Joana 

The original Winter Soldier lay on his elbows, blood dripping from his mouth. One of the newer Soldiers, a man, stood above him, fist covered in blood, but not his own.

"Stop it!" Joana screamed, just mere inches away from the scene, but unable to do anything. "God, just stop! Please!"

The Soldier didn't flinch at the sound of her voice. None of the agents in the room made any move to stop him as he continued to beat against Bucky's face. 

"Stop it!" Joana begged, tears threatening her eyes. 

"Another word out of you and you'll be next," Karpov seethed. The threat kept Joana silent for only a few moments. Joana pulled with all her might against the restraints tied around her wrists and ankles. The Soldier lifted Bucky's head and shoulders off of the ground and started to slam his skull into the floor. 

"Let him go!" 

Karpov snapped his head around towards her. 

"That's it, girl! Soldat!" Both Bucky, face barely recognizable through the blood, and the other Winter Soldier, turned their heads towards Karpov. "Stand down." 

Bucky struggled to stand, staggering as he did so. Karpov whistled to the agents by the door and pointed towards Bucky. They held him up and carried him out from the room, probably to go find Lud and get him patched up. Karpov walked over to her chair and stood in front of her, arms crossed over his chest, eyes scowling. 

"Are you just gonna stand there or-" 

Her words were cut off with a sharp backhand to the face. 

"You're nothing more than a whore, you know that?" He seethed in her face. Shifting her jaw, Joana turned her face back to him. 

"Say what you want about me, Karpov. All your words are empty to me."

With a devilish grin, Karpov started to undo the chains on her wrists. They fell to the ground with a thundering sound and Joana let out a sigh of relief. Her wrists could finally breathe, as strange as it sounds. She carefully moved her arms from the chair. Her wrists were raw, bruised and bleeding. She knew what he wanted her to do, so she stood, her legs wobbling. Her head spun as she finally did so. Her knees felt weak, tight. She stretched her arms and her legs and her neck. 

"What about these words?" Karpov asked, interrupting Joana's stretching. "Ubey yeye."

Joana's face went pale. The Winter Soldier cracked a smile. She smiled back, slowly walking behind her chair. 

"Good doggy," she whispered. "Nice doggy. Good doggy." 

The Winter Soldier did not seem to appreciate being called a 'doggy'. 

He snarled at her and ran towards the chair. He pushed off the seat of the chair and did a flip in the air, reaching out with his hand to grab her hair as he went, but Joana was already running in the opposite direction, having predicted his movements. Joana knew that she couldn't beat him in a fight, it was impossible. And she couldn't outrun him, that was futile. All she had to do was somehow get Karpov's gun and then she could kill the Soldier, but she had to figure out how to do that before the Soldier killed her. 

She ran around the room, knocking things over in hopes to slow the Soldier down as he chased her. He gained on her rapidly. 

"I thought you were a strong warrior, Joana," Karpov said as she zipped around the room. 

"I am," she seethed as she ran past him, dodging something that the Soldier threw at her. 

"Then why are you running?" 

Just as he said this, the Soldier leaped forward, preparing to tackle Joana into the ground to beat her face in, but Joana wasn't ready to give up. She saw him jump and ducked so he once again flew over her head, giving her time to run in the other direction. There was no way she was going to get Karpov's gun. He would never let it go. 

So she had to make a new plan. 

The Soldier was still getting off the floor and she was half way across the room. It suddenly occurred to her that this wasn't the only room she had available. She was just yards away from the mysterious door that the Soldiers lived behind. A new plan formulated in her head in seconds. Get behind that door. 

She made a b-line towards the door just as the Soldier started running towards her. 

"Stop!" Karpov yelled at her, just as she pulled the door just enough to slip in and slam it shut behind her. The Soldier ran into the door just as she closed it. Joana yelped, but held the door closed. She locked it as quickly as she could, grateful that it locked from the inside. She backed away from the door, gasping for breath. She stared at the door as the Soldier pounded against it, still trying to get inside. The pounding finally stopped and she finally looked away from the door. In this room, there were 6 cylindrical containers, large enough to keep a person. 

Two of them were empty, four of them were full. One person lay in each of the four full cylinders. When she approached, she saw that the people inside were the other four Winter Soldiers, which she had assumed, but not only that, they were covered in ice. 

"Cryo freeze," she whispered under her breath. That's how HYDRA kept them sedated. The Soldiers were on ice. 

There was another pound on the door, but louder, as if the Soldier outside was throwing his whole body against it. Joana needed to focus. She needed to find something in this room that could help her take the Soldier down. 

To her luck, there was an arsenal of weapons for her to use. She grabbed a hand gun, trying to figure out the next step. She needed to survive and now she had the means to do it. 

She stood by the door, trying to steady her breath. She checked the gun for bullets and cocked it. She swallowed, breathed in, and as she breathed out, she unlocked the door. The Soldier stopped banging. The door slowly opened. Joana held the gun out in front of her, ready to shoot as soon as the Soldier stepped into line of view. However, the Winter Soldiers were trained to be smart, not simply killing machines, so he guessed her plan before she even had time to formulate it. 

The Soldier's arm flashed out in front of her and before she could do anything to defend herself, her gun was skidding against the floor and she was pressed against the wall by her throat. Gagging, Joana clawed at the Soldier's face and hands, but to no avail. Black spots started to appear around her vision before she had the idea of kicking the Soldier in the groin. 

