#howling witch

“Once in a while in spring. Are you alright?” Essie asked and he nodded as he looked at her, searching her face, relaxing as he did.

“Yeah. You?” he asked and she nodded as she searched his and relaxed a bit, “I hate what happened to you…but I’m happy you’re here.”

“It makes you feel conflicted about it…doesn’t it?” she asked and he nodded after a moment, “Selfish.”

“Yeah.” Bucky answered as he looked at her, shaking his head, “I don’t…understand how…after everything I did…I still get to have you…but…you’re only here because of what they did to you.”

“Like you are? Bucky…it’s not your fault. What they did to me is not your fault. I chose to go out into the field when they asked for people to help through the forest. I always told you one more thing and I’d go out myself. I meant it. That’s on me…not you.” She said while cuddling back into him as the thunder cracked overhead again, “You’re here…with me. Alive. I’ve done…things I don’t want to remember…but…even though I feel selfish for being happy that you’re here…I know that what they did to you isn’t my fault. It’s not your fault either. HYDRA did this to us. Past and present. HYDRA stole so much from us. Don’t give them more. We’re not here because of them. We’re here in spite of them.”

“Was this how you felt…when you realized I was alive? After the facility.” He asked and she nodded.

“I refused to give them you. I felt conflicted at first. Torn. Selfish about being happy that you weren’t gone yet were being held captive like I was. I can’t take full credit for the epiphany I had. Most of it has to go to Eric. I think he got tired of my sulking and talking in circles about it because he just sat his sword down, looked at me and said: ‘Did you do it? Were you the one that sawed his arm off, gave him a metal arm, and then put him in a freezer? No? Then stop feeling guilty about something you didn’t do.’ Then he accused me of not feeling bad about almost eating him, which was a lie. I still feel bad about that.” she answered and looked at him, “Point being…he was right. We didn’t do this to each other. HYDRA did this to us. We are here now, as we are, in spite of them not because of them. As we should have been…just with…some extra flavoring.”

“We’re not a cake.”

“No. We’re cookies. Hard and crusty on the outside but still sweet and delicious in the middle.” She said and he paused to think about it, and to argue, “I have proof you’re sweet in the middle.”

He sighed. Yet even though he did, and even though he fought it, the corners of his mouth tilted upwards. So did hers even as the thunder cracked again and he held her closer.

“I guess my tour will have to wait…” he said and she nodded while watching the rain pour outside before getting up with a soft sigh, “What is it?”

Bucky watched her go over to the corner where he saw Willow hunkered down and hiding with her kittens. Essie just put her arms out for them and scooped them up when they went into them, all of them. It just made him smile. As much as she grumped about them she loved them just as much as he did.

“C’mere.” He said and held his arms out and pulled her down into his lap to lay back down with her and the cats, letting them curl up on his stomach and under her arm and then the blanket she pulled over them, petting Willow’s head gently while she peered out from under it, “You don’t like these either, do you?”

“Mao.” She meowed softly and licked Knox’s head when he snuggled into her side nervously, Aspen tucked up against Alpine under Essie’s arm, Pitch stuffed down between them, his head picking up and looking around whenever the thunder clapped.

“It’s okay…just thunder. You’re safe.” Essie cooed while relaxing against Bucky again, “We’re all safe.”

“Safe…warm…home.” Bucky nodded and listened to the rain fall outside, “Essie?”

“Hm?”

“Why…I mean…I’m probably remembering it…I dunno…biased right now…but why’s it feel like whenever we wanna go out it…it rains?” he asked as he looked up at the large rough hewn timbers above him and she let out a short laugh.

“Because we were in London when we were first together and had days to do that. I remember every single time it started raining just as you were about to kiss me. Every-”

“Single time. Yeah.” He laughed softly, shaking his head, “It drove me crazy.”

“Mhmm…” she hummed warmly while nuzzling into his shoulder contently, her hand resting on his chest idly as his rested on her side, “It was funny for me. You were so…overwhelmed by how much it rained there. I was used to it. You were the only person that could get me to laugh like that…to smile and mean it. Everyone thought you were crazy. I even did. Plenty of girls to choose. Ones that didn’t hit you in the head with their notepads, argue with you, snap at you, and…that would have been more than happy to go dancing and letting you pull them off anywhere you wanted. Instead…you picked me and I never felt like you were doing it because I was a challenge.”

“You weren’t. I…I still don’t remember everything, lately a lot of it’s from before you, my family, rescuing Steve from being beaten up in alleys, things you don’t want me to talk about to you, and stuff like that…but I remember why it was you. Steve brought me down to the war room, where you were workin’ after I agreed to follow him and help him. He thinks it was because I saw you goin’ a mile a minute waving papers in your hand and beating someone in the head with a big rolled up map calling him an illiterate moron.”

“If it was that then you were, and likely still are, crazy.”

“Well, yeah I am, but no. That wasn’t it. You were gorgeous…feisty…and so smart…but it was when you smiled. Later, when it was just the two of us going over the map, me trying to remember what Steve pointed out better, and I said something about him that made you smile and chuckle. That did it. No goin’ back from that.”

Essie smiled gently as she looked at his face and he turned it to look at her. There was a small smile playing at his lips. Gentle. Tentatively grateful. Hers.

It felt good to see it. It eased the vice grip doubt had around her hope that he would stay when it was all out in the open and he really understood what it was she was now. Yet as she looked at him, she couldn’t help thinking about what Ritva had said earlier as she reached up and gently caressed his cheek.

“Is that what you told Ritva about me?” she asked and he smiled a bit more.

“I told her I missed it…and I wish you’d stop actin’ like I’m afraid of what you are, because I’m not. I told her about us, what I remembered, not all of it, but enough she’d understand. I told her I wish I still deserved you like that…and she told me that…I was just like you and that I couldn’t decide I wasn’t.” Bucky answered and watched her face as he waited for the reaction.

“There’s never been a male anything that deserves me more than you. Not once did you ever question why I was the one you were told to listen to. You only ever asked why I did what I did. Not because you saw me as strange to be throwing myself into a world of men like that but because you wanted to know what my motivation was for doing it…because you knew there was one. Even now. You don’t question that I’m the Alpha here, you don’t challenge my ability to lead, you just ask how I became Alpha in a technical sense to understand how it came about.”

“Which you won’t tell me because you think it’ll be too much and that I’ll leave because of it.” He said and she looked at him making him shake his head as he took her hand in his and kissed it softly, “No one here that I’ve talked to about it will tell me, but…not because they’re afraid of you or disturbed by it. They want you to be proud of yourself for it. How bad can it be if they look at it as a good thing?”

“Bucky, they’re Wolf people. They don’t think the same way humans do.” She said and he looked at her more pointedly, silently trying to tell her he wanted to know, and she took a deep breath in, thinking, “What have they told you about it?”

“Not a lot. They said the old Alpha here was a Low tyrant, which I know means they hate his guts. Tanis told me that a lot of them wanted to get rid of him, they just weren’t strong enough to, and that he did horrible things to the women here. That he’d tried and failed and was about to be punished for it when you came. The females. Still getting’ used to that. Ruun told me that even though you don’t look it…you’re stronger than he is and made sure he understood that without putting him down for it…which Ritva explained was because he hid her away for her own safety. Maggie just says you were magnificent and wishes you’d stop arguing with them all about being a Wolf or not and that…she was proud to be your Delta and to be part of what brought you here even if it meant knowing what chains had felt like and what it felt like to smell like an Italian restaurant. She said you rescued her and Tilda from some sort of…blood auction the old Alpha sold them to. Other than that…nothing else.”

Essie nodded and thought about it for a moment, “Eric and I were following a lead I’d picked up from a vampire infested HYDRA base in Madrid about what the vampires called an auction for ‘rare vintages’. Vampires occasionally work with HYDRA on a small scale, and they both have tendencies to take over each other’s bases when they don’t.”

“I remember an incident of that from the war…that was…something else.” He said with a sigh and she nodded before continuing.

“You were in cryo at the time and HYDRA was being unusually quiet with things, so I had the extra time to help track this auction down. It took a while to get an actual pinpointed location for it and then to prepare for it so we wouldn’t miss it, be overwhelmed, and could get anyone there that was to be auctioned off out without hurting them. That was the difficult part. Usually on big gatherings like that, if we knew in advance, well…HYDRA made a mistake with me they didn’t quite make the same way with you that they learned to regret very quickly. Had Steve ever jumped on something I made he wouldn’t have gotten back up. However…with this auction…we couldn’t exactly do that. We had to think of alternative means. One that involved garlic concentrate. Garlic and vampires don’t mix just as much as fire and vampires don’t mix. Any large gathering they have nowadays they’ll have a fire sprinkler system in it. Sometimes they load them with blood for blood raves which is disgusting, but this particular one had water in it that I replaced with as much garlic concentrate as I could get my hands on.”

“Which explains why she said she smelled like an Italian restaurant.” He said and Essie nodded, “It’d take the vamps out without hurting people that weren’t vampires.”

“Exactly, and while this was our goal…it still meant we had plenty of other people to worry about. Vampires employ human guards, either through just straight up employment or because the humans worship them on some level. Blade, what Eric usually prefers to be called I just usually don’t, he has a harder time than I do telling the difference. It’s gotten him in trouble before and when we’re on a hunt together, despite him being the senior partner, he’ll defer to me to tell the difference because of my sense of smell. Anyway, that wasn’t really an issue in this case as much as it was something to figure out what they meant by ‘rare vintages’. Once they were all gathered and the auction started…we locked the place down and hit the sprinkler system. It was an absolute disgusting mess, and it pissed off the human fanboys. There’s these two terrified, women on the auction stage, wearing only underwear…and it’s the most denigrating underwear available at the time, in chains…with collars…”

“You saw red again. Didn’t you?” Bucky asked and she nodded.

“Instantly, but I wasn’t Hungry at this time, so it was very controlled rage. The two women, were female Lycans, and you can already guess that they were Tilda and Maggie.” Essie continued and he nodded, listening even though his insides twisted at the thought of what they’d gone through, the humiliation they were subjected to, and the terror they had to have felt, “Once I was done dispatching the people that were keeping them in chains they were just staring at me, not afraid, but…in just utter awe. There were others, just humans with special blood types, ethnicities, and particular genetics. Some we still talk to today, because their particular genetics were of the mutant variety and we took them somewhere where they could be safe. That’s a whole different story from this one and even if it’s short…we’re doing this one.”

“Yeah. You could smell the difference?” he asked and she nodded, “What do I smell like to you?”

“Not now. Let me finish and ask that later. It’s a more complicated answer than you’d think.” She said and he nodded, “Well, I knew they smelled different, but I didn’t really understand what they were until they explained and said that they could smell me the same way I could smell them and asked what Pack I was from. I had always known from what files I’d looked at that the main ingredient in their concoction for me was Lycan, but I’d never met any that were willing to actually talk to me…or any that were female. They’d talk to Eric if we encountered them. Never me even if I asked them a direct question. I didn’t take that well, but it quickly became too much of a hassle to deal with them so whenever we’d encountered them I’d just walk off and let him talk to them. It wasn’t worth the energy to go through the posturing and dominance jockeying every single time we encountered one. So…when I met Maggie and Tilda…it was a whole new world of information for me.”

“I know the feeling.” Bucky said and she nodded.

“I know you do, which helps in telling this because you’ll understand that it was overwhelming for me yet also…absolutely enrapturing. It made things I’d do make sense and made me feel less insane and less…less alone. They were completely mystified that I was a combat trained female and had no Pack. They rationalized me not being insane from isolation as me having made Eric my Pack.”

“Is that why they never just…leave us alone for more than a day?” he asked and she nodded.

