting a stairwell, Harley makes sure it's deserted before she goes through the door. She starts down a flight only for her path to be blocked.

"Bucky!" Harley sighs in relief but then feels her breath catch in a silent gasp. The glimmer in his eye is anything but the usual blithesomeness, and he twirls a dagger in his good hand. He doesn't smile when he sees her. "Not Bucky."

Harley flies back up the stairs with Bucky at her heels. She immediately recognizes that she can't run forever, and that sooner or later she's going to have to fight back, but she doesn't want to hurt him.

Going back in the direction of the freezer, she stops short outside the now wide open door and turns around. She catches Bucky's wrist as he attempts to slash at her and twists it, kicking him in the side hard enough for him to stumble in the frozen prison. She slams the door shut and locks it, knowing full well that he'll get out, but giving herself time to run at the same time.

She's not even at the other end of the hall when the door flies off its hinges and smashes into the opposite wall. Bucky storms out and sees Harley, coming towards her like a pissed off...well, like a pissed off super soldier.

Harley spots a hanging platform above her. The hallway is narrow enough that she can bounce off the walls and reach the platform, so she starts to do so. At the last minute, Bucky catches her ankle and slams her to the ground hard enough to rattle her brain. Groaning, she rolls away from Bucky's stab attempt and jumps up, kicking Bucky's feet out from under him.

Use your fire, you idiot. No. The last thing she wants to do is hurt Bucky with her ability, and besides, she's not warm enough to do any real damage yet. Being locked in a freezer for a day extinguished her down to burning embers.

Fighting used to be a second nature to Harley, but she's never fought someone she knows before. Now that she's fighting someone she loves, she can't help but hesitate in her movements and make them weaker than they could be. She knows the power of Hydra, and Bucky will kill her if she doesn't knock the sense back into him.

Ignoring the pain in her head, Harley dodges another stab and starts running again in the opposite direction, eager to at least find Steve. She bursts through the door leading to the stairs again and jumps over the railing just as Bucky makes a grab for her hair.

The stairs seem to go down and down like a labyrinth until Harley finally spots another opening. She steps off the last stair and stops, turning around. Bucky is no longer chasing her; he's nowhere in sight. It's unnerving.

Trying to make her steps quieter, Harley moves forwards with extra care down the somewhat windy path to a room of cells. She scans each one for Steve, but the place is deserted. Another door-shaped hole is cut out of the back wall. Harley edges towards it.