While it didn't do as much as she had hoped, he loosened his grip just enough for her to break free. With a deep intake of breath, Joana fell to the ground. She crawled across the ground as fast as she could towards the gun. She was inches away from grabbing it when the Soldier took her by the ankle. He pulled her backwards towards him. Joana clawed at the ground in hope to get away from him, but she knew it wouldn't happen. So she turned herself over as best she could. Using her free leg, she kicked at his knee until she bent it back far enough for him let her go and cry in agony. 

She once again started to crawl towards the gun and once again he caught her before she did. He flipped her onto her back and grabbed her neck again, squeezing as hard as he could. Joana stretched her arm out as far as it could go, trying to reach the gun. She pulled against his hands while reaching out with her other hand towards the gun. 

Her eyes started to roll when she felt the gun underneath her hand. She pulled it towards herself and took no time to pull the trigger with the barrel against his gut. The first time she pulled the trigger, he did little more than flinch and grunt. She pulled it a second time and he loosened his grip. She broke his grip on her neck a second time and scrambled upwards, still pointing the gun at him. 

Karpov sauntered into view with a smile on his face, obviously expecting Joana to be laying on the ground with two bullet holes in her, not his Soldier. Joana struggled to breath, every inhale sending waves of fire through her throat. As soon as Karpov saw her and his Soldier, his smile fell. 

"Soldat, stand down," he said, annexing the previous command. He looked at her almost as if he was impressed. "Pierce wasn't wrong about you." 

Joana scoffed, now pointing her gun at Karpov. 

"Did you doubt him?" Her voice was hoarse, breaking with every syllable. 

"You had your moments." 

Joana was no longer paying attention to the Soldier on the floor, thinking him down for the count, so she didn't see him inch his way towards a metal pipe. 

"What's stopping me from shooting you right now?" She asked, more to herself than Karpov. Karpov shrugged, pacing around the room. Joana followed him with her gun. 

"I don't know, Joana, what is?" 

Before she could answer, the metal pipe that the Soldier had picked up was swung at the back at of her head. She gagged and dropped the gun, falling to her knees. Blackness engulfed her vision and she fell on her face. 

When she woke up she was back in her chair, chains wrapped around her wrists. Bucky was in the brainwashing chair in front of her, looking dead in the eyes. His face was swollen from the beaten from the other Soldier. Despite the pain in her throat and the pounding in her head, Joana pulled against the chains around her wrist. 

"Bucky," she rasped. She was thrown back into memories of the older days, when the Commander was around, and Joana spent her first few days tired to the chair, her neck in constant pain. She had made it this far since then, she was not about to die any time soon. 

"We can make it through this," she told Bucky, even though he wasn't looking at her. "You and me, together." 

Karpov entered the room at that point, flanked by his usual agents. 

"Good, you're awake," he said to Joana as soon as he saw her head up. "It's been a few hours. Eat." 

Another agent came in with food. It was good food too, not just gruel and raw potatoes. Joana couldn't help the moans that escaped her mouth as she ate. 

With a satisfied grin, Karpov leaned against the railing in front of Joana. 

"I talked with Pierce today. He was very impressed with your work." 

Joana flashed a fake smile. 

"Let me guess, you would have sent that Soldier after me even if I hadn't disobeyed your commands?" 

Karpov nodded. 

"Pierce wanted to know how well you'd do under pressure. And to see if you'd managed to retain some of your skill after all these years. And if a Soldier could kill you, sense you skewed that last experiment by breaking Barnes' bonds. But we are both proud to say you've passed," Karpov told her. Joana's fake smile kept. 

"I live only to please you," she responded, her words laced with sarcasm. 

"Well, we have another assignment for you and Barnes." 

"Let me guess, you're going to put us in a cage with some wild tigers and see which of us dies first?" 

"Your smart mouth is getting real tiresome." 

"Well, what can I say? I have a natural talent."

Karpov laughed, a sick laugh. 

"I'm so glad we're finally getting rid of you," he said. "I will rejoice the day I won't have to see your face again." 

Joana cocked her head to the side. 

"What do you mean?" 

"Pierce wants you and Barnes back. Says he's got some plans for the both of you. Well, mostly Barnes, but you're a package deal."

Joana furrowed her brows together. 

"Come on, Joana. You're smarter than this."

"I've got a concussion, if you couldn't remember. Not everything's falling into place so perfectly. Spell it out why don't you?" 

"You're going home, Joana. You're going to America." 

Joana didn't know whether to smile or burst into tears. 

And Karpov just stood there and smiled. 

***

I'm so sorry that I took so long to update. School's got me really screwed up man. This sucks. 

Quick very important note: I may or may not finish my intended plot before the new Avengers movie comes out. If I do, then I'll put this under complete until then. If I don't, well then, there's no need to worry. There aren't a whole lot of chapters left, maybe 10 or so. We've got a few stuff of Winter Soldier, some stuff of the two years between Winter Soldier and Civil War, and then the happenings of Civil War, so it won't be very much more. 

I might divert away from Canon a lot more than I already am after Infinity War because I have certain ideas of what's gonna happen so that's a thing. 

I hope you're not too angry with me for taking too long. I'm hoping the next update will be quicker. 

With Many Apologies, 

authorsbane