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CHAPTER TWELVE
the winter soldier
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warning: lots of violence mentions of pain, blood, and torture, enjoy!

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WATCHING STEVE THROW Jasper Sitwell across a rooftop brought a special kind of joy to Diana as she watched on with Natasha at her side. To see a man like Sitwell squirm, Diana had the biggest smile on her face.

"Tell me about Zola's algorithm," Steve demanded, getting the ball rolling for the interrogation.

"Never heard of it." He lied.

"What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?" Steve asked, his pace was fast and Diana's body was screaming at her to stop trying to keep up.

Her body had undergone so much trauma already and she wasn't close to being done and it sucked. If she had her way she would be curled up on a couch with a book and Steve's record player softly playing music as she read. But that wasn't going to happen anytime soon especially when they had so much work to do already.

"I was throwing up, I get seasick." Sitwell rushed his words, stumbling back away from Steve whose murderous stare would be enough to make a normal person shit their pants, Sitwell just smiled when he reached the edge, "Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof? Because it's really not your style, Rogers."

At this point, Diana and Nat were side-by-side. The former tilted her head as she narrowed her eyes, he was on the edge of a building and he decided to piss the people in front of him off? Diana could rectify that.

"You're right." Steve smoked out the lapel of Jaspers suit jacket, and with a pat, "It's not. It's theirs."

Steve stepped aside and immediately, Diana and Natasha kicked Sitwell in the chest, sending him off the roof. He plummeted down, his scream echoing up the glass of the windows and the concrete holding it all up.

"Oh, wait. What about that girl from accounting, Laura?" Natasha pondered, referring to the conversation they were having about Steve dating again.

"No, it's Lillian, with the lip piercing right?" Diana corrected.

"Yeah, she's cute." Natasha smiled.

Diana nodded in agreement to that.

"Yeah, I'm not ready for that." Steve's words made Diana scoff, Lillian was cute, and that lip piercing only made it better.

The conversation was stopped as Sam, in his Falcon jet-pack suit with wings flew up, holding Sitwell and he threw the screaming man down on the roof.

The three join Sam as they walk towards Sitwell, he held his hands up in fear and surrender. He knew how dangerous they can get when pissed off, and Diana is very pissed off about the stitches in her leg and the faint scent of dust she can't get out of her nose.

"Zola's algorithm is a program..." Sitwell seemed out of breath, something you'd expect from someone who was falling down the side of a tall building, "for choosing Insight's targets!"

"What targets?" Steve's stern vice has even Diana shifting a bit nervously.

"You! A TV anchor in Cairo, the Undersecretary of Defense, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City." Sitwell rattled off, "Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to HYDRA! Now, or in the future."

"The Future?" Steve questioned, "How could it know?"

Diana hates Sitwell's laugh, especially after the news he broke. She wanted to break his nose.

"How could it not? The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught HYDRA how to read it." Diana's face dropped in the realization of what she hoped he didn't mean, "She gets it!" -Sitwell pointed to Diana after seeing her face, "Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, e-mails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores. Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future."

"And what then?" Steve asked. It was probably for the best that Diana kept her mouth shut, her computing brain that loved to code was about to ask how their algorithm could be so advanced to predict like that, which wasn't important to the situation other than the fact that it can do that at all.

"Oh, my God." Sitwell mumbled to himself, "Pierce is gonna kill me."

"What then!" Steve yelled out his question, there was no way for Sitwell to avoid answering it.

"Then the Insight Helicarriers scratch people off the list." Sitwell admitted, "A few million at a time."

Diana furrowed her eyebrows.

"The guns reach that far?"

• • •

SAMS CAR WAS not meant for so many people, but Diana was crammed between Natasha and Sitwell anyways. And it seemed Diana wasn't the only one who hated it as she watched Sitwell squirm in the backseat. He wasn't the only one feeling uncomfortable. Diana changed her clothes back into her SHIELD suit because she could and since she didn't know the inner workings of neither Nat nor Steve's suit, they were still in their civilian clothes, Sam's falcon wings were still in the trunk obviously since they'd be uncomfortable to wear driving.

