The bargain was struck. Who was I to reject? Our chances were slim as it was, and as men went, someone who adored me for all of my fucks ups wasn't a bad guy to settle for. And it's not like I even deserved Alexi; so pure, so naive, so doting. He deserves a woman far more faultless than I.

The next month was sent plotting. Meticulously. Meticulously to the point of pedantry.

Any more than a month and I think I would've finally cracked. I was buzzing with excitement and crippled with terror; it's strange how often those two feelings coincide.

One of the bonuses of Alexi's higher rank was his access to files and schematics. He could get details of the base and all of its security without anyone batting an eyelid. He could obtain schematics of every corridor, pathway and ventilation shaft with only a small request. He could find copies of reports detailing where those had tried to escape and failed before us.

Reading about Black Widows and other agents I served alongside and how they reached their untimely demise in a mad dash for freedom was crushing. As well as gory details about how they practically ran at waves of gunfire in an attempt to breach the threshold of the facility.

But between all of the private plotting, life still went on. Our day job had us deployed to various locations within the boundaries of the Iron Curtain. I still breathed in death and administered it like the grim reaper, but the knowledge that my lifelong ordeal might soon be over drew everything into proportion.

After a particularly gruelling mission helping evacuate a small town on the border of the USSR after it had been destroyed by American troops, Alexi presented me with something to sugar-coat the horrors of the day. Like a parent on a child's birthday, he led me by the hand back to a nondescript location and told me to close my eyes.

Protesting and trying to laugh off the awkwardness of the situation, I was finally relieved of the test of my self-control.

"Open your eyes..." Alexi drawled in a level voice.

When I reopened them, I caught him squatted in my peripherals and diverted my attention down to him. Cupped between two hands, cushioning the priceless relic was a diamond ring.

"You can't be serious?!" I rasped, trying to drink in the reality of the situation. The gem was outrageously fat, and dwarfed the otherwise simple gold band it was set in. It was facetted and twinkled under the harsh light of his room.

Alexi's face lit up brighter than the diamond in the ring; his grin tearing his face from ear to ear. "I'm completely serious! I thought I'd get you a little token to symbolise my promise to you." He had taken a knee and anticipated my hand so he could slip the ring onto my finger.

Contraband was hard enough to sneak into the base, and something of that calibre was neither surreptitious nor easy to track down. "Where on earth did you get it?!" I gasped, coveting the shining thing.

And the bold man began to blush. "I was hauling a citizen out of the blaze back in that small town, and he turned out to be a jeweller. In exchange for saving his life, he gave me the ring he'd been working on..." He scratched the back of his neck with modesty. "It's not pilfered off a corpse or stolen if that's what you were wondering," he clarified with a shy titter.

I was rendered speechless and made a choked noise in the quest for eloquence. "Alexi, it's perfect. So perfect! Just like you..." And in a flustered and girlish manner, I offered my delicate hand to him and he eased the ring onto my delicate digit.

Somehow the bond between us was fused by the ornament looped around my finger. I couldn't help but admire it and tilt it in the light: making it refract and reflect. "Thought I'd give you something to make it official..." He explained. "And sure it's no lavish white wedding with a castle and champagne, but it's a start," he promised and pressed a kiss to each one of my knuckles individually.

And that ring served as a reminder of our bond wherever I went. Looking at the ring made me feel a little less alone; it was a mark of possession, but also a mark of adoration. And in times of need, I'd fondle it affectionately, taking deep breaths and reminding myself of the man who was going to whisk me away from that little corner of hell.

On missions, I would need reminding: that all of the deaths I committed were not in vain, but so I could maintain my cover long enough so I'd never have to kill again. It would shine in sunlight, or moonlight as I jostled it as I pulled the trigger.

The day before we were due to put our plan into action, we were sent to put a small band of rebels out of action.

But the only issue was that the group of rebels were more than a group. They rallied like an army and there must have been around a hundred of them: demonstrating their vitriol in Czechoslovakia. The rebels didn't feel like anything unique and I could tell that our government there was on the brink of collapse just from the conditions of torched buildings and wrecked monuments.

"We need to get to higher ground!" We need to get to higher ground Alexi yelled to be heard over the chugging of bullets out of machine guns.

"You think I hadn't noticed?!" I squawked, dipping and diving to avoid intermittent bullets aimed at me. I grabbed both pistols from either hip and fired off retaliation shots; putting down two or three men before I had to move again.

As Alexi raised his head again from behind an askew roadblock, I snatched him by the wrist and yanked him out the way of an incoming shot. A bullet hit the wall behind us, next to his head, dust and plaster flaking off in his face.

He gawped, stunned and clutched his chest at the close call.

"No time for being a sitting duck now, we need to go!" I shouted, lunging at him as a machine gun revved up and sprayed bullets over our head.

He peered around, both of us being showered in sediment and bullets ricocheted off the wall dangerously.

He spotted a highrise building only a short run across the way and nudged me in the shoulder for my attention. "We need to get over there. That building will serve as a vantage point!" He laced our hands together and waited until the gunfire stopped; until they were reloading. "On my mark..." He held up three fingers, then two, then one.

In a kafuffle of legs and scuffing of feet we launched ourselves out of our hiding place and dashed across the road, bracing for any stray bullets that might pick us off. Above I could hear our men taking out a few of the hostiles from their sniper nests.