“Yes. Wolves are highly social. When I’m in The Eye or out in town or anywhere…they all ask about you. Every single time. They all know who you are, what you are to me, and are legitimately worried about you being isolated or are isolating yourself. I have to repeatedly tell them that Ruun, Ritva, Tanis, and Maggie visit you frequently. That placates them to an extent but they’re all getting itchy to welcome you into the fold.” She said and he blinked a bit, not sure how to feel about it.

On one hand it made him happy. He knew how important she was to them and that they accepted him, even being near her was something he recognized as significant. On the other hand…there was The Winter Soldier.

“Do they know what…what I did?” he asked and she looked at him pointedly, “As The Winter Soldier?”

“Mm…I’ll take it…and yes. They know…and believe me that only makes them more eager. I told you that they’re good people and they understand a lot more than one would think but believe me they know what it’s like to be made to do things beyond their control.” Essie said as she held his hand, “Maggie and Tilda taught me what it was to be a Wolf as they understood it, which…was skewed by what their Alpha was like. I taught them…everything that I could that he was wrong and trained them both to fight, like I do. They asked me to, so I did…and as I did they told me more about Ulfhrafn and what it was and how it was and what their Alpha was doing and…it made me mad. Then there was the fact that, not only was he was selling his own people to vampires for profit, but he was also ultimately the one that gave HYDRA the information that led to what happened to my family.”

Bucky’s eyes widened, his stomach sank and twisted as it burned. He had figured HYDRA got the information about Lycans and Wolves from folktales and myth, but he’d questioned how they got the biological and genetic resources to try and change people. It made sickening sense…but…

“Why?”

“To save himself and make money. They didn’t know he was the Alpha…and they didn’t question how he knew where a supply of fresh Lycan blood was. I only found out because…HYDRA was being quiet…and I wanted to know why so…went digging and found a base near the Baltic. Maggie and Tilda were with me. It wasn’t vampire-related and Eric had somewhere else to be, so it was just us. Tearing through it with two extra people that could do most of what I can do made it a lot faster, so they didn’t have as much time to destroy information as they previously did.” She began to explain while toying with his metal fingers lightly and idly, “I had stacks and stacks of papers to go through that dated back to the war. There was information on you, which I went through first, but it wasn’t anything new, so I went through the rest of it and found the name of the supplier they had for the Lycan blood. Maggie was the one that pointed out it was the same name as the then Alpha, which I will not repeat nor will anyone here. No name means no memory and no memory means he’s truly gone and can never live again ever in any capacity. It’s the ultimate dishonor for them. Anyway, Tilda said the same thing and there was a picture included and it was him.”

“So, you saw red.”

“No. I didn’t see red.” Essie said and he looked at her and waited for her to continue as she thought of how to best word it, “I was…upset and angry and…and all of that. Yet it…it was…it wasn’t raw, triggered, rage. It was…deeper, harder, and…it felt like the ultimate betrayal. Now…Maggie and Tilda had floated the idea of going to Ulfhrafn to me and ‘teaching them all a lesson’ a few times prior to then, but I’ll be honest with you…I didn’t take them seriously. They were barely out of their teenaged years at this point. Did I trust them in a fight? Yes. Did I see them as fully formed adults capable of making their own decisions? Yes. Absolutely. Did I see them as a bit overeager and ‘Steve-like’? One hundred percent. Yes.”

Bucky snickered. He didn’t mean to. He just couldn’t help it, and he knew she wasn’t mad by the way she smiled and nodded.

“Really?” he asked and she nodded, “Steve-like?”

“Yes. I didn’t know he was alive and just a star-spangled popsicle at the time, but I never forgot him and would rate people’s…overeagerness to jump into situations beyond their physical limitations by him. People I met that were like he was in that sense…I named them all Steve.” She said and he shook with barely restrained laughter she smiled at while cuddling into him, “When they started on their ideas to do it…they were two Steves…but then we found those files and I…I realized in that moment that…they weren’t Steves…they were me when I was young. My family was taken away. My country was taken over by a tyrant that sacrificed his own people. I was kept as a special prize to be traded away at the earliest chance to make significant profit. They were me…and…I put my hunt for you aside for the first time…because…I couldn’t watch anyone else become me. So…I contacted Eric…and told him what I was going to do. He didn’t like it…not one bit…but he agreed to help.”

“How? Wait…never mind.” Bucky said, shaking his head, “You’d need him to get you in even if Maggie and Tilda brought you to the entrance…because you aren’t a male.”

“Exactly. I couldn’t just waltz in and there was no way to secretly sneak in. So…over the course of several months I trained with Maggie in her shift forms. The full quadrupedal one and the bipedal one. She’s bigger than Tilda in shift and I don’t shift so I had to learn how to deal with someone that could. She got me a couple of times pretty good until I grew to learn how to deal with the two forms. Then we worked on getting Blade, notorious vampire hunter, an invitation in to buy some more upgraded weaponry. Lycans are in the business of managing other supernatural creatures like vampires and werewolves and such things. Other societies do this, but Lycans are a large one. Took a bit to get him one, but then we did and we timed it so it would coincide with a Feeding Day.”

He looked at her silently and unmoving. Bucky had learned early on that Feeding Day meant a day, roughly once every week, where Essie did little more than eat. It was one of the first things he had asked Ruun about.

Ruun’s answer had been that, as far as they could figure, it was due entirely to her inability to shift. He explained that teenagers often went through periods of intense hunger before shifting for the first time. Like their bodies were building up the energy for the event which he described as intense. The best theory they had for why Essie ate like that was that it was like her body was on a constant loop of that. It was a sound theory as it was also capable of explaining her shortened temper when Hungry.

The Beta had also said they learned early on to take Feeding Days seriously.

Now Bucky knew why.

“Then…because I knew what I had to do to win…I stopped eating.” She continued and he looked at her with a frown while squeezing her hand and she nodded, “Yes. I purposely starved myself and when the time came to go…I let Eric put a collar and leash on because we had to sell it…and we sold it. He brought me up to The Eye, where the Alpha was, and offered me to him as a gift in return for their services and goods. Tanis was there to receive punishment, so was Ruun, but my presentation took precedence. The Alpha took one look at me, licked his lips, and accepted…then…I issued the Challenge. He laughed and thanked Eric for bringing him something entertaining…until the chains dropped off and Eric told him I wasn’t joking…and that it was Feeding Day. That was the hardest, most brutal, and bloodiest battle I’ve ever been in. He sent in others to stop me, Eric took some of them on, I took on the rest…Tanis and Ruun helped and I went after the Alpha. He was strong…I have a scar down my side where your fingers are from one of his claws. That it scarred at all should tell you how deep it went.”

Bucky gently felt for it through her shirt. It was there, faint, but long and jagged. He didn’t want to say anything. Not yet.

“To…assume the position of Alpha…you have to do more than just win a Challenge and…I did, and I didn’t hesitate to do it. I ripped his heart out…and then I ate it…and then I used every last drop of blood in his body to force his Beta and Gamma to release the files of his wrong doing to the Pack, cast a series of protective wards around all of those innocent of what had been done wrong…and…let the Challengers come. I had won, but they had a right to Challenge back and several did. The ones Eric and I had been dealing with for decades. One by one they Challenged me. One by one they failed. By the time it was over…I was drenched in so much blood that it was like I bathed in it.” Essie said while watching his face and then waited.

It was a lot to process and a lot to imagine. It should have been hard. It would have been if he didn’t know her as well as he did.

She wasn’t the same as she was during the war, but Steve said she wasn’t that different from that Essie when you got right down to it and he was right. This one was just physically stronger and more physically capable of things. If Bucky hadn’t known that he’d have found it harder to imagine. If he didn’t have several memories of her ruthlessly interfering in several of his missions through the decades he’d have found it harder to imagine. If several of those memories didn’t involve her mercilessly taking out members of the squads they sent him with he’d have found it harder to imagine.

Yet, as he looked at her face and studied it, knowing she was waiting for him to see the monster she imagined herself to be…he didn’t and couldn’t. What she had done was disgusting but he didn’t think for a moment that she had enjoyed it and, as a memory floated through his mind of something Monty had said, it wasn’t exactly something beyond the point of something he’d never thought she would do. Granted Monty had said it as a joke, but it was only funny because it had been true.

One question did come to his mind, though, well…two…but he didn’t think one was appropriate.

“Was he in full shift or…the big..hulking wolf person kind?” he asked and she answered.

“He was in the big, hulking, wolf person shift. He shifted several times in and out of full fur and bipedal thing and his skin form to try and dodge me, but I’m fast and was faster than he was.” She answered and he nodded, “He tasted terrible. I’d eaten cow ones…granted they were cooked…and I’d cooked them myself…but…no. Ritva tried to tell me it was because he was corrupted and evil…I didn’t agree. He smelled horrible, too…but he tasted worse…the worst thing I’ve ever eaten…and that includes HYDRA’s prisoner food.”

“Ugh…” he replied and she nodded, “Well you answered the question I didn’t think was right to ask.”

“What he tasted like?” she asked and he nodded, “I mean…I’d ask why you wanted to know but it’s not everyday you hear your girlfriend kind of….literally ate a guy’s heart.”

“I’m confused about why that’s a thing you had to do to become Alpha. Is it…a tradition, a cultural thing, or…is there more to it?” he asked and she answered, knowing he was simply trying to understand if he should be disturbed by it or not and to what degree.

“It’s a magic thing. The title can be passed peacefully, but there’s a blood rite involved because every village and town and safe area in Ulfhrafn is warded and made safe against things in the forests that would eat people. Those wards are tied to the Alpha. They are emitted by the large standing stones you see everywhere in the towns and outskirts or near the Timbers. That’s the easy to understand and explain part of it. It’s been…25 years about…from then…and I’m still learning everything it means to be Alpha and Wolf.” She explained while looking at him, waiting for more of a reaction, and when she didn’t get one, seeing he was rather calm about it, she spoke again, “Why are you so calm about this?”

Bucky knew he had to answer this carefully. He also knew he had to frame this in a way she wouldn’t get upset at him. That meant he’d have to blame Monty, and though he had been Bucky’s friend…he was willing to do that.

“Well…one day…while we were goin’ through one of the bases…we got to talkin’ about things and…eventually they started doin’ their usual thing picking on me for bein’ so crazy about you. Now…Monty eventually said something along the lines of: ‘Barnes…if she were ever given the chance to sit down and carve out Schmidt’s heart and eat it…she would do so with a side of spaetzle and wash it down with a glass of peach schnapps’. I’ll admit that I laughed…but only because I knew you would, but one part would be completely different and I told him that. ‘Wouldn’t be peach schnapps, it’d be apple. Apple goes better with pig’.” He said and she thought while licking her lips for a moment.

“I want to agree with him, but at the same time I don’t know if I would have. Not because I’d have been unwilling to eat it, but I’d have been concerned about it due to what he became after injecting himself with the serum. You’re right about the schnapps.” She said and cuddled him, kissing his cheek, “I am stupidly proud of you for remembering that then and now that apple goes with pork better.”

He smiled at the sensation of her lips against his cheek. Soft, warm, sweet. Just as he remembered them to be.

Yet the memories of things he’d done filed in one after the other next. They weighed his joy back down with ice cold metal. The pit in his stomach twisted as he let them, guilt churning in it until it spread from there and out and despite Ritva’s words he couldn’t help feeling as if he didn’t deserve the warmth and tenderness she showed him or the comfort she gave him.

“We’re both stained with our pasts, Bucky…but…maybe together…we can find a way to…move forward with our lives. Ritva said…that…I focus too much on what they made me into instead of what I want to be…and that I spent seventy years defining myself by that and by the hunt for you.” Essie said as she toyed with his metal fingers and he looked at her, “She’s right. She usually is when she says things. Including when she said that…it’s time for us to get some help. I don’t know how to help you understand that what you did as The Winter Soldier wasn’t your fault any more than I know how to stop seeing myself as a monster in the mirror. Part of me knows I’m not…but…the rest doesn’t listen.