"HYDRA doesn't like leaks." Sitwell finally spoke up.

"So why don't you try sticking a cork in it," Sam spoke bluntly, Sitwell glanced at Diana who rolled her eyes at his nerves.

Natasha was nervous too, but Diana figured it was because of the time since she noticed the woman checking the time every fifteen minutes. She knew that it couldn't be helped but Diana understood the urgency. Sam was on the fastest highway he could that led straight to the Triskelion and save for the car flying, they weren't going to get past the unusual amount of cars on the highway.

"Insight's launching in sixteen hours, we're cutting it a little bit close here." Natasha nervously spoke up, Steve and Sam were more gentle in their tone to her.

"I know." Steve responded, "We'll use him to bypass the DNA scans and access the Helicarriers directly."

"What?! Are you crazy?" Sitwell yelled in defiance, "That is a terrible, terrible idea-"

One minute, Diana is watching Sitwell blow his gasket at Steve's last-minute plan, the next, there's a hole in the window and Jasper Sitwell is killed by the oncoming truck that was in the other lane.

She felt Natasha push her, when she looked back, there was a bullet hole in the headrest of the seat where Diana's head was. Natasha practically laid on Diana and she watched a bullet hole appear where Natasha moved from. Someone was on the roof of the car and they knew everyone's position.

Diana fully moved out of the way for Natasha to crawl into the front seat and move Steve and Sam out of the way. Diana wasn't gonna sit in shock any longer, without thinking, she grabbed Sam's emergency brake and pulled, the car screeching to a stop and her chest colliding with the back of Sam's seat, making her grunt from the flash of pain.

She looked up to see what everyone else was seeing. The Winter Soldier was before them in broad daylight, he was sliding on the asphalt before them, his metal hand that connected to his metal arm was used to slow the sliding to a stopped, imprinted lines in the road showed his grip.

Something flipped in Diana's stomach as she watched the man has pulled his fingers out of the ground.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She asked, though her friends wouldn't know that the real reason why she asked was because of the way she reacted to his murderous walk towards them.

Natasha pulled her gun, aiming it at the man. She was about to pull the trigger when a truck slammed into them, forcing the car to move. The Winter Soldier jumped back onto the car, after that, he smashed through the windshield and pulled out the steering wheel.

"Shit!" Diana and Sam screamed in unison.

Natasha started to shoot at him but the Winter Soldier jumps onto the vehicle behind them, as the car is being pulled off the road Steve holds on to the car door.

Diana didn't think to join Natasha on the woman's lap, Sam clutched onto Diana's, his chest pressed into his back.

"Hang on!" Steve yelled, he broke open the door, holding onto Natasha, and reached over Diana and grabbed onto Sam, pulling both of them together.

Diana looked up to see the car actually flying off to do a flip, not the kind of flying she would hope for but it certainly caught air. They slid for a moment but Diana and Sam fell off of Steve, rolling on the hot asphalt as Steve and Natasha continued to slide on the car door through the streets. The Winter Soldier is joined by HYDRA agents and they start to shoot at the four of them starting with Steve and Natasha as The Winter Soldier pointed a rocket launcher at them.

Natasha ran but Steve was blasted off the bridge and into a bus, making it crash. Diana would have to find a way to get down and check on him.

Diana grabbed a piece of the car that came off and turned it into a gun, she would prefer her staff or the spear she stole from the chitauri warrior she killed but they have guns and she wasn't skilled enough to dodge bullets like that. She drew near Sam.

"I'll cover you, but we need to get to your trunk," Sam threw her an incredulous look as she tried to shoot at the Winter Soldier, "I need to see how the wings work so I can make some of my own and get down there."

