⚠ ⚠ ⚠ This chapter contains content that may be disturbing or triggering to viewers such as blood, murder, and death!! If you proceed, please do so with caution!!⚠ ⚠ ⚠

"I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone."- Robin Williams

Percy's POV

Going back to the facility was kind of a surprise because we were led to a hall instead of a training room. Word-Man just continued on down the hall and stopped at a certain point in the wall.

He pressed a button and a large panel of the wall started to lift. When it was all the way up, it revealed a man, sitting in a chair. The area he was in looked freezing, and he was barely breathing. He had a metal arm, and I could see the red star on his shoulder. It was Winter Soldier.

"Страстное желание."

It felt like something was tickling my brain.

"Проржавевший."

What is tickling me!?

"Печь."

Now this is uncomfortable. Is this normal?

"Рассвет."

Now it's starting to hurt.

"Семнадцать."

I brought one of my hands up to my head, and a few heads turned my way. The brunette was one of them and I saw concern hidden in her eyes.

"Доброкачественный."

My eyebrows scrunched up as I put pressure on my head trying to relieve the pain.

"Девять."

The pain increased and I brought my other hand up.

"Возвращение домой."

Why won't the pain go away? I locked my jaw and applied more pressure.

"Один."

I'm almost positive I whimpered as the pain became unbearable. That turned a few more heads. I think a few tears escaped.

"Грузовой автомобиль."

Nothingness. There is no more pain. Was there any to begin with? I straightened out and turned to fully face Word-Man. I saw Winter stand and face him as well.

"Готовы соблюдать." Winter and I said at the same time.

"This is the Winter Soldier. He and PAB-24 will be training you girls. Follow me." We all followed him down the hall and turned into a side room. It was filled with weapons, all kinds of guns, lots of different blades, and training dummies. There was an area cut off from the rest of the room that was clearly a target practice area, and there were several mats on the opposite side of the room for physical fighting.

Word-Man went to the fighting mats and then stopped in front of the biggest one. Turning back to the group, he paused, took a breath, then said, "Winter Soldier. PAB-24. To the center of the ring."

Both of us nodded and stepped up, turning to face one another.

"Try to incapacitate the other, not kill. Show these girls what they could accomplish if they complete the training."

Neither of us hesitated. We both shot forward and begun our fight. Since we both knew we weren't aiming to kill the other, we didn't try to get it over with.

Winter went for a strong punch to my ribs, but I took that arm and pushed it behind me, using the momentum of his swing to knock him off balance. I kicked one of his legs and climbed onto his back as he regained some of his balance, swinging my full body weight around his waist. He just hooked his arm around my torso and tore me away from him, throwing me to the edge of the ring.

I used that to roll and continued my path, landing on my hand and swinging my body back to him. As he went for an axe kick to my face, I shoved his leg away, twisted in the air and did a double kick to his back. He used my kick and rolled forward and with his metal arm, sprung high into the air and performed and excellent scissor kick to my waist, that ended with me landing hard on my back. He went towards me and punched down with his metal arm where my head had been a moment before. The mat we were on split and his fist became impressioned into the floor beneath with a loud crack.

I locked my legs around that arm, and pushed one leg in a sideways stomp to the part of his body that the metal arm was anchored to. I could see the pain it caused him through his eyes, and I felt bad for doing it, but I continued. I slipped my body farther up his own and wrapped my legs tightly around his neck, and threw my body in a circle.

I ended up behind his head in a sort of piggy back ride, but the swinging motion had him teattering backwards slightly. I used that and keeping my legs locked around his neck did a backbend, changing my center of gravity to my chest. He fell backwards in an involuntary backbend, and I planted my hands firmly on the ground before continuing his path, successfully doing an upside-down crunch.

I was able to continue his path even further and slammed his head into the ground using the force of my thighs. I scrambled out from under him, and got into a fighting position. But it wasn't needed. The force at which I slammed his head into the ground was enough to knock him out. I didn't straighten out of my fighting position though.

"Stand straight PAB-24." I did. I stood up and faced the girls looking on and kept my face neutral. The slight bit of adrenaline I had gotten from that fight was wearing off and I could feel everywhere I had been hit, and my back was beginning to ache from landing on the floor.

"Choose what to start training the girls with PAB-24. If something happens, you know what to do." I was a bit shocked by this and I'm sure it shown clearly on my face. Word-Man didn't seem to notice, and if he did, he didn't care. He just left the room, and so I was left with the 27 little girls to train.

I surveyed the room, I had never gotten a choice before. I decided that if I was going to train them, I would train them with weapons that I know my way with the best.

"Follow me," I said in a monotone voice. I went over to the blades. When I looked back, the girls hadn't left their spots. They were just staring my way.

Orders... I quickly took a knife from the selection and threw it at them, careful to only graze the cheek of one of the girls. The girl that ended up with a cut on her cheek was the younger of the two girls that had been with the brunette.

"When I tell you to do something, you do it. Next time you girls don't comply, I'll make sure that it isn't a bloody cheek that one of you gets." I said, my voice conveying annoyance, but my eyes pleading with them, trying to make them dig* that I don't want to do this. The only one that I saw could see this though was the brunette.(1930-40s slang: Dig= Think hard OR Understand)

The girls quickly went over to where I was. Since I threw the knife, I think we'll start with that. I picked up 8 and told the girls to get three of their own before going over to the target practice ranges. Directing them on how to throw the knives, I performed my own throws, one after the other until I didn't have any more knives. Each of the ones I had thrown hit the center of their targets, the head, the chest, each shoulder, the knees, and where the legs connect to the body. I went and retrieved my knives and told them to start practicing.

