Picture: The Winter Soldier from Captain America: Civil War

Music: "Escape From Slavery" by PP Music

All rights go to their rightful owners.

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NINE

A horrible, animalistic sound comes from my throat as I see James being torn away from the stairwell. One of the soldier's holds a red book, and he starts to read from it. "Longing. Rusted. Furnace-"

James starts screaming. His eyes towards me. "Run!"

The blond man turns me around to look at him, his hands on my shoulders. "Hey, hey, what's your name?"

"What?" I ask confused.

"Your name, what is it?" His hazy blue eyes keep a lock on mine, calming me a little.

"Dariya," I mumble. "Dariya."

He smiles. "Good, alright, Dariya. My name is Clint. I need you to stay with me, okay? We're gonna get outta here. Just stay with me."

I nod to him, and he takes my hand. "Da."

Clint turns to the redhead, who's clutching her hands over her mouth as tears fall silently. "Nat?" She doesn't reply. "Tasha, are we good?"

When he places a hand on her shoulder, she stands straight, turning back to us with a blank expression. "Let's get out of here." She grabs a pistol from the brunette and starts firing at the HYDRA agents coming up behind us. "Start running with the girl, Clint. Maria and I will hold them off."

"But-"

"No buts. Go!"

Eventually Clint agrees, taking my hands tightly and pulling me behind him. "I can run by myself!" I shout at him in Russian.

"I don't speak Russian!"

Before Clint can reply, a soldier from the perimater jumps in front of us. "Hail HYDRA!" he shouts, and then a grenade is tossed in our direction. Before I can react, Clint takes me under his arm and shields me from the impact.

We're thrown nearly a dozen feet away, concrete slabs falling on top of us. My ears are ringing, and I can't get the dust from my eyes. A heavy weight holds me down, and I realize that it's the man I just met. He had thrown me under himself to protect me... No one has ever done that. Not since James.

"Clint!" Natalia shouts, hurring over to us. She begins to shove the bricks off us in a hurry, desperately trying to get to her partner. "Clinton Francis Barton, I swear if you're dead, I'll kill you myself."

"Is he okay?" Maria asks.

Natalia pulls Clint up, inspecting him. I push myself off the ground, making sure that all my limbs are intact. "His ears are bleeding," Natalia says, worry slipping into her voice. "Clint? Can you hear me?" She turns to me, helping me up. "Are you alright?"

I nod. "Da."

"We need to get outta here," Maria says, running up to us. She occassionally fires back at HYDRA behind her. "The Winter Soldier is about to be released on us!"

Natalia turns to me, asking, "Can you help me shoulder his weight?" I nod in a reply. "Alright. Put your arm under his and sling his arm around your shoulders. We're going, Hill! Cover us!"

After we get Clint pushed between the two of us, we scurry towards the the direction of the exit, passing the guard who threw the grenade at us. He lies on the ground, knocked out. "That's for trying to blow us up," I curse in Russian, kicking his HYDRA helmet as we pass.

The alarms fade away as we get closer and closer to the exit. With a harsh thrust of Natalia's hand, the door opens to the frigid cold air of the Siberian mountains. Snow falls from the sky onto a thick later that covers the forest. "The Quinjet is due west into the tree line. If we can make it there quickly, we might be able to get off the ground and make it to Budapest."

"Budapest?"

"We can get SHIELD's help in Budapest."

Without another word, we make our way into the tree line, towards our getaway vehicle. Natalia leads us, and Hill brings up the back, making sure our tracks are covered and that there are no HYDRA agents following us. Or worse, The Winter Soldier.

We come to a large, aerial vehicle about a quarter of a mile from the HYDRA base. Maria presses the code into the side, and the door opens on the back. "Get him to the Med Bay," Natalia orders, letting Maria take her side of Clint's weight. "I'm going to get this bird in the air before we come into contact with resistance."

Maria leads the three of us onto a stretcher in the Med Bay. "Lay him here. I'll get an I.V. going. Attatch these," she gives me two wires, "to his chest. They'll monitor his heart."

I do as she says, all the while looking around at the Quinjet. "This is SHIELD?"