Sam didn't question it, she grabbed another piece of rubble and turned that into a gun as well, handing it to Sam. The two got up from their crouch behind the car and began to shoot at the HYDRA agents and their metal armed man.

Diana noticed that the Winter Soldier aimed his rocket launcher at Natasha and fired, she had to run into oncoming traffic and jump off the other way. Diana remembered the grappling hook device Natasha used regularly. She knew that the woman would be using that and she no longer needed Sam's wings.

The Winter Soldier was focused on Natasha. Diana knew that he also knew Natasha's device. He was so focused on Natasha and shooting her from atop of the bridge, he didn't see Diana approach him from the right, she kicked his gun out of the way, pulling his attention to her, he was met with her fist, cracking the glass of his goggles and inhibiting his vision. She raised her gun and was about to shoot when his flesh hand smacked the gun away and he grabbed her by the throat with his metal hand.

Her jaw dropped in shock as she gasped for what air she could.

"You could at-" Diana choked out, "-at least buy me a drink first."

She fucked up, Natasha couldn't even shoot him from down there because she was blocking any sort of easy target. Diana mustered what strength she had and balled her body up, she kicked her legs out, landing on his chest. She grabbed his goggles off his face, trying to hold onto something so she wouldn't plummet but they were too loose.

Without thinking, the goggles turned into a grappling hook device of her own and she swung down after quickly attaching it to the bridge.

Diana was on the ground under the bridge, people were running but a lot of pedestrians and civilians were still there. She wanted to scream at them but her tender throat was gulping for air as she watched the chaos unfold around her.

Natasha was already running off but Diana knew the Winter Soldier was waiting for her to run out from under the bridge. She could see his shadow lingering out

There was more gunfire on the bridge and she figured Sam was covering for her. Diana ran for the bus, hoping to whatever cosmic being was out there that The Winter Soldier was also the tiniest bit distracted.

A rapid rain of bullets on the ground behind her let her know that she needed to pick up the pace despite her torn leg. The stitches were ruined from the events that just transpired and her leg wasn't having it despite the danger behind her. She couldn't stop at the bus, Steve and all the other civilians were still there, she veered left toward the empty cars and ran past. The bullets stopped when she was out of view. Natasha disappeared behind a car but not before pointing Diana toward the civilians.

She took the message to keep running, to help anyone that was possibly injured from the bus crash or the bullets flying about. She found a teenage girl on the street, headphones in, eyes glued to her phone. Diana looked over her shoulder to see The Winter Soldier who was down on the ground now and slowly approaching.

Diana turned back and barreled into the girl. Headphones flying, her scream was cut off with Diana's hand. The older woman got up and dragged the girl out of view, hoping that the metal-armed man wasn't locked in on her.

The girl was stumbling over her words as she clawed at her discarded headphones on the ground.

"Shut up!" Diana hissed, her throat crying at the strain, "I don't care where you thought you were going but you are going to run in that direction and you aren't going to stop until you're ten blocks away, do you understand?"

The girl began to stumble over her words again as she found her footing and actually recognized Diana before her.

"They have guns and they don't care about hitting innocent people, you need to run!" Diana's voice was hoarse but the explosion that went off around the corner was all that needed to be heard before the girl ran off in the direction Diana pointed at earlier.

Diana ran around the corner toward the explosion to see that Steve kicked The Winter Soldier in her direction. They all stopped, Steve's face frowned in confusion as The Winter Soldiers mask was on the street, his identity revealed to Steve, Diana was still behind the dark-haired man.

"Bucky?" Steve asked. Diana furrowed her brows, she pulled a rock out of her pocket and turned it into a staff, The Winter Soldier was unarmed.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" She heard the man ask before he pulled out a gun she didn't see before.

She used the momentum of her running to just barrel into him like she did the teenage girl, only this time she jumped, going for the top half of the man. She landed with an involuntary grunt and she managed to get the staff in front of his neck.