Before we managed to reach the door of the building, I threw a grenade ahead. Hurtling towards it, we covered our faces to avoid the backlash of debris as it blew the door off its hinges. Screams erupted from inside the occupied office block.

Alexi and I dashed in and began our march through the space, armed to the teeth. People cowered and whimpered around us.

People crawled under desks, hid behind photocopiers and shielded themselves behind filing cabinets as we marched on through.

"Stairs! There! Go!" Alexi barked and we both made a dash for the stairwell, having people clamour out of our way in fits of fear.

It was a quick march up the steps, peering in the windows of each floor to try and gauge the height and the view of the square below. I swung around the railings and pattered up each flight until we came a floor with masses of empty rooms; unfilled with office equipment.

"You take here, I'll take the next floor!" Alexi instructed, squeezing my hand and kissing me on the cheek. "Go!" And he marched his way up another flight of stairs.

I bust through the door with a precise kick to where the lock would be, breaking the mechanism open.

The floor was empty and had a massive wall of windows that overlooked the square below. And being five or six stories up gave me the perfect height to have an advantage over them. I grasped the rifle strung over my back and rammed the butt of it into the nearest window; smashing it so I could set up the stand on the ledge.

I flicked down either leg of the stand and loaded a cartridge into the bay. Crouched, I pressed my eye to the eyepiece and squinted down the sight until I managed to find the rebels in my crosshair. Screams from below distracted me from my first shot, and I watched a rebel fall to the ground as a bullet was fired into his knee.

I unloaded the empty shell and inserted a new bullet. I cocked the gun and stared down the sight again.

There was the sound of hoarse breathing and heavy plodding boots behind me.

"I thought you were going to take the next floor?" I inquired, firing off the next shot and watching blood and particles of skull splatter as I made the headshot.

"Alexi?" I called as I flicked out the old shell and inserted a new one in, my ring catching on the safety as I unlocked it.

The heavy breathing only continued. Then I heard the mechanical cocking of a Soviet slugger.

I fired off another shot and heard the yelp and sigh as the high calibre bullet pierced a rebel's heart. His body flopped to the floor.

Reloading, I turned around.

There, with his tarnished metal arm and a heavy duty gun cradled in his arms, was the Winter Soldier.

I staggered to my feet and held my hands up in a surrender; unarmed palms bared. "James?"

He pointed the barrel of the gun at me, and in a knee jerk movement, I lurched for my rifle.

Ruthless. He taught me how to be ruthless. And I paid for my sins. In the purest, most concentrated and white hot form of torture.

His footfalls thundered in my ears, and as I finally rotated with the gun in my hands I received a swift boot to the stomach, which sent me soaring back.

The window shattered as I plunged through it and I was showered with shards. The resounding crack and hiss as the sheet of glass splintered, and forked was deafening.

I threw my arms out in front to snag anything, to grapple any crevice or textured surface. Nothing but air came to my fingers and sieved through like smoke.

The air left my lungs as the realisation I had crossed the precipice into the abyss dawned on me. Too startled to scream, too shocked to move, too scared to fight.

Storey after storey whizzed past me, mirrored windows, my reflection gleaming back at me with indignation. Glass, brick, and then concrete.

It was like a shockwave, a figment shattering earthquake passing through my spine. The contact with the ground outweighed any pain I'd felt ever before. Paralysed by agony, I wheezed out a shallow breath. I was buried under a mound of glass that had fallen with me, that I was sure would be my coffin.

An odd sense of karma washed over me, and cursive thoughts of Yelena trailed through my mind.

I turned my head and looked down at my screaming body, my back singing with pain, my head throbbing enough to ruin my eyesight and my ankle mangled. I felt like my anatomy had been thrown into a blender and my bones crushed by a mallet. I couldn't move.

And the first thought that occurred to me was how this was karma. And this was the last thing my sworn nemesis had felt before she was torn to pieces by a rabid mob.

But I was the lucky one.

What followed me out that window was worse. A wallop, a muffled crumple of glass, and a strained cough. Scarlet spanned in a reservoir beyond the body that had fallen beside me. My eyes were blurred with pain, but I could still see my fiancé.

With Alexi Shostakov died my last love, my last shred of happiness and my last hope.

A part of me died that day with him.

And I was too crushed to make a sound. My chest convulsed as I gargled out sobs and tears jerked from my eyes as I seethed in and out breaths.

Pain had finally consumed me. I've known guilt worse than General Custer. I've known heartache worse than Juliet Capulet. I've known pain more extreme than Harold Godwinson. I'm a tragedy.

That's when it occurred to me.

What's the meaning of life? What's the meaning of my life? I live in constant agony, constant fear, constant rule. This isn't a life. Why should I live like this?

Short answer: I shouldn't.

Above me, though the image was smudged by my tears, I could see a blotch of black. My jealous lover loomed. Too selfish to allow me happiness. To obedient to do anything but follow orders. To kill me would've been merciful. I would have welcomed it with open arms, embraced it like a mother with her offspring. Death never came. Though I wished it, and wished it and prayed that it would all finally be over.

No. They dragged me from the wreckage by my tattered limbs, still burbling like a lunatic, still too pained to move and slung me in the back of a van. Then it was the sweet lullaby of chloroform. And I didn't fight it. I welcomed the numbness and let it wash over me like a gentle tide.

A/N - Happy Father's Day!

Dedication goes to SherlockedAvenger! X