“I want to be…I just want to be good, healthy, happy, safe, and…I don’t want to feel like a monster that HYDRA created anymore. I’ve given them seventy years of my life and attention and…I know I’ll have to give more of my attention to them, but I’m tired of giving them my self-worth, my mind, and I’m not letting them have my man back. Ever. Even if he decides he doesn’t want to be mine, they can’t have him.”

Bucky didn’t answer at first. He knew she was right. They both needed help. As much as he didn’t want to admit that he needed help beyond the people he was talking to currently, he knew he did if for one reason only: It was hurting her.

She held up the façade of strength around her people, her subordinates, and even to her officials to a point. Ruun, Ritva, Tanis, Maggie…they all knew she was struggling but they didn’t know how much. They didn’t see what Bucky did every day, even when she didn’t think he was paying attention or even mentally there.

He hated it. The early days he just shut down when the memories became too much and she had to push him through the act of even functioning. The nights he knew he held her too hard just out of fear she wasn’t real and would be gone in the morning. Days and nights she hid every weapon and sharp object in the house somewhere he couldn’t find them because she knew. She knew without him having to say a word that the thought had crossed his mind to just…end it. Even if that thought was always followed immediately by the refusal to put her, and Steve, through that…it was that she had seen the initial thought.

As strong as she was, as much of a front as she put up even with him at times, Bucky knew her well enough to see that she was wearing down. He’d seen it plenty of times in the war when she’d run herself ragged and he’d have to make her rest. It was just worse now and he was the cause.

Essie did everything for him and he hated it. She ran a whole country and group of people while taking care of him, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, going to the market, seeing him through the night, reminding him how to use the technology, and doing everything she could to pick up the pieces of him while she slowly fell apart.

Bucky did as much as he could in return, that he could get to before she did, but that only triggered her to start doing it before she’d do anything else. The only thing he could manage to do without her getting to it first was cleaning up after the cats. He thanked her sensitive sense of smell for that one.

He’d voiced his frustrations to Ruun earlier. That had been what prompted the Beta to urge him to speak with Essie. They saw the cracks, but they knew very well they couldn’t make her do anything unless she wanted to.

“I don’t want to talk to a shrink. I don’t want someone else tryin’ to get into my head. I do not like the idea of being alone with someone that I don’t know with a notepad in their hand writin’ down all my feelings and telling me how to live my life. It’s…it’s too much like HYDRA. Alone. Sitting. Notebooks. Telling me what to do.” He said as he looked at her and moved his hand from hers to gently caress her face with it, being extra careful with the metal, “You tell me what to do but that’s different. You’re…you’re mine. That’s not changin’ as long as you don’t want it to, and I’d love for you to stop thinkin’ that I see what you do in the mirror. I don’t. You’re not the same girl I fell in love with back then…no…but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the same way for the one you are now. That being said and because I do feel that same way…I’ll try. With a shrink…but I want someone else there with me that I know and trust…and I want it clear that the only reason I’m agreeing to do it is because…even though all I see in the mirror is either the Winter Soldier or a broken man, you don’t see that and…I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I want…what you do. I wanna be good, healthy, not broken, and free from HYDRA. I don’t wanna be what they made anymore. I mean…the arm isn’t goin’ anywhere…but…y’know.”

“Mmm…about the words…you remember I told you I was talking to one of my allies about the deprogramming?” she asked and he nodded slowly.

“Yeah…they finally get back to you on that?” Bucky asked and she nodded.

“Well, they did a while ago, but you weren’t in a state to even start doing anything they recommended, which I told them and they understood. I have arranged for…a visit from a couple of them. It is a…tenuous alliance. One forged through…admittedly through diplomacy alone and not personal affection of any kind. That being said the ones I’ll be allowing a visit are the ones I like and get along with more. The heir, his sister, a few of their guards. I’m hoping that visit doesn’t coincide with when everyone else shows up or there will be a discussion about the shield.” Essie said and he blinked at her in confusion, “I’ll tell you about it more another day. For now…I really want to move but…uh…”

She glanced down at the cats, all of them asleep, contently curled up as the rain slowly dissipated outside. Bucky just smiled and looked at her. For all her complaining about them…and teasing of him…she loved them just as much.

A/N: Yes, that happened. Yes, they were still cuddling on the couch the whole time. Next chapter should be up on schedule. Hopefully.

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Masterlists: Howling Witch🔹MASTER Masterlist

Previous Part: Chapter 10: Timber

Ao3 Link: Chapter 11: Alpha (Registered users only)

Next Part: Chapter 12: Rain

She had been so close sometimes she could almost taste it…him.

If she let herself. If she let the memories she had locked away out of their cages. Past their bars that shook, clanged, and groaned with the effort of keeping them all in.

Sometimes they slipped out on their own. When she was too tired to stop them they’d slip out and she’d relive them. The good, the bad, and the heartbreaking.

They weren’t the worst of it, though.

The sleepless nights that followed every failure brought a torment of their own. Everyone that HYDRA took from her. Even him. Even though he was the only one of them that still walked the Earth.

His phantom always looked the same as he had before he was taken. He, however, did not. Neither did she.

It was HYDRA’s way.

Take something, break it, and mold it into something else. He was their crowning achievement.

So was she…even if they couldn’t claim full credit.

They shaped her as they had him, just in different ways until she taught them what limits were, just how real nightmares could be, and that some things were better off left to myths, fairytales, and folklore.

Those they took haunted her…so she haunted HYDRA. A cautionary tale they told each other. A name whispered in hushed tones filled with fear and dread. The very code name that they had given her became a curse they tried to wipe from their records.

They couldn’t though. Try as they might to erase what they had done they couldn’t. Not when she kept dogging their every step in her hunt to find him.

A nightmare with every skill they taught her sharpened and honed into perfection. Just like they wanted. Until they didn’t.

1950s

She lost track of time early on. Instead she kept time by bases, stations, outposts, and war. She spent several New Year’s celebrations enjoying their music. A cacophony not of fireworks or musicians but red flashing walls, blaring alarms, and screams.

“Oh fuck…oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck! She’s here! I repeat: She. Is. Here! The Howling Witch has breached Sector 2’s security measures, over! Hello? Is there anyone there? Hello?! Answer me!”

She smiled, chuckling to herself as she listened to their comms. It never got old. She loved to tap into their communications to listen to their terror just as much as she did it for tactical reasons. There was only one thing she loved to do more with them.

“C-copy that. Wh-what…what should I do? Everyone else is…th-they’re…they’re just…there’s so much blood…”

“Hide. Get under a desk and tell me what she’s doing.”

“She’s heading towards Sector 4! Oh…f-fuck! Th-The…d-dir-director…ss-sshe…fuck. Fuck she heard me. She’s coming! Help me! Oh fuck she just…I’m gonna be sick!”

“Shit. I’m heading your way. Do not engage. Do. Not. Engage.”

“Hurry!” She smiled then set the radio down on the desk she sat upon, feet dangling above ruby red.

They fell for it every time.

Did she have to do it? No, but for what they did to her, to her family, to Bucky…

She would make them feel every ounce of terror she could.

Walking out of the base later, rifling through a few folders of information, she paused as she spotted the reproachful glance of one of the only people she could call a friend. Tall, black hair, brown eyes, dark skin, and sharpened fangs. He spoke after a moment of holding her undisturbed gaze while leaning against the building.

“Did you find anything or were you just enjoying yourself?” he asked, tone an almost…gentle bite, a reminder not to fall too far down the rabbit hole; she didn’t respond, she just scowled while handing him one of the files from the middle of the stack.

She knew why he did it. She’d gone down that hole before and he was the one that had to pull her out. Twice.

She’d done worse than what she had done here. Much worse. It haunted her even though he said she had had no other choice.

Still the memories of it escaped their bars far too often. Slipping through easily with the blood they were coated in. Reminding her of just how far she was capable of going when pushed hard enough.

When Hungry enough and the only thing to eat was pulsing in the veins of the two-legged monsters that thought they could tame what they knew nothing about. When her stomach knotted and squeezed in on itself until she could hardly breathe for want of sustenance. When the halls were dark, dim, and so quiet she could hear their fear just as well as she could smell it.

He had nearly joined the others on the floor when he came. She remembered the particular tang of his fear that day. It was different from others. A unique mix of self-preservation, realization, and pain. From what she was doing to him and from what they had done to her.

He didn’t judge, but he brought her back from the brink of whatever beast they’d built her into. Food helped. It wasn’t the first time she’d had him at her mercy but it had been the last.

Blade always kept food nearby when they worked together. His serum did nothing for her. She wasn’t like he was. She didn’t know what she was.

She just knew what she had been and what she wasn’t.

“I found plenty of work for us, but not much else, really, not for my hunt. They’ve got their tentacles in as many kitchens as they can get them in.” She answered and he looked at the file nodding.

“Not surprised. They had to get their samples from somewhere.” He said and she nodded, “You rig this place?”

“Naturally, but not until morning. I’m hungry. Let’s go eat. They didn’t have anything good in there. As usual. Same slop they’ve always had.” She answered and he just shook his head while pushing off the wall and walking away with her, both disappearing into the night.

Her hunt continued as she helped him with his. Bases and outposts passed with alleys, clubs, and bloody battles that ran dry into dust.

Eventually, in between the starts and stops of hopping city to town to village to country seeking out the information she craved she finally tracked where they kept him down.

Countless hours spent in facilities she’d lost track of. Blood splattered on walls, floors, tables, chairs, cells, bars, and suits before it all boiled away from the heat of the flames she’d set. She knew better than to leave them cold.

You had to cauterize the stumps. Otherwise its blood would poison and two more would grow out from what remained oozing. Fire was the only way to bring HYDRA down.

It explained why they put him somewhere so cold that fire was almost impossible. Somewhere they could keep him cold. Somewhere they were expecting her to find by the time she did.

So close.

Just not close enough.

They knew she’d come eventually and for the first time they were fully prepared. They’d finally found a way to keep her out. Found what she feared enough to stay away.

Frustration burned through her as she retreated. White hot despite the bitter cold and stinging where they had tried to collar her again.

It was too heavily guarded and they were ready for her now. They stayed ready where they kept him. So her hunt had to shift and it did.

She let them have their small victory, but the war was hardly over.

She had never been one to give in before HYDRA and after it she was even less so. They were the ones that supplemented her skills so she’d be truly relentless. They were the ones that took away the only people that could ever make her slow down and stop.

Everyone. Even those that were still living.

“Peggy stop!” She ducked behind the steel, shots firing out.

She should have known better.

She should have known not to try.

She should have known they’d show everyone what she was.

She should’ve known.

“I know what you’ve done! I know what you are!” Peggy shouted back across the room, “Seventeen!”

“You don’t know shit! Listen to me, Peggy! It’s HYDRA! They’re-ah!” the bullet ripped into her arm.

She moved swiftly into new cover while Peggy reloaded her clip.

“HYDRA is gone…stop using them as an excuse for slaughter!”

She growled while digging the bullet out, chucking it across the floor as the blood flow stopped and her tissues stitched themselves back together. A small benefit from what she was now, but the smell lingered with the rage in the room. Peggy wasn’t afraid.

She was furious.

Disgusted.

“Peggy, please…listen to me. It’s not what you think. You don’t know what they did! Bucky-”

“Deserved better! What do you think he’d do if he knew of what you’ve done?! Do you think he’d be proud of the carnage?! Do you think Doctor Erskine would be proud of what you did?!” Peggy shouted back and the memories rattled against their cages, screaming, shrieking, and reaching out past the bars as something blossomed beside the knife Peggy’s words had twisted into her gut, “Seventeen!”