The Winter Soldier- Bucky- apparently, was strong, the confusion of his identity was resolved when he grabbed her arm and managed to throw her off him, she rolled away but when she looked up, still on the ground they locked eyes.

His hair was longer and he had facial hair, but she was looking into the eyes of lieutenant James Buchanan Barnes of 107th. He blinked, his expression unreadable yet showing the first sign of emotion since Diana saw his face.

He seemed to quickly brush it aside, and reached for his gun again, but before he could shoot, Natasha used the grenade launcher he dropped against him. It narrowly missed Diana and James and hit a pickup truck nearby.

Diana struggled to her feet as the sirens finally could be heard over the timing in her ears. James ran off, but the screaming pain in Diana's leg left it almost useless. She wouldn't be able to go after him.

She weakly limped over to Steve as fast as she could, but Rumlow and the rest of his Nazi posse were there armed to the teeth. Diana couldn't take another step before a gun was in her face. She dropped her staff was she was limping on and slowly dropped to her knees as she heard them command her to do so through the yelling. Steve was nearby, a gun still pointed at his head, Diana looked up to see a chopper owned by the local news.

"Drop the shield, Cap! On your knees! " Rumlow yelled, his voice was irritating to Diana's ears at this point, "Get on your knees! Now! Get down! Get down!" -Steve held his hands up as he stared into Diana's eyes- "Get on your knees! Down!" -Rumlow kicked Steve's leg and Steve kneeled, he was still somehow taller than Diana, "Don't move." Rumlow looked up to see the same helicopter flying above them and glanced at Rollins beside him- "Put the gun down. Not here. Not here!" Rollins lowered his gun, the HYDRA agents then took the four of them into custody.

Diana's leg bled the whole time as this happened, blood soaking down the suit, a dark wet spot visible on her thigh where the wound was opened. That was going to be a bitch to handle if they could get out of this, though right now, it was likely she was going to end up in a hole in the ground next to Steve and Natasha along with Sam now that he was dragged into their shit.

Diana was in cuffs like Natasha and Sam but was sat in between Steve and a HYDRA agent who held a gun to her head with the instructions of "Don't even think about changing your cuffs into a weapon."

She was frozen in fear. She was slowly able to lean back and relax slightly, but it wasn't until five minutes into the drive that the agent's arm got tired and he lowered the weapon. Diana's lost a lot of blood at this point and her throat was throbbing from the tight grip James had her in over the bridge.

"It was him." Steve muttered from next to her, "He looked right at me like he didn't even know me."

"How's that even possible?" Sam asked, Diana had been wondering the same thing after hearing the track record, "It was like seventy years ago."

"Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in forty-three, Zola experimented on him." Steve pieced together, "Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall. They must have found him and..."

"None of that's your fault, Steve." Natasha had head back against the wall, Diana's head began to spin a little as she turned it to face them.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky." Steve's dejected tone was misheard by Diana who leaned against Steve and looked around at her friends.

"Guys, I don't know if it's the blood loss or the same issues that had me attracted to Loki, but Bucky's beard was kinda hot," Diana's words slurred and she looked to Steve, "did he ever sport that look pre-war, or is this new?"

"We need to get a doctor here." Sam spoke to the HYDRA agent next to him, "We don't put pressure on those wounds they're gonna bleed out here in the truck."

One of the guards pulls out an electric rod in response. Diana's eyes widened at it and she leaned back, trying to get her face away from the crackling energy. What happened next, Diana wasn't sure if she imagined. She watched as the agent electrocuted the other guard and knocked him out with a hard kick to the head.

Diana watched him drop but not before hitting her leg on the way down, earning a pained groan as she leaned against Steve again. She still couldn't keep her eyes off the agent that did the kicking and watched as they took off their helmet.

Maria Hill blew the extra hair out of her face, scrunching her nose as she shook her head.

"Ah. That thing was squeezing my brain." She took another look around and her eyes landed on Sam who looked at her in confusion; to Steve, "Who's this guy?"