They started to throw their own knives, and I was proud of the brunette, because she quickly learned and was the first to get her knife to stick. She's young, she'll learn faster and soak up everything said and done here. Even being the youngest, I'm confident that she will survive this place. After an hour or two, I stopped them. Once they had turned to face me, I spoke.

"Pair up." They did. "Show your new skills. Throw your knife at your partner and aim to kill."

Almost a minute went by, and they didn't do anything. So I surged forward, the girls all tried to get away, but I managed to grab one. But it was the brunette. I picked her up, and held my knife to her throat. In a steely voice, I said, "One of you do as ordered and her blood will not be spilled on the floor."

⚠ ⚠ ⚠

When this happened, the oldest of the sisters from the mountain didn't hesitate. She took her knife, aimed, and threw it with as much force as she could right into her partners chest. It plunged in up to the hilt. I nodded with satisfaction and let the brunette go, and she immediately ran toward the girl who had been her partner, and threw her knife. Instead of it going into the girls chest, it went into her head.

Like a bell had gone off, the girls started killing each other. When they had finished, there were 13 bodies on the floor, and quite a few of the girls were bleeding from the knife wounds their target had been able to inflict. But I was proud, nearly all of the dead girls had a knife or two either in her head or her chest, though not always on center.

I was a bit sad to see that the younger sister was among the fallen 13.

The door opened and Word-Man came back in. He smiled slightly when he saw what had been done, and how many girls had gotten removed from the fray.

"Girls, come. We will resume training tomorrow. PAB-24, you will stay here with the Winter Soldier." I nodded and watched as the girls left with him, the brunette looking back before exiting. The door was shut, and I heard the sound of a lock click.

I went over to the bodies of the girls and collected the knives, cleaned them, and put them away. Then I went over to what looked like a medical station and brought some supplies from it over to them, cleaning the stab wounds and patching them up so they wouldn't bleed anymore. I moved them over to a corner of the room, and went back to clean up the blood halos as best I could.

END ⚠

When that was done, I went back over to the girls and closed the eyes of those that still had them open, and folded their arms delicately over their chests. With each girl I finished with, I apologised, and I know I started to cry a little at the bright futures they might have had that were taken from them by this group. I looked down at the blood on my hands and knew that it fit there.

All of these deaths, each and every one of them, was all my fault. It's my fault that these girls are dead. How could it not be? I may not have thrown the knives that killed them, but it's all on me. They deserved so much better than this.

My hands were shaking and I was repressing sobs. I heard a groan from where I had left Winter on the floor, and looked over to him. Tears were still streaking down my face but at the moment I didn't care.

I remembered something. At least I think I did. It was of the Little-Winter, only he looked like Winter with shorter hair. He was in a uniform, with a cap, and he was in an alley with the blonde boy. I could tell that the blonde boy had just gotten beaten up, the smudge of blood on his lip showed me that much. In a window, once again, I saw a person that looked a lot like me with shorter hair with them. She too, was in a uniform like Bigger-Little-Winter, but the patch on her arms was different. She had a paper in her hands, and it looked like it was something for joining an army, but it was a denied form.

'Steve and Bucky' my mind told me. My mind told me that Bucky was with me. That Winter was Bucky.

Suddenly hands were wiping away my tears. One hand was cold and hard, but the other was warm and soft. Soft words were spoken to me, but I could tell that they weren't Russian. They were words spoken in English, and they seemed to calm me down a lot more.

"I'm right here Percy. You don't have to cry. I know you, it wasn't your fault so don't blame yourself," A soft, low, rumbly voice spoke. It wasn't the gruff, harsh voice of Winter, but it was so familiar to me. Soothing.

The Not-So-Winter got me up, and led me to the medical stuff across the room. We just settled down, Not-So-Winter taking my hands and scrubbing away the blood. Even after the blood was gone he held my hands.

"Thank you." I said to him, though I'm not sure I was able to convey how appreciative I was. 

"You don't need to thank me for that." He waved a hand, as if he could swat aside my thanks.

"I'm not thanking you for this, though I am appreciative," I told him. "Thank you for always being there for me."

"Your my sister. My baby sister. I will always try my best to be there for you, got that?" He answered, moving so he could clean up the rest of my bruises and bloody nose.

I nodded.

I had started cleaning up his bruises when I decided to bring something up. "I'm not your baby sister."

He looked at me. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"How so?"

"We're twins, neither of us can be the baby sibling."

He started shaking his head. "Um, I beg to differ, I'm 12 minutes older than you."

"So?! That's 12 short minutes!" I told him incredulously.

"It still gives me full rights to call you the baby sister." He said, the Barnes' signature lopsided-trouble-makers-smile on his face. He turned so that him and I were sitting shoulder to shoulder, our backs placed against the wall.

I smiled as well, but then the weight of having stayed up two days, one spent climbing a mountain, caught up with me. My head dipped to Bucky's shoulder, and I drifted off into Hypnos' realm. I drifted off knowing that no matter how I sliced it, I'm going to the Fields of Punishment. I'm the reason that so many people are dead after all. Murderers don't belong in Elysium. And that is exactly what I am. A murderer.