“Doctor Erskine would have listened! Bucky would have listened! STEVE would have listened!” she shouted back while watching the shadows running along the windows outside, clips being loaded into guns, the soft crackling of shock collars flicking on, and the static hum of them charging up.

“You hated Steve for taking Bucky with him!”

“No I didn’t! I never blamed Steve! I still don’t blame him! I never hated him! I just didn’t put him on a pedestal!” She shouted back and slunk around the boxes and crates of the warehouse, creeping silently, maneuvering slowly into the shadows.

Peggy had aged, but she was still Peggy. Beautiful, driven, tough, and angry. There was no way she was going to listen to anything that tore down what she had built and what Steve had sacrificed himself for.

The shadows slunk outside the windows, waiting, listening. They wanted to see if Peggy would believe what she was told or if she would continue to believe the lies they had fed her about her old friend. The lies won out.

It was for the best that they did. So she let them and fed into them more. They would leave Peggy alone that way. Even if she didn’t deserve it.

“He was the best of us. He mourned Bucky more than you ever did because he would not have done what you have! Seventeen bodies!” Peggy yelled then stiffened when she heard the whisper in her ear and the gun pressed to her head.

“More like seventy. You never saw my tears for Bucky. You went to Steve. Not me. Drop it.” She said and Peggy dropped the gun as shadows began to move and close in, “Steve and Bucky were brothers. I understood that. You never told him where I went. We argued and picked on each other, but I never hated Steve. He may not have liked me much but he wouldn’t have just given up when I went missing…like you all did. I know I’m a monster. Believe me I am very aware of that but at least I can admit that I am. I know who made me this way. I know who took everything from me and nothing is going to stand in my way of destroying them. Not even you. I know you’re angry…and hurt…and that’s the only reason I’m going to make sure you get out of here alive because Steve deserved better than to be put on a pedestal and I want you to live with that questioning exactly what I mean.”

Peggy spun around yet was met with a solid blow to the head, dropping her to the floor in an instant. The windows broke and the shadows poured in. Shock collars were hidden by the time Peggy came to, telling her how lucky she had been to survive.

Blade knew in an instant what had happened later. It was easy enough for him to tell when he saw his safehouse had been accessed and found the infamous Howling Witch sitting down and poking a chunk of barely cooked meat around on a plate.

“I guess she didn’t listen.” He said and received a head shake in response, “I’m not surprised. You shouldn’t be either.”

She huffed softly in response, shaking her head again, the weight of her meal heavy in her stomach. Peggy’s words weighed heavier.

“I’m not. I can barely recognize myself in a mirror, Eric…so how can anyone else recognize me for anything but a monster?”

He sighed and set his sunglasses down, collecting his thoughts before he spoke, “What you are is not your fault. You didn’t ask for this.”

“No one else believes that, though. I don’t think they can afford to. HYDRA will take down anyone that believes me. Anyone that shows it.” She said and he nodded.

“That’s the price you gotta pay to keep your hunt alive…or are you gonna give up because no one believes you?” he asked and she scowled at him making him smirk a bit, “That’s what I thought. They’re gonna paint you as a monster as much as they can. You have to choose what kind of one you want to be.”

“Since when have you turned into my guru?”

“Since you walked in here looking like a kicked puppy.”

“Don’t call me a puppy, Eric.”

“Then stop acting like one and choose what you’re gonna do next.” He said, holding her gaze as she scowled, “You know where he is.”

“I can’t get in. You know I can’t get in! They have it locked down tight! Everyone there carries the latest shock collar they’ve developed. I’ve tried. They made it clear what they’d do if I got past the collars and it wouldn’t be done to me.”

“So? They gonna keep him on ice forever?” he asked and she paused, thinking.

“No. They’re gonna wait until just the right moment, until they’ve made him obedient. More obedient than I appeared to be. They won’t repeat the same mistakes they made with me.” She said and he nodded before sitting down to sharpen his blade.

He was right. She couldn’t get in, but eventually they would let him out. So until then she’d be waiting, preparing, and paying.

Instead of the beast they created tracking down their prized asset she became the one that lingered outside the door. The one that they knew waited in the shadows ready to pounce the moment they took their Soldier out past the safety of their electrified doors and their supply of heavy grade shock collars.

 She wasn’t far behind when they finally did.

Not that they had made it easy. She never expected that they would. Not for her and not for him.

Not after the mistakes they had made with her.

With him they’d be more careful. Yet they’d still follow a pattern of testing. They needed to know their efforts worked.

The first time they let him out onto the field it was a test. A way to see how obedient he was, how effective. It was a mission he could not fail.

They tried to move him secretly. Unknown, unannounced, unaware, but unfortunately they were never going to succeed. Not with her.

She had been getting information out of them in various ways since the war. Back then it had been through intercepted transmissions and code breaking. It still was but since they had learned to arm their soldiers with shock collars she had learned to pick through their ranks until she found a few that liked something even more than fancy new toys: Money.

Their own money that she had made hers through the years.

HYDRA liked to portray itself as above the vulgarity of monetary greed and material wealth but their vaults had plenty of it stored inside them. Millions if not more in gold, silver, jewels, vibranium, bank notes, and stolen artwork she duly returned for a nominal finder’s fee. HYDRA was anything but a non-profit charity and neither was she.

Especially with their soldiers. Try as HYDRA might to teach them the only reward they needed was the fulfillment of their goals she knew better. They all wanted power, but money would do in the meantime.

Money couldn’t get Bucky out but it could make people talk about when he was being sent into the field. Even certain ones of their own people. So when they were finally ready to let him out…she knew about it from several different sources.

She was there within hours, trailing them, observing, calculating, assessing, and searching for openings. They didn’t leave any. Then she saw him again and time stopped.

The weight of it was unexpected. Twenty years with one goal in mind and there he was. The memories of him rattled and raged against their cages.

She couldn’t stop them all. She could only keep them silent as they flickered and flashed relentlessly. His touch, his comfort, the safety he had given, the smile he showed everyone else, the smile she knew had been hers and only hers, the way he’d say her name.

Focus. She had to focus. The tears burned, stinging at her eyes as she brought the scope back up.

Blue eyes…but they weren’t what she remembered. They were cold. Empty. Ready to obey.

He wasn’t Bucky. Not anymore. It wasn’t the gleaming metal arm he now had; it was the blank look in his blue eyes she spotted through the scope of her rifle. It ripped into her soul to move the scope from them to the others with him. The ones monitoring him.

Ever since her attempt to get him out from within nearly resulted in her recapture she learned to keep a larger distance between herself and anyone sporting shock collars.

All of those in his unit were. They dangled on their belts. Dull metal, pronged, and charged. Ready.

They were expecting her to take their bait.

They let him out as a test, but they were also using him as bait. She wasn’t surprised. Listening in on their communications she knew they were waiting for her to make a move.

“She’ll be here somewhere. Keep your eyes open. Last unit that encountered her in the field never came off it.”

“Then how did anyone know it was her? She leave a calling card?  Best regards The Howling Witch? She’s a fairytale.”

“No, she isn’t, and she doesn’t need to leave a calling card. She’s HYDRA trained. An experiment gone wrong and that got out.”

“Pfft…rumors.”

“Facts. You didn’t see what she did to the British Facility they trained her in. I was a new recruit back then. I was there. I got out just before they sealed the doors shut. I heard the screams…and…what I saw…”

“Shit. Why’d she do it?”

“I don’t know. They never said, but she’s why we’re here with him. She was perfect. Obedient. Went out and came back on her own. Then she snapped.”

“So…what…what do we do?”

“Get the collar on her. Hit the button. She’ll go down.”

“I meant if he does the same.”

“He won’t. They wiped his memories and personality down into nothing like they should have with her.”

“Why didn’t they?”

“I don’t know.”

She did.

They just couldn’t, but not from lack of trying. They had tried. Again and again and again and again until the lights flickered and they could turn the voltage up no higher.

It just didn’t work. Her body’s ability to heal itself was faster than their chair’s ability to hurt her. They never had a chance to try anything different.

She kept her distance as they followed him, listening to their conversations until she spotted an opening.

Small, but an opening. She took her shots. One a piece.

It was all she needed yet it wasn’t enough. She hadn’t underestimated HYDRA’s conditioning of him. She had underestimated the level of commands they would give.

The moment he saw his unit was gone he fled, acting on his orders given. He ran. He ran right back to them as he was told to.

She had just helped him succeed in his first mission and helped him pass his first test.

Sadly, it wouldn’t be the last.

“NO! Put me down!” she snarled, struggling against the thick arms of the vampire hunter that had made her his problem.

Her muscles tensed and her head throbbed harder the farther they got away. Away from the danger. Away from her soldier.

So close.

She almost had him. Close enough she could hear his heart beating in his chest. Near enough she had to slam the doors shut on her memories at the scent of him.

So close.

“You’re bleeding. The US military is swarming the countryside. You think they’re gonna just…let you go after him after you spotted their new experiment? They’re gonna bury this whole thing as deep as they can, you know that, right?” Blade asked then grunted when she hit him hard enough to let her go, running after her, catching her again only for her to pull the knife from its sheath at his side to hold it at his neck, “Calm…down…focus…”

“He was there! He was…I could have…I was…” She started, blinking rapidly, shaking her head as she held it, the blood long since stopped, but there was enough left drying it only added to the weight she felt settling in, “I was so close…”

“I know, but getting caught here…now…it wouldn’t help.” He said as he carefully gripped her wrist and moved it away, taking the knife from her, “Now come on…we gotta move. It’s not safe.”

So close.

1960s

She didn’t like shooting at him, it just so happened that sometimes she had no other choice but to do it. It was either shoot at him or let him do something she knew he’d never forgive himself for even if it wasn’t really him doing it. It was the Winter Soldier.

That’s what they called him. The Asset, Soldat, The Winter Soldier. Not his name.

So that’s what she told herself.

It wasn’t Bucky she shot at.

It was the Winter Soldier.

The Winter Soldier was not Bucky.

He wasn’t.

So she wasn’t shooting at Bucky, she was shooting at the Winter Soldier…because she had to. HYDRA had forced her to.

Never to seriously harm him, only to stop him from things if she could. To slow him down. To correct their assumptions.

“I see I have found a flaw…you hesitate because you know he’ll obey without question. Even if it means being my shield.”

This officer was admittedly more intelligent than the others had been. Instead of looking around blindly for where the shots were coming from he had ordered the Soldier to shield him. It had made her hesitate, but not out of reluctance.

She needed to reload and adjust the scope slightly.

“That’s right. Stay in front of me. Stay right thg-gcchk”

Blood splattered on the concrete behind him. The Soldier turned abruptly to look at the gaping hole now in the officer’s neck. She ejected the shell from the chamber with a satisfied hum before pocketing it as she always did. Then she paused.

He didn’t run. The Soldier did not run.

Something flashed across his blue eyes as they turned from the blood on the wall towards the direction she was in. His shock soon shifted to a scowl. Then he did something new.

She listened to the orders being barked at him to retreat, to return to base, to report in, and yet…he didn’t. Instead he pulled his communications earpiece out and picked up a rifle. One with a scope.

“Shit.” She cursed and ducked down out of sight; she knew he wouldn’t miss if he spotted her.

It was her turn to run. Yet as she did her stomach swirled with a nauseating mixture of guilt and hope. She had never run from him before…but he had disobeyed.

He had reacted, shown something in those eyes besides blind obedience, and disobeyed.

She knew it wouldn’t last, but it was something. Just what kind of something was it?

Was he doing as she had? Pretending? Feigning obedience?

No. Not that she didn’t think Bucky was capable or prone to such a thing. She just knew it wasn’t that. She just knew that would have looked different.

This…she had pissed him off, but he had done something unexpected.