Diana's face lit up in a lazy smile as her head grew a little fuzzy.

"Did I ever tell you how much I love you, Hill?"

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THEY WERE TAKEN to a dam, a concrete dam, any noise would be drowned out. Diana knew she was going to be making some noise. She was currently using Maria and Sam as support as Natasha leaned on Steve, the pain in Diana's leg made it throb to no end.

"GSWs. They've lost at least a pint." Maria called out to an approaching figure.

"Maybe two," Sam added, glancing at Diana's leg again.

"What about her neck," the man was more visible now that he was closer.

"Sexual frustration." Diana snickered before wincing at her throat.

"Let me take them."

"They'll want to see him first," Maria argued, Diana furrowed her eyebrows.

She and Natasha gave Maria the same look of confusion. They were led to an open room and beyond a flimsy curtain, a beat-up Nick Fury laid in a stolen hospital bed. He only lazily lifted his head at their presence.

"About damn time." He spoke.

After that, it was a flurry of orders. The doctor, Diana, and Natasha were on a medical train as Diana had to rip the pant leg of her suit for the doctor to gain access to her stitches.

Diana was instructed to hold two gauze pads, one on either side of Natashas shoulder where she was shot, and squeeze. It was taking everything in Diana's body to not scream and jerk away and it was taking a lot more to not put too much pressure on Natasha who could only watch with a sympathetic expression.

"Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum," Nick listed off his ailments as they were treated, "shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache.

"Don't forget your collapsed lung." The doctor was almost done with Diana's stitches and looked over at Maria who approached with another print bag of blood.

Diana was grateful to have her universal blood type, otherwise, she was fucked.

"Oh, let's not forget that." Nick scoffed, "Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open, your heart stopped," Natasha recalled, she was still recovering from the shock of seeing Nick alive.

"Tetrodotoxin B: slows the pulse to one beat a minute." Nick explained, "Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked, "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful." Maria's tone was soft, which wasn't usual of her but the circumstances changed that.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead." Nick's lighthearted tone held no humor, "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

Diana glanced over at Natasha, she knew that comment would hurt the woman she's squeezing, but if it did, Natasha showed no indication of it.

Maria got the pint of blood hooked up and ready and slowly inserted it into the easiest-to-find vein in Diana's arm, making the girl begin to breathe heavily to filter out some of the pain.

"Holy fuck," Diana gasped as the doctor stuck the needle in her leg one last time. All the painkillers, liquid or otherwise were used upon Fury since he was getting close to not being bedridden.

So Diana and Natasha had to put up with the pain and just wait for it to be over. When the doctor finished up the stitches, he rubbed wound cream on it, hoping to make it heal faster with minimal scarring.

After that, Maria took over the squeezing until the doctor was able to focus solely on Natasha.

"Ice your neck to reduce swelling," The doctor spoke up inspecting Diana's neck a little before she slowly moved out of the way.

She only nodded before grabbing her blood bag and companion wheely-hook and limped off to the mini freezer hooked up to the wall. She grabbed the first ice pack she saw and joined Steve who walked over to the meeting table the secret facility conveniently had and sat down.

The blood began to buzz in her veins as she inspected Steve's expression. She sat down next to where he stood and looked up.

"Are you okay?" She asked.

Steve furrowed his eyebrows.

"You almost bled to death, you were held over a bridge by the throat and you're asking me if I'm okay," Steve asked.

"I may have gone through that but you just found out the man you thought of as your brother has been alive this whole time and has been tortured and brainwashed," Diana shook her head, wincing as she strained her throat to speak, "I can get over this, but what you're going through is unimaginable."

Steve went silent, looking away as the rest of them joined the pair at the table to hash out what the fuck has happened in the past few days. Diana never thought she would see Fury look betrayed, but she also never thought that a man with a metal arm would add to a sexual awakening for her.