"Not what you excpected?"

"HYDRA might only brainwash the assassins, but they tell just as many harmful lies to all their men and women. We're told SHIELD is a pest who harm people more than they help, and that HYDRA is the cure."

Maria pauses, then continues working. "You're my first field mission, you know, and we're not even here on SHIELD orders. This is a favor from him." She nods to Clint.

"He wanted to rescue me?" I ask in confusion.

"He felt bad for shooting you," she nods to my shoulder. "Under orders, mind you, but still."

A sense of realization comes over me. "He was the Agent Barton James warned me of."

"James? That's what you call that mad-man back there?"

My fists clench, and I look away towards Natalia. "He wasn't always like that. HYDRA takes everything you love, even that within their own walls." I turn back to Maria, who has Clint stabled on the stretcher. "Never underestimate what HYDRA can take from you. Ever."

She nods, and we hear the Quinjet engine start to purr. "We almost ready to get outta here?" Maria asks Natalia, shouting over her shoulder at the redhead.

"We're lifting off in just a few seconds-"

Before she can answer, we hear a thud on the cockpit glass. On the other side is none other than The Winter Soldier himself, eyes dead as his namesake and a rocket launcher on his shoulder. It's aimed at us. "James!"

"Maria, get up here! I need you to man the weapons!" Natalia pushes the steering on the Quinjet, letting it take off immediately, but still, The Winter Soldier hangs on. "Hold on! We're going verticle!" She turns to me as other HYDRA goons start firing at the ship. "Buckle yourself and Clint in. It's gonna be a bumpy ride."

I do as she says, making Clint's stretcher as stable as possible while holding onto something along the wall. Natalia jerks the ship up vertical to the forest below. The Winter Solder attempts to hang on, but soon falls off, thankfully. "Maria, call into base. Tell them we're going to Budapest and that we need immediate backup."

Maria nods, taking the coms in her hand. "Base, this is Hill. We're under fire from HYDRA in the north Siberian mountains. We have liberated a girl from the base here and are on our way to Budapest with Agent Barton down. HYDRA knows we were there, and they've most likely sent The Winter Soldier after us. We need immediate assistance. I repeat: we have a girl, and Agent Barton is down. We're on our way to Budapest with The Winter Soldier on our tail. We need backup as soon as we're in the city-"

Before Maria can finish her transmission, the entire Quinjet starts to tremble, and alarms start going off. Red light fills my vision as the sound of an explosion hits my ears. "What was that?" I shout, holding on tightly to the handle above me.

"We're hit," Natalia replies, almost too calmly. "The Winter Soldier sent that rocket launcher after us. I couldn't shake it. He's damaged our engines. Communications are down... we're not going to make it to Budapest."

"How far can we fly like this?" I ask, turning to Clint, worried for his sake.

"Fifty miles? We're leaking fuel. He knew exactly where to target us so that he could take us down without killing us and retrive you. Do you know what this means?" She turns to Maria.

"He knew where to target us, our engines. He knows the schematics of the Quinjet. He might know the radio frequencies-"

"-Which means HYDRA probably knows where we're going," I finish.

"We'll go as far as we can, but we're going to have to change our destination-"

"-Actually," I cut in, "we don't have to."

Maria turns in her seat to look at me, while Natalia keeps her eyes on the skies around us. "What do you mean?"

"If we change destinations, chances are that HYDRA will just follow us anyways. They probably have scouts in the air now. I know how they work. I've been with them for years."

"What do you suggest we do?"

"Go as far as we can towards Budapest. When the ship breaks down, we get out and make it the rest of the way. When we get there, we get help from SHIELD. If we change destinations now, we're not only endangering ourselves, but SHIELD will never find us."

Natalia nods once. "She's right. It's a solid plan."

"What about Clint?" Maria asks with a worried voice, nodding her head towards the man in the back. "We can't leave him, and God knows if he'll be able to walk by then."

Natalia doesn't look back, but I get the sense that she, above all else, is worried about the man who saved me. She might even blame me for his situation. I would. "I guess it's a risk we will have to take." She sighs. "Strap in, ladies. This is gonna be a long fifty miles."

END.