The thoughts of it echoed and swirled in her head for days afterwards. Her nights were filled with them. Every waking hour contemplated the possibilities. Every mome-

“You need to sleep.” The door shut behind the dhampir as he walked in, setting his guns on the table next to his eponymous blades, “You know what’ll come next.”

“I’m fine.”

“No…you’re not.” He said as he shot her a sharp look and set several containers of food on the table, “Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Bullshit. Eat. I’m not going through that shit again.” He said and threw a wrapped-up sandwich at her, “Eat. Sleep. Rest. We gotta get out of here in the morning.”

“But he’s here.” she said as she sat up, rubbing her eyes with one hand while the other held the thick sandwich he had flung at her.

“Not anymore. If you had slept you’d remember that. Eat.” He said again, pointing a finger at the sandwich she held, “Then get some fucking sleep before you start seeing shit that isn’t real again.”

She glared and ripped the wrapper off the sandwich before stuffing it into her mouth, growling as she bit down. Saliva pooled in her mouth at the taste, her stomach roiling, yet she swallowed the bite anyway. It hit her stomach hard and each subsequent bite hit harder, weighing her down even more.

Sleep didn’t come easy. It never did after she saw Buc-The Winter Soldier. Not when her bed threatened to swallow her whole with its emptiness. Sitting in it, tired as she was, it seemed to stretch out into an endless void of cold. A desert of snow. Just like where they were taking him back to.

“You need to sleep, sweetheart.”

She looked up from her spot on the floor knowing full well what she would see on the bed. Him as he had been. Hair slicked back, dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, tie loose, sleeves rolled up, blue eyes locked on hers that were no longer the soft grey he would have known.

“You’re not real.” She said with a sigh and looked back at the ceiling, “Go away…”

“You know if I go the rest will come.”

“Go away.”

“Why do you do this? He’s not me. He would have shot you. You need to let me go.”

“Go…away…” she said again, pressing her palms into her eyes, “Go away. Go away. Go away. Not real. You’re not real.”

“But you want me to be. I’m not comin’ back, sweetie. Even if you get him out…there’s nothing left of me there. You know what they do. They got their tentacles in and ripped me out. He’s not me. He never will be. All you got is me. The me that still knows who you are and won’t run whenever he sees you. You know why he does, why he shot at you. They told him you’re a monster. Something to fear, disgust, and to get rid of. Just like they told Peggy.”

“Go away!” She snarled, rivers forming down her cheeks when her gaze landed on empty air, “Not real…he wasn’t real. Sleep. I need to sleep. I need t-”

A different voice.

“Once upon a time…in a village not far from ours…a family quite different from ours lived. The father, stepmother, and two children…”

“Eddie…please…” she sniffled, shaking her head at the sound of her brother’s voice speaking a language he shouldn’t have been, “Not that one…”

“You used to like that one…” he said and she shook her head, curled up around the pillow she had brought with her, blanket wrapped around her while she looked behind her and saw him there.

Short dark curly hair, glasses perched on his nose, grey eyes like hers had been wearing a crisp clean white shirt and neatly pressed pants. His favorite brown pair. He looked just as tired as she was.

“I don’t want to hear about the gingerbread house again…or food…” she answered as she turned to face him, “Anything but that…I want to sleep…not vomit.”

“Picky picky…but fine…let’s see…Once upon a time, quite long ago, in a land far different from ours…” He began, both phantom and sister unaware of the brown eyes peering through the door, shaking his head while shutting it softly.

She woke the next morning alone as she had since the last time Bucky had left her. Yet the memory of his disobedience returned swiftly. As did his anger.

She just needed to figure out how to duplicate it. She needed to learn how to draw out his disobedience again. To trigger him to think.

Safely.

Secretly.

A/N: Now. This is part one. Part two is coming hopefully by Thursday (I'd say by Wednesday my time but...I have things that will possibly interfere. If we're lucky it'll get done today. Depends on weather). It may be some time before the rest of the story is out. I'm trying. There's a lot going on and there are a lot of moments of doubt that are surfacing as I write. I know roughly where I want to end it. I just need to work my way there without the same kind of road map I've had from the MCU up to where I'm at right now.

There's a lot of mental health issues in the story. I'm not an expert by any means on mental health, healing, or recovery. I research what I can but I'm not an expert (and when you have characters that aren't exactly human it gets harder to work out). It's just something that's going to be explored and since May is an awareness month I'd love to get this done this month.

Interactions, comments, reblogs, asks...they keep me motivated. I appreciate every like, kudos, bookmark, and view, I sincerely do, but if you really want to motivate me to get it all done and out: comment, reblog, send asks, tell me.

Masterlists: Howling Witch🔹MASTER Masterlist

Ao3 Link: Prologue Part 1 (Registered users only due to recent scraping issues)

“You know where I’ll be.” Natasha said to the council, and they just looked at her then at the doors when they opened, so did she, her eyebrows raising at who it was.

Dark hair brushed, pinned, and braided up into a bun on the back of her head, bright blood red lips, a sharply tailored black pinstripe woman’s suit, crisp white blouse, red pumps, and dark sunglasses. She was flanked by a familiar male, this time in a dark blue suit, and a different, taller one with dark blonde hair and a dark brown suit. Neither of the men wore ties, but she did, tucked into the black waistcoat she wore.

“Gentlemen.” Essie greeted them as she walked up and remained standing next to Natasha, “And I use that term loosely.”

“Madam…Stark…” one read from the paper he was given, “Stark?”

“No relation. He only wishes he were as pretty as I am.” Essie replied and Natasha held back the smirk.

“Great…” someone mumbled with a sigh before another spoke.

“Where is The Winter Soldier?” he asked sharply, his tone demanding an answer from her, and she looked down while taking her glasses off and folding them before looking back up and locking her sharp silver eyes on his, holding his gaze.

Silent. Calm. Unblinking. Predatory.

He looked back down at his papers.

“Do not demand things of me. I don’t answer to you.” She replied calmly, evenly, almost quietly, forcing them to listen, “Sergeant James Barnes is in a secure location and will be undergoing treatment as any person, particularly a decorated war hero, that has been through the nightmare of an ordeal such as he has been through that makes him likely the longest surviving POW in your history…deserves to receive.”

“He is an American soldier; he should have been returned to us.”

“He was declared KIA in 1945. Technically he doesn’t even exist. I would know how that works. I was declared KIA in ’45 myself when captured, tortured, experimented on, and then imprisoned against my will to be tortured, experimented on, and turned into…a…weapon. Hm…sounds familiar. Maybe…not. I was handed over to my government once I was rescued…oh…right…they were HYDRA and the ones that tortured, starved, experimented on, and trained me into a weapon instead of rehabilitating me. Right. I forgot. Sorry. I’m getting on in my years now. Sometimes I forget little unimportant details.” Essie said and looked at them all, “The Winter Soldier, as you know him even if that is not who he is anymore…will remain in my care. Safe. Hidden. Rehabilitated into an upstanding and model free citizen of the world that…if asked nicely, may even help you defend it. After all…he was the best at what he did. Just like I’m the best at what I do. Just like Natasha is the best at what she does, like Steve Rogers is the best at what he does, and so on and so forth that makes us all so much more effective than certain other people at handling many other situations.”

“Where exactly are you keeping Sergeant Barnes?” another asked and she nodded to Tanis who then set a folder down on the desk in front of her while she looked at her watch. “That is a matter of security for my own country and people so therefore none of your business. Truthfully, I’m not here to argue over Sergeant Barnes. I’m here to inform you that my allies and I are all deeply upset with your lack of awareness over how deep the HYDRA infection went without you noticing and how close they came to realizing their goals. I have already expressed our discontent on their behalf to your Commander in Chief and an emergency joint session.” She said as she put her glasses back on, “As of 0700 hours I have pulled all twenty of my country’s researchers that have been working here in this country and recalled them back home. Until you can assure me of their safety again, our relationship is put on hold, and you’ll be receiving an angry phone call from the other Stark about why he’s just lost a dozen of his more innovative technicians. Have fun with that. We’ll be in touch. Good day, gentlemen.”

“How is he?”

Essie smiled as she sat by Steve’s bed in the hospital. He was mostly healed. Bruises fading. She was still in her suit, waistcoat unbuttoned and tie undone.

“About as well as he can be. Some days he doesn’t say more than ten words but some days he’s rather talkative with asking questions. Eric says…from the phone call we’ve had…that…he’s exactly like I was. Quiet, confused, lost, in need of normalcy. We’re heading back to Ulfhrafn tomorrow. You should be healed up enough to see us off. He can’t stay here…in this country. Neither can I. He’ll be safe there with us. You’re welcome to visit anytime, Steve. Soon as you want. Just let him have some mental space. He needs time…but he’ll pull through.” She answered and Steve nodded then looked at her, raising his eyebrows gently as he did, head tilted, and she huffed out a soft laugh, “He’s not declaring that I’m his anymore. He asks. He loathes Tanis.”

“Well, he did hug you when we landed. I mean, I know he was just happy you survived Maggie’s flying, but…y’know…he was kinda askin’ for it.” Steve said with a crooked smile and she laughed lightly, nodding.

“Yeah, but it’s nothing he’s not used to, really. Tanis actually likes him for it. Some…stupid male thing. ‘Good. He should be possessive of his Mate’. Drives me insane but I haven’t convinced either him or anyone else that it’s annoying.”

“Because you like it.” Steve said with a short laugh, and she scowled at him slightly which only made him smile knowingly, “You thought he wouldn’t want you…but he does.”

“For now. He still doesn’t know everything. He knows I’m different and that HYDRA did things to me. That’s it, not how or what. One step at a time.” Essie replied and looked at the window when Tanis tapped on it and nodded, “He wants to see it. His memorial in the Smithsonian. I need to change so we can head in without people freaking.”

“Yeah. Maybe it’ll jog his memory a bit.” Steve said and she nodded as she stood up and leaned over to hug him, “I’m happy you’re still around, Essie.”

“Me, too…but with you. World needs more men like you in it. Really, Steve, don’t be a stranger. Nat’s got my number. So does the other Stark now.”

“Essie…about Howard…” Steve said and she nodded, “Does he know?”

“Yes. I told him. That’s why I went. He’s hot-headed but his lady has a good head on her shoulders with him. Met Doctor Banner. He helped calm him down enough to listen instead of wanting to go on a rampage of revenge.” Essie answered and licked her lips, “I know how it feels better than most to have HYDRA take your family away and that revenge rampages don’t end well. Eventually he…calmed down a bit to ask how well I knew his father…you know what I mean.”

“Yeah. Howard was…Howard.” Steve said and she nodded.

“Exactly.”

“So, what you tell him?”

“Same thing I told you when you asked: ‘As well as two unrelated people with the same last name that work together could. Very well just not that well’ and that his father would be proud of everything he’s accomplished. He declared me his ‘unrelated aunt’ and said he’d add me to the family Christmas card list. Mostly I think he was just trying to bottle things in, so he didn’t burst anymore.”

“That sounds about right. I won’t keep you, though. I’ll be in touch. I have a few things I need to do when I’m discharged tomorrow.” Steve said and she nodded before leaving, giving him one more smile as she paused at the door.

“Try not to blow yourself up again.”

“As long as you don’t dive in front of another bullet.” He said with a smirk, and she nodded before walking out, shutting the door behind her.

That was him. It looked like him. She said it was him when he asked if it was.

It just didn’t feel like him.

Reading the words they felt like they were about someone else most of the time. Sometimes it felt familiar. Most of the time it didn’t.

She wasn’t mentioned at all, either.

“Where are you?” he asked quietly, low enough he knew she could hear and she licked her lips as she stood there next to him, her hand held in his securely.

“Don’t worry about that, honey.” She said softly, adjusting the collar of his jacket with her right hand as her left held his right, his left in the pocket of his jacket.