For some reason, there was a photo of Pierce lying around the facility they were in, and Fury was inspecting with a sour look on his face.

"This man declined the Nobel Peace Prize." Fury finally spoke, "He said, "Peace wasn't an achievement, it was a responsibility." See, it's stuff like this that gives me trust issues."

"We have to stop the launch." Natasha brought the conversation back on track.

"I don't think the Council's accepting my calls anymore." Fury opened the case he had next to him, revealing three programmed chips. Diana straightened up at the sight of them, her brain was clear now that her throat stopped swelling so bad and her blood was at a normal level.

"What's that?" Sam asked, his arms crossed.

He and Steve were standing while Nat and Diana sat side by side. Maria was across the table with a laptop.

"Once the Helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they'll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized," Maria explained, she turned the laptop to show the rest of them a visualization of HYDRAs plan.

"We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own," Nick spoke, pointing to the three chips in the case.

"One or two won't cut it." Maria propped her forearms up, locking her hands together, "We need to link all three carriers for this to work because if even one of those ships remains operational a whole lot of people are gonna die."

"We have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is HYDRA." Nick spoke up again, "We need to get past them, insert the server blades, and maybe, just maybe, we can salvage what's left-"

"We're not salvaging anything." Steve interrupted, he unfolded his crossed arms, a hand out to express his words, "We're not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we're taking down SHIELD."

"SHIELD had nothing to do with it." Nick defended, Diana only raised an eyebrow and deadpanned a look to her boss. He rolled his eye.

"You gave me this mission, this is how it ends." Steve ever so eloquently pointed to the ground as he spoke, he was angry, and Diana was with him, "SHIELD's been compromised, you said so yourself. HYDRA grew right under your nose and nobody noticed."

"Why do you think we're meeting in this cave?" Nick retorted, "I noticed."

"And how many paid the price before you did?" There it was. Steve was finally going to mention Bucky.

Diana wished she wasn't so vocal about his looks earlier, now that her head was clear and she had space to think, the things Bucky must have gone through to get where he is made her shudder.

He was going to be there when they enacted this plan, Diana just hopes that all of them against Bucky will stop him without killing him.

"Look, I didn't know about Barnes." Nick's voice softened a smidge, clearly apologetic about the man.

"Even if you have, would you have told me?" Steve asked, "Or would you have compartmentalized that too? SHIELD, HYDRA, it all goes."

Diana loved Steve's sass, she wished that she could credit it to her teaching him about the 21rst century but he's had that since she met him.

"He's right." Maria caught Diana's attention, those two words shocked her, and it seemed to shock Fury too.

He looked at Natasha who leaned back in her chair, leaning closer to Steve. He looked to Diana, she lightly crossed her arms as best as she could with the blood infusion in her veins there were no words but he could tell by the look on her face that she wasn't worried about being out of a job.

He then looked at Sam.

"Don't look at me." Sam shook his head, "I do what he does, just slower."

Diana snorted out a laugh at that. Sam smiled, leaving a hand on her shoulder.

"Well..." Nick looked to Steve again, "Looks like you're giving the orders now, Captain."

Steve only nodded, with the information all on the table, she watched his face as he calculated a plan. Steve was smart, and he knew his players.

As he continued to lay it out, he paused, looking at Diana.

"Are you good to fight?" He glanced at Diana's leg.

Diana only smiled.

"You'd have to strap one down to that hospital bed to stop me from fighting," she pointed a thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the bed Fury once occupied, making Steve chuckle as he continued the plan.

His foolproof plan.

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4.9k words

AYOOOO WHAT.

how have I managed to write this whole chapter in a day? how?

you know what? I'm not gonna question it, AND ! IM GONNA WRITE SOME MORE!!!

Thank you all so much for reading this, leave a comment on what you think about Diana and Buckys meet cute!!! I've had it planned that way for so long and I'm just so glad that it's finally out there!!!

see y'all at the next update!

-greta