Iron Witch [3]

Chapter 5: Normal

Bucky's POV

You fucking idiot! Why would you tell her that right now!? She's already not feeling herself, and then you drop that on her!?

"Bucky, what happened?"

I forgot I was surrounded by 4 confused and upset people.

"What the hell man!?" Sam glared at me, obviously thinking I did something. And I did.

I didn't know what to say.

"Buck..." I glanced up at Steve. His arms crossed as he stared down at me with a concern look. "What happened?"

"What made you think something happened?" I smiled weakly and shrugged my shoulders.

"Hope just ran out the house crying and you chased her. That doesn't happened very often." Wanda glared at me.

"I never seen Hope cry like that..." Sam whispered sadly as he looked to the ground.

"If you guys were here more often, you'd probably know why." I mumbled to myself. But I guess Steve heard me with his god damn super hearing because he sent me a confused look.

"What do you mean by that?" Steve raised an eyebrow at me. I groaned and rubbed my face in frustration.

I stood up and walked towards the kitchen. Steve grabbed my arm.

I stopped walking and looked at him. He gave me his Captain America look.

"Don't give me that look." I glared at him and pulled my arm away. I miss having my other arm, but I should be thankful I have my right arm. Or be thankful that I'm not a lefty... or wasn't a lefty?

"Is it about HYDRA?"

I stopped suddenly. I turned around to look at the Sokovian boy. I looked around at the others, taking in their expressions of realization.

I nodded.

"What made her run out though? She's never done it before." Sam asked. I sighed and walked back to the couch, plopping down on it.

"They did things to us... that should have killed us. Hope especially." I started. The others took a seat as well. "She was only a kid and they had to hurt her in order to get any result from the Tesseract. They injected small amounts of their serum into her blood and brain.

"To trigger the power to take effect, they decided it would be easier to beat it out of her. Make her feel unbearable pain." I closed my eyes as I heard her screams playing in my head. Her cries for help. "She probably only survived because she was immortal at the time."

"... but she was just a kid..." Steve whispered. I can practically see his mind picturing what they could have done to her.

"They didn't do that for us." Wanda furrowed her eyebrows at me. Pietro grabbed her hand reassuringly.

"You're lucky." I stared at the twins. "The other Strucker brother was the one who experimented on Hope."

"Strucker?" I nodded.

"He believed that the Tesseract could give a human unimaginable power. Make them the greatest weapon HYDRA has ever made. They started with adults and volunteers, but they all died. The power was too much for them."

"He decided to try children. Their minds are still growing, evolving. He thought their minds would get used to the power and it would grow inside of them. He did experiment after experiment. Kid after kid. Taking them from their families. After a while, people started to see faults in the man's work. They begun to pull out of the project. People stopped helping him, so he had to recruit his own 'test subject collect' team under the radar."