“But…you should be there.” he replied, frowning, blue eyes looking into her silver ones, trying to understand why she wasn’t there if that was him, and why she always told him not to worry about it.

She was always there. He knew that much was true. Essie was there with him, with Bucky, so if that was Bucky where was Essie? Steve was there…but she wasn’t.

“Peggy and I…had a fight. Let’s just…leave it at that for now.” She replied and he frowned more, “Peggy Carter. The woman from the video.”

He nodded. Slowly. Confused. He thought they were friends.

“You were…friends. I…I remember you in a blue dress talking to her. She was in a red one. I was…nervous. Steve was…pushing me.” He said and she nodded with a gentle and sweet smile.

He liked her smiles, especially ones like that.

“That was the night of our first dance. Monty had bet him that I would turn you down. Steve bet I wouldn’t. Steve won. I turned down everyone else.” She answered and he looked at her.

“Why?”

“Because they weren’t you. Peggy and I were friends, yes, but…that was before what happened to me.” Essie answered and he nodded as he looked at her, searching her face, memorizing it again, and she let him for a few more moments before they moved on through the exhibit.

His hand held hers through all of it. He kept her close. She answered any question he had to the best of her abilities. Eventually it was time for them to leave and head back to where they were staying.

They walked in and Bucky shoved her behind him instantly, shielding her, his eyes set in a deep protective glare. Looking around the side of him she knew why. She hadn’t explained that to him yet.

Tall, broad shouldered, green-eyed, and threatening even as he tried not to be. Even as he raised his hands as nonthreateningly as he could. It didn’t matter. Bucky saw him as a threat because to Bucky he was one now. Particularly as it had been him that had ordered Bucky to put the collar on her.

“I’m not here to hurt you or her.” He said calmly and Essie ran her hands over Bucky’s shoulders soothingly.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, honey. He works for me. Not HYDRA. Me. He’s one of mine.” She said and he looked over his shoulder at her, brows furrowed, eyes swimming in upset confusion, “I couldn’t get you out, but I could send someone in that…could tell me when you were let out, tell you extra information to help you survive, and…stupidly, I admit, poke a nerve one last time by slipping you a picture.”

“He said things.”

“I did…” The male nodded calmly, “But only to give you a little nudge. I never meant it. I’m not here to hurt you. I’m just here to pass on a message from Maggie.”

“What did you do to Maggie?” Bucky asked with a glare and their unexpected guest shook his head rapidly.

“Nothing. Well, I teased her about her insane flying, quote unquote, ‘skills’, but other than that nothing. I mean no harm.” He said and Bucky looked at Essie who nodded and looked at the former operative he had only known as one that had briefed him on important missions and nodded, “My name, my real name, is Duke Ranulf. I follow the Alpha.”

“Why don’t you have the teeth?” Bucky asked, still shielding her from him and Duke nodded.

“Fair question. I’m just able to hide them more than most. That’s why she picked me. I have no interest in her at all. She’s my Alpha. My boss. My queen. I couldn’t even dream of touching her. She’s stronger than me. By a lot and I say that with pride and respect.” Duke answered and Essie looked at him, waiting, “Maggie got word from her flying instructor. Wants to give you a progress report on her ‘skills’ at his spot.”

“Thank you, Duke. You may go. Get whatever you need to finish up done. We leave tomorrow. Not sure what time but you know I don’t do exacts.” She said and he nodded obediently, his head tilting submissively before he exited the room through a different door.

Bucky was still on edge. Essie sighed, wishing she knew Duke would be there so she could have warned him. Blue eyes were clocking each exit, wall that could be made an exit, obstacles, and places a threat could come from. He refused to let her move out from behind him.

“Why don’t we check the house together, then? That way you know it’s safe. Hm?” Essie offered and he looked at her, almost blank yet she could see the way he searched her face, calming himself before he nodded.

Window by window, corner by corner, room by room they went through the house checking everything. Twice. Then again before he was satisfied and she sat him down at the kitchen table and gave him a pen and an empty notebook for him to scrunch his eyebrows in curious confusion.

“I know it’s…hard right now. I know the memories are confusing. I know it’s all fragmented and sometimes it just comes in flashes and that sometimes that hurts your head. That’s going to happen more and more as your brain heals from what they did.” She said as he looked at her, brows shifting as they furrowed and the look in his eyes softened from confusion to understanding and then hardened in realization, his eyes flashing down to her neck briefly; she nodded, “Yes. They put me in one of those machines, too, but my healing factor is much faster than yours, which is why they put me in the collars. The chair only happened once so that’s not why I know how it feels. You don’t have to worry about that or what happened to me right now.”

“Who got you out? Was it Steve?” he asked and she shook her head.

“No. Steve was frozen in ice at the time. A…person named Eric Brooks, yes, a man, he got me out. Twice. Once from the facility I was…originally in and then from the second one where they were training me. He’s a good friend. He’s the person that calls when my phone shouts ‘Daywalker’.” She answered and tapped the notebook, bringing his attention to it, “I’ll answer your questions if you really want me to, but I also want you to write down what you remember every day. It can be in the evening, as you remember things, in the morning, whenever you want, but I want you to write them down in here. We can talk about them if you want or you can keep them all to yourself. If they’re about other women…I might not want to know. You don’t like it when you have to think about me with other guys. I don’t like it when I have to think about you with other women. We’ll work it out if you want to when you’re better.”

“Why would we need to work it out?” he asked, eyes narrowed as he gripped the pen in his right hand and she smiled at him gently.

“Because being possessive like that isn’t helpful really. I have to talk to a lot of people and roughly half of them are male. I changed a lot for my people when I became their leader, but still the majority of my personal task force and such are male so…you’re going to have to deal with that while you’re with us. It’s nonnegotiable. I have to lead and I can’t just delegate things off to Ruun and Ritva constantly.” She answered and he looked at the journal, “Write down whatever you remember. I’m going to go make some dinner.”

“Can we have flapjacks again?” he asked as he looked at her, blue eyes large, sweet, hopeful…and deliberate.

Essie sighed as she looked at him, running her tongue over her teeth from canine to canine. He was doing it on purpose and she knew that. Somehow one of the first things he had remembered was how to pout at her to get what he wanted from her.

“I really…really need to work on my resistance to that face…you need to eat protein, vegetables, fruit, a balanced diet of healthy food, not just pancakes all the time, Bucky.” She replied, trying to resist, and he looked at the journal, thinking, then looked back at her the same exact way yet somehow more.

“But I remember you making them for me…with blueberries…that…I think you stole from the canteen.” He said and she shook her head causing him to nod, “Yes, you did. You stole them.”

“No. I stole the eggs for them because they shortchanged my rations on eggs to give some to some puffed up useless officer.” She corrected and stood up, pointing at the journal, “If you write that down, and write whatever it is that made you remember how to pout at me…I’ll make you breakfast for dinner, but there’s going to be eggs, bacon, orange juice…whole thing. Not just flapjacks.”

“Will you eat with me again?”

“Yes.”

“You’re mine?”

“Always. No matter what.” She answered and he nodded before turning to the book and starting to write in it.

He handed it to her before it was time to sleep for the night as she sat on the blanket on the floor with him. Side by side. Two pillows. Two blankets.

It was something she understood. She was the same way. She still did it on her own on occasion when the beds were too soft and felt like they were swallowing her whole with their comfort.

Essie had been on the floor of her room when he had walked in the first night, arm bandaged but mostly healed, white T-shirt, grey sweats, a blanket in his other hand. She saw the panic flow through his eyes at the sight of the empty bed before they relaxed upon seeing her on the floor next to it. Wordlessly he walked over, sat himself down, then lay down, covering himself in the thin blanket as he faced her.

“Did you have a nightmare, too?” he had asked after a few moments and she nodded.

She had dreamt she was back in the facility; her stomach knotted in hunger pangs so tight it radiated out from there down to her intestines and up to her throat. Gripping, squeezing, throbbing, clawing like an animal to get out so it could feed itself before soothing and focusing on the face of a terrified female nurse. She had dreamt of her nails and teeth sharpening, the scent of the woman, thick with fear but sweet, the deafening drumming of her heartbeat.

“Yes. Did you?” Essie had asked him and he nodded, silent, “Do you want to stay?”

He nodded again. She did, too, and gave him one of the pillows from the bed. She didn’t know if he’d use it, but she wanted him to know he could. That she would take care of him.

The nightmares still came for them both. Several times. Relentless, but at least he was there when she startled awake…and she was there when he did, too.

He had woken up before she did, barely. His fingers ghosting over the scars on her neck woke her up to the sight of his blue eyes looking down at them in a dangerous, cold glare.

“Who? I want a name.” he said as his fingers gently traced over the raised flesh.

“You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Who? Tell me.” He insisted, his tone firm, direct, authoritative, and she sat up to face him, “Tell me their name.”

“I can’t. I don’t know their names. The people that did this to me…were possibly even the same people that did that to you.” She said and pointed at his arm before grunting as he pulled her into him and onto his lap, holding her protectively against him, “They are long gone. They did a lot of things to me that made me…different.”

“They hurt you.”

“Yes, they hurt me, but I hurt them back, too.” She said and he nodded silently, swallowing as he just retreated into his own mind again.

After that he insisted on sleeping there on the floor with her. Always closer to the door than she was. He checked the windows every night and argued with her over having access to a weapon until she put her foot down with him.

“NO. You are not sleeping with a gun. I draw the line there. I know you’re confused, lost, and hyper alert. I understand. I do, honey, but no. There’s a gun in the drawer behind me and it’s staying there unless it’s needed.”

He didn’t like that. She could see the gears turning in his mind. Weighing his options. A similar face to the one he used to wear, yet more alert, higher strung, and she knew he’d thought of something when it suddenly calmed and he nodded.

It didn’t take long to find out what as she caught him trying to get it out of the drawer in the middle of the night. In the dark. He was silent, but she could still see him plainly.

“Bucky…I can see you. Go to sleep. Leave the gun alone. You’d have to load it anyway and I have the bullets. Lay back down. Now.” She growled and he did as she told him, hard, defeated, angry.

“I don’t feel safe. It’s too open. There’s a clear shot in through the window from across the street. The lock on the door is inadequate. I want the gun.” He said firmly, the longest string of words he’d said in one shot in who knows how long, and she sighed.

“I am not sleeping in a closet. I did that long enough and there’s no exit points from a closet.”

“Yes, there is. The wall.”

“I don’t have a metal arm that can punch through drywall. I know there’s a clear shot from the rooftop across the street. That’s why I have Hennie up there every night making sure no one else ever goes up there. Ever even though I warded the entire house and property line.”

“Who is Hennie?” he asked with a suspicious scowl and Essie looked at him, flat, annoyed, and tired.

“She’s one of my people I called in as extra security. I figured you’d balk at the idea of Tanis sitting up there even if he’s a better shot.” She answered dryly and Bucky scowled a bit, which she ignored as she looked at him, “I have this entire house guarded from top to bottom.”

“I don’t feel safe.” He said again and she took a deep breath in before speaking.

“I know you don’t feel it, but you are. I am not going to let anyone hurt you.” She said and continued before he could protest, “We both have nightmares, Bucky. It’s not smart to have a weapon within unconscious reach.”

“Is this because I shot you?” he asked quietly, softly, and full of shame, and she shook her head as she looked at him, “I wasn’t…didn’t…mean…”

She turned his head, so he’d look at her, running her fingers through his hair soothingly, “I know you’d never hurt me on purpose, honey. I know you didn’t mean to do that, and that wasn’t really you that did it. That was The Winter Soldier. You are not The Winter Soldier anymore. This isn’t because of that. This is because…what was done to me made me dangerous to people…but also to myself. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. Do you understand?”

He nodded, looking at her as he shifted to face her, studying her features in the dark, “You want to keep me safe.”

“Yes.”

“Because you’re mine?”

“I’ll always be yours, honey. Now, do you understand?” she asked and he nodded, “Good. Get some sleep.”

It had been easier after that. As long as she was there, he would lay down beside her on the floor and do his best to get some sleep. So did she.

Tonight, would be no different. Or so she thought. He decided otherwise. Usually, he didn’t say anything. Even on a day when he talked, he was usually quiet by this hour. This time he asked a question.

“What is pfeffernuesse?” he asked as he lay on his back staring at the ceiling, head propped up on the pillow that he had claimed as his once she had given it to him, “I remember you saying it. A lot. Angry.”

A memory slipped the bars in her mind. One she had no power to stop. One she hadn’t thought of in many years.

“Pfeffernuesse!” the little girl scowled, stomping angrily in the dirt, dark pigtails jostling with her discontent, sweet face scrunched up in an angry, yet oh so adorable pout, grey eyes a threatening thunderhead of irritation.

“Emmaline…pfeffernuesse?” Essie had asked, smiling, amused, and smiled more as her sister nodded her head angrily, stomping again, hands balled into fists before crossing her arms over her chest.

“Mama and Papa say I can’t say the word Eddie said, but I’m mad!”

“Why?”

“Because I’m too short to help Mama milk Gerta.” She said and Essie nodded, refusing to laugh at her baby sister’s upset little scowl.

“Well…you better stop trying to feed Bruno your beans at dinner time when Mama and Papa aren’t looking then.” Essie said instead and sighed, shaking her head, “Or…you’ll stay short forever and ever and ever and never be able to milk Gerta or marry Fritz.”

“Beans don’t make you big.” “Yes, they do. Do you not remember the story of the Beanstalk and Jack I read you from your book? Beans make things big. Including people.”

The tears slipped down her cheeks before she could stop them. It had been a long time since she had thought about her sister. She knew Bucky had a sister, because he had told her back when he had asked the same question late one night over the map.

That memory slipped the bars next. Flowing out the gap the first one made.

“What’s that mean?” he asked as he leaned against the table, cup of coffee in one hand, tie loosened, jacket off, hair disheveled from his fingers running through it repeatedly to keep himself awake.

“What does what mean?” she sighed while pinning several things down.

“Feffernoosa?” he asked, she laughed at how he said it, “What? Oh, is this about how I pronounced it? You makin’ fun of me now?”

“Pfeffernuesse. It’s a cookie you make around Christmas time. My little sister…she used to…to say it instead of cursing…just…stomped her little feet, scowled like the world was against her, and would just… ‘Pfeffernuesse! I’m angry! Fritz said his girlfriend was Helgi and not me. She’s ugly.’ ‘Pfeffernuesse! I’m mad because Eddie said my hair looked like a gnome’s beard! His hair looks like Gerta’s butt!’ Gerta was a cow.” She explained, laughing even though the tears filled her eyes until they fell as his arms wrapped around her, his chin on top of her head as they fell, “Fritz was the neighbor’s boy. Helgi lived closer to the bridge. Mama would make pfeffernuesse every Christmas and let Eddie and me…and then Emmie…eat them before Papa got home.”

“She sounds a lot like my sister at that age.” Bucky said as he held her tight and kissed her head, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket to hand to her which she accepted, “I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

“No…it’s good to remember them. If I don’t then they’d really be gone, wouldn’t they?”

“I’m sorry.” He said as he pulled her down into him, “I’m sorry. It was your sister. You cried then, too.”

“It’s…” Essie sniffled as she cuddled into him, curling up into his side, “It’s…it’s good to remember. Pfeffernuesse is a cookie, not my sister. She used to…”

“Say it instead of cursing. Your brother…was…Eddie?”

“Yes. Eduard. My sister was Emmaline.”

“Your parents?” he asked and she had to think for a moment.

“You know…for the longest time, as a child, I actually thought their names were Mama and Papa. I didn’t learn their names until I was older. Eckhardt and Hedda. Do you remember yours?”

“I had a sister. Rebecca. My…mom…was…” he started, thinking as he held her against him tight, like he was trying to hold her together and that if he let go, she’d fall apart on him, “Something with a W. Winifred? It’s…it’s all…just…it’s not all there. I don’t remember.”

“That’s okay. You will.” She said as she shifted, his metal arm whirring slightly as he squeezed her closer, “I’m not going anywhere, but if you squeeze me any tighter, you’re probably going to incite an urge to go to the bathroom.”

“You did that already.”

“Yeah…but that doesn’t matter.” Essie replied and gently turned his head so he was looking at her more directly, “I’m not going to run away on you. If I get up to go to the bathroom, I’m going to come back. I’m not leaving. If I’m ever gone for longer than half an hour…then you can come and find me.”

“Because you’re mine?”

“Yes.”

“I’m yours, too, right?” he asked and she nodded gently.

“For as long as you want to be. It’s your decision. Your life. You’re not in chains anymore. You’re no one’s slave.”

“But you tell me what to do. All the time…and what I can’t do.” He said, brows furrowed, and she sighed while nodding.

“Yes…but…not like that. I just want you to be healthy, which means you can’t just eat pancakes all the time.”

“But I like them.”

“And I like pizza, but I can’t eat only pizza. It’s not good for you. We’re not having this debate again at…” she said and lifted her head to look at the clock, “Eleven p.m. We are going to get some sleep.”

“I don’t like to sleep.”

Essie nodded with a sigh, resting her head on his shoulder again, “I know, honey. Neither do I, but our bodies need it.”

He nodded, his grip easing a bit around her, slightly. Not enough for her to move without having to pry his arm off, but enough he wasn’t crushing her against him. It wasn’t comfortable, his arm was digging into her side, but Essie was perfectly alright with that.

She’d take it as long as she could.

A/N: Next chapter is being edited now. It's gonna be longer than this one due to where I cut it...because it just fits better. I am going to TRY to get more regularly updating. Try. Updating Ao3 will happen eventually when I get to logging into it. Next chapter involves the beginning of where the really new stuff comes into play, and it may be out sooner than expected. It may not. Umm...yeah. That's about it. Reblogging motivates me and so do comments.

Please support the author and this story by reblogging.

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“It’s like…they were searching for something.” Pinky said as they walked through cautiously, on edge in the silence, constantly scanning the tree line for movement in between looking at the piles of rubble that were slowly being reclaimed by the forest.

“Essie said that they took everyone here.” Bucky said as he peered into one of the houses, the half-burnt wooden horse sheltered beneath a broken wall twisting his gut, “Even the kids…”

“But why?” Steve asked, frowning as he looked at everything.

“What were the people here?” Jim asked and Bucky answered.

“They weren’t Jewish. Not that she was aware at least…and seeing that they burnt down everything…I don’t think they cared much about religion.” He said and nodded ahead to the toppled down steeple.

“The well. They took the well stones.” Pinky said a few minutes later as he stood at the hole for the town’s well, looking around, seeing no sign of them anywhere, “It’s like they just lifted it up and carried it off with the people.”

“What were they looking for?” Gabe asked and Bucky shook his head.

“She doesn’t know. Transmission said that they were stopping the search for some werewolf legend. The Morbach Myth, but Morbach isn’t close. So, I don’t know why they’d be lookin’ here for that.” he said and they continued on, passing by the remains of a house that had truly been ripped apart, “They ripped the walls open…”

“And the floors…” Dum Dum said as he looked in, frowning, worried, disturbed as they all were, “They left the stove, though.”

“Huh?” Steve asked and went to look, scowling as he found it odd just as they all did.

Not one scrap of metal of any kind had been left anywhere in the village. Everything that could have been made of use had been taken. Yet, partially buried underneath a small pile of rubble sat a stove, not a newer one, but one HYDRA definitely would have taken due to it being made of solid metal.

“There’s no way they’d have left that if they saw it.” Gabe said and they all shook their heads, including Jacques, who stepped forward carefully to look at it, tilting his head as he looked.

“Un loup.” He said and Gabe went over to look as well.

“There’s a wolf design on the oven door.” He said and after investigating it carefully, opened it and peered inside, shaking his head, “Nothin’. Just…dishes. Nice ones at one point. Broken now.”

“House probably collapsed from what they were doing and covered it.” Monty guessed and Steve nodded.

“Let’s get movin’. We shouldn’t be out in the open too long.”

“I remember your village. They dropped us off at the wrong spot and we found it. I knew what it was immediately. They took the well but left a stove with a wolf on it.” Bucky said as he stood behind her still, looking at her with a frown while she continued preparing food, and she nodded.

“That was my grandmother’s stove.” She said, “What else do you remember? I don’t want to push you, too much, but if you want answers to what happened to me, I need to know what you remember so I don’t have to explain more than I have to with this.”

“I remember what we found in the Castle. All of it.” Bucky answered while hanging his head, shaking it as the memories filtered in and his hands went to his face.

Empty.

Each cage they passed after clearing out the upper floors of HYDRA soldiers and officers was empty. It was a stark and haunting contrast to the gathering they had just disrupted.

Bright, warm, clean…and well supplied.

Lively even.

If you could consider a group of fanatics arguing over what to do about Captain America a lively gathering.

Those floors had been outfitted with all the usual trappings of any other castle. Tapestries, paintings, statues, other forms of artwork…many depicting wolves or other mythological figures or beings.

It was clean.

The soldiers were well-dressed and outfitted. The officers were well fed and there were plenty of rations to go around.

Not that it mattered anymore. Those that couldn’t escape went the way of all the other HYDRA operatives that refused capture. That still left plenty of information to go through, though. Even though those that ran made off with as much as they could there were still plenty left behind.

In the offices, library, and wherever else they would hide information.

That’s what led them to the lower floors…where the light was less warm and where more papers were found. Papers with more information about even lower floors. That was where they found the lab and then the cages.

Empty ones.

Some were clean. Many were not.

Nothing was fresh, but it was still blood, hair, and fur. There were still chains anchored to walls, bloody, and some far too small. Then there were the gouges in them that did not seem human.

Other cages contained bones.

Cracked open with the marrow sucked clean out.

No one said a word. They just didn’t have any. There weren’t any to be had.

The files they’d found made it worse.

There weren’t any pictures, for which they were grateful, but Essie had taught Bucky enough German before they had even initially started cracking down on HYDRA that he could piece the information together.

Details of an inhumane procedure with a mixture of blood and chemicals he didn’t recognize that were transferred in and swapped with the subject’s blood. Blood samples from sources he narrowed his eyes at as they sounded fantastical to him, or would have had he not known the sources existed from previous encounters during the war and raids on other HYDRA bases.

The details were more horrifying than the knowledge of the sources.

Details of electric currents being used. Injections given. Code named concoctions with increasingly grandiose names for what they called an ‘Awakening’.

They all had the same results.

One after the other, they were almost all the same. The only thing that differed were the numbers, the ages, and if the subject was male or female. The same stamp was used on them all.

A-000234532: Failure.

A-000234533: Failure.

A-000234534: Failure.

B-000457375: Failure.

B-000457376: Failure.

C-000909012: Failure.

D-000192837: Failure.

D-000192838: Failure.

F-000297643: Failure.

F-000297644: Failure.

F-000297645: Failure.

F-000297646: Failure.

G-000986432: Failure.

H-000872259: Failure.

He stopped reading the numbers after the first two pages, rubbed his eyes, and flipped through several more until he found something different.

It took far too long.

There were only seven and while they didn’t differ much, it was in the way they did that sent a chill down his spine.

E-000152510: Success. Failure. Unable to acclimate to new form.

E-000152511: Success. Failure. Resistant to new formula.

E-000152512: Success. Failure. Subject lost control.

E-000152513: Success. Failure. Subject became uncontrollable.

E-000152514: Success. Failure due to incorrect amperage used on shock collar.

E-000152515: Success. Failure. Subject mentally unstable.

E-000152517: Success. Failure. Subject mentally too unstable for use.

There were no names.

Just numbers.

In a way he was glad. Even though he knew very well that any one of those papers could have been about a member of Essie’s family he didn’t know what he’d have done if they had attached names to them.

Yet it made him mad in equal measure.

They weren’t people to HYDRA. Just test subjects. Just numbers on paper.

It weighed heavily on him. On all of them. Still, they gathered everything they could until Dum Dum finally spoke.

“Shit…”

It was soft, barely a whisper, but that in itself told them all that it was bad.

Dugan was rarely ever quiet.

Going over to where he was standing, they looked where he was and joined him in his silence.

It was just a small room filled with clothes and shoes, but the sight of it added a weight that even Steve felt crushed by.

Among the pairs of boots and shoes large enough for adult feet and separate from the pile of dresses, pants, shirts, and garments made for adult sizes. Small boots, small shoes, small clothes. On top of the pile, dirty and moulding from age, a dress, green in color with flowers embroidered on the bottom.

All Bucky could think of in that moment, as they all blinked and stared, was Essie’s voice telling him how much her sister would have loved her dress uniform. Green was her favorite color. It was the color of her favorite dress.

Green with white flowers on the bottom.

When Phillips arrived later, he just looked at them, scowling at their somber demeanors. They just shook their heads and pointed down to the dungeons. Not one said a word.

He and Howard went down, and when they came up, they clearly understood, but they were ultimately the ones that carefully and quietly broke the silence.

“Did you find evidence of what they were doing?” Howard asked and Bucky handed him the files he’d picked up, “Did you read these?”

“Enough. All failures until the end. Seven successes that ultimately failed at whatever it was they were doing. I don’t understand most of it. Sounds…like they were trying to recreate a serum but…this was before…”

“Erskine wouldn’t have done this, and I know that for a fact.” The colonel said, shaking his head, eyes moving about as he thought and tried to process what they’d found, “Alright, you all know it’s not in my nature to get touchy feely or give a shit about how you feel about any of this. This is war. On the other hand, you and I all know that those people down there were more than likely Agent Stark’s family and friends. She’s our top translator and can break through HYDRA’s codes better than the rest of them. She’s outside. Don’t let her down there. That’s an order. She’s tougher than she looks, but that down there would break the best of us if it were our family and we simply do not have the luxury of letting her break down here.”

“You brought her? Here?1” Steve asked, scowling and Phillips looked at him undeterred, unbothered, and like the hardened commander he was.

“Like I said: She’s the top translator we got that understands both German and whatever insane nonsense HYDRA uses to write up their codes. They clearly never intended for those files Mister Stark has a hold of right now to fall into enemy hands. The ones they’d be worried about will be coded and we need her to get to work on them ASAP.” He said and Steve looked at him with a pointed sigh, shaking his head as the colonel just started walking away, “She’s all we got right now. The others are on leave or were ‘borrowed’ by another division. They don’t realize she’s the best and I never tell them for that reason. She’s what we got. Let her do her work. Keep her out of that down there. Tell her what you want later when we have time for her to wail.”

“You didn’t cry, though. When we told you.” Bucky said as he finished recounting the memory, “You were quiet, and you nodded, and then you walked away.”

She nodded, taking a deep breath in as she shut the bars on her own memories hard.

“I cried later. On my own. I knew you wouldn’t have held it against me, but I just…I wanted to be on my own when I did. Do you understand why I’m asking about this?” Essie replied and glanced at him over her shoulder, and he nodded as he swallowed.

“What…they did to them…was what they did to you…but it worked.” He said and she nodded.

It hurt. His stomach lurched as he imagined her being subjected to what the reports detailed. The thought of her screaming made him shake his head before he rubbed his face, trying to stop it, but he couldn’t.

Only the sensation of her turning around to face him made him look at her, blue eyes searching her face again. She was sad, nervous, and worried. Her silver eyes were guarded, almost distant, waiting.

Steve’s voice echoed in his head.

“She’s afraid you’ll look at her and see what she sees in the mirror.”

“Do you want me to keep going or is that enough for now?” she asked, her eyes searching his for a reaction beyond horror.

“They turned you into a werewolf? You said you couldn’t shift.” He said, trying to clarify things for himself and she shook her head.

“No. Not quite. Werewolves are different from Lycans. Even though I feel like I’m cursed, I’m technically not. Even though I was created…like werewolves are…I’m technically not a werewolf. I’m not even a full Lycan. The process worked, but only up to a point. I gained all the strengths of a Lycan. Regenerative abilities, strength, speed, reflexes…and I have the teeth and claws…and my eyes changed…but the people that did this to me, they put other things in, too. Like the reports from Castle de Krake. Similar concoctions.

“They weren’t HYDRA, just…a different branch of the SS that tried to pick up where HYDRA left off in their experiments.” She explained as she looked at him, her face almost blank as she continued, “Once I stabilized from the initial ‘Awakening’ as they put it, they wanted to see what else I could take. I don’t know everything they put in in that facility or the one I went to after Eric…Blade…got me out, which was HYDRA, just secret.

“I do know that vampire went in and witch went in. They put more in; I just don’t know what. They could have given me some wolf version of the super soldier serum for all I know. All I know is it hurt going in and I am…what I am now, whatever that is. I’m not going into more detail than that. That’s enough.”

He nodded, quiet, contemplative. Essie turned back around to continue preparing their dinner. Both were silent.

She ate a lot once it was done. Silence wrapped around them both as they ate and it weighed on her. Even as she cleaned up afterwards, the silence persisted.

Looking at him afterwards Essie saw that Bucky had retreated into himself. He wasn’t shut down, just quiet and likely processing everything he had seen, learned, and been told. His eyes were distant as he sat, occasionally watching her move about until she was finished and got him moving to show him the basics of the house.

It wasn’t a detailed tour. Just the bare minimum. Her bedroom, a guest room for him, bathrooms, and her office. Enough he could navigate it and find her if he wanted to.

Something he apparently didn’t as he simply retreated into his new room to get ready to sleep and remained there. Essie checked on him after she had gotten herself ready, finding him curled up on the floor with the blanket and pillow. He looked up from the pillow at her, curious and hesitant.

“This was always a possibility. Just help him get better. Help him be free. That’s it. That’s enough.” She thought to herself and gave him a small smile, “Good night, Bucky.”

“Good night.” He replied and she shut his door gently before walking down the hall to her room.

The bed felt like it was going to swallow her whole. Essie had tried, really tried, to settle down into it to sleep. She just couldn’t.

So, she went to the couch near the window. That lasted roughly half an hour before she moved down onto the floor after grabbing the other pillow from the bed. She stuffed it behind her, just so she’d sense it there, and curled up under the blanket on the rug there as she had countless times before.

Sleep refused to come. Her thoughts simply would not stop. They circled, spun, and cycled back around repeatedly.

“I shouldn’t have told him. If I didn’t tell him then he’d find out later anyway. It’s too soon. That’s his decision not yours. He only thought he was ready and you chose to believe him. There’s no ‘being ready’ to hear that the woman you promised everything to and barely remember is no longer human because she was experimented on and turned into something from one of Emmie’s fairytale books.”

Her memories rattled at their cages. Some cried. Some whimpered. Some screamed. Some roared.

Those were the easy ones to keep locked away.

In the still quiet of her dark bedroom the hardest ones were always the quiet ones. The ones that could silently slip through the bars. Ones with summer sun and grass. Ones with sweet and warm spices by the fire. Ones with tender touches and a smile that could melt ice.

Ones she needed to stay occupied to escape. Stay occupied or go to sleep. Actually sleep not the half hour clips she’d been getting from before Bucky had even come back.

Sleep.

Sleep so they didn’t slip out entirely.

So, their phantoms wouldn’t sit down on a chair, stand in the corner, or lay next to her asking wh-

“Why are you cryin’?”

Too late.

Essie stared up at the timbers in the ceiling, counting them and the lights hung above her that were dark. She hadn’t realized she was crying and she didn’t want to look over. It wasn’t him. She knew it wasn’t him.

His voice was different. Softer. Warmer. Him as he had been. Not as he currently was.

Yet she couldn’t resist.

Turning her head, there he was as he had been hundreds of nights before, sitting at the end of her bed. Coat off, but it was his officer’s uniform, sleeves rolled up as they always would be in the late hours they worked together. Short hair mostly brushed back yet still messy on his slightly tilted head, looking at her and waiting for an answer as he sat forward, elbows on his knees.

“You’re not real…I know you’re not real. You’re in the other room.” She said softly, shaking her head and he smiled softly, “And you don’t look like that anymore.”

“Sweetheart, you and I both know that he’s not me.” He said and stood up to walk over and sit down on the floor beside her as she looked up at the ceiling again and rubbed her palms into her eyes.

“You’re not real. You’re not real. You’re not real. Not there. Not there. Not there. Not there.” Essie whispered to herself, shaking her head, “I need to sleep. I need…to…sleep…”

“I’ll be there, too, or they will. Look…I know you don’t want to…but you gotta let me go.” He said and she looked at him, “Seventy years. Most of them you spent trying to get me back. You know it isn’t going to happen. He might be out, he might be free, and I know you’ll make sure he really is, but, sweetheart…he’s never going to be me again. You need to let me go.”

“Not real. Not real. Not real. Not real. Not real.” She sniffled, shaking her head and he sighed shaking his.

“You never let me go. Even when they told you I fell, you always held onto me in some way. You let me live on inside of you, but you can’t keep doin’ that. You got him out. Now let me go. He’s not me.”

“I know he’s not you. I know that, but I’m not who I was then, either. If I were still your Essie, I wouldn’t be laying on the floor talking to a phantom my sleep deprived mind conjured up to torture me.” She said while looking up at the ceiling.

“You’re not my Essie, no. Never will be again…yet here I am…why do you think that is?”

“Because you are a phantom of my imagination…you’re not real. Now…go…away. Go away. Go away. Just leave me alone. Just…just let me sleep.” Essie said, holding herself in as best as she could, yet the tears slipped down anyway even as she felt the hallucination disappear, yet another came anyway, sitting just behind her, “Go away, Eddie…”

“Once upon a time, some time ago, a young girl named Marie lived with her family. On Christmas, her godfather came with a fantastical toy that clicked and whirred and moved people around in a mechanical house. They loved it, but grew bored, and then she saw a nutcracker and loved that even more…” he continued, calm, soft, and soothing.

It wasn’t her favorite story, far from it, but it was enough as he continued. Her thoughts slowed down, focusing on the story of a girl, her nutcracker, an evil mouse king, and a shallow princess.

Just his voice, gone but not forgotten, doing as he always had for her and that she had done for Emmaline.

He wasn’t real, and Essie knew that, but still she turned to face the phantom sitting there and let him tell her a bedtime story. His voice faded as eyelids grew heavy, pulling her down into sleep while a metal arm wrapped itself around her waist.

“Mao. Mao. Mao.”

“I’ve only been home like twelve hours and it’s back at the window already.” Essie mumbled then jolted awake when she felt fur rubbing up against her cheek and felt the purring.

Blue eyes in a black and white face looked at her, sniffing at her as it just chirped in greeting. Essie blinked and looked as several smaller kittens toddled around on the blanket next to her and when she looked to her side. Then she watched as they toddled across Bucky’s lap fearlessly while he sat there on the floor with a blue eyed white one in his arms petting it as his own blue eyes were settled on Essie, watching her.

“Bucky…why…when…h-how…” she asked while looking at the cats and glanced over at the window, seeing it was open, “Bucky…what did you do?”

He didn’t answer her, not exactly, he just looked down at the little white kitten contently curled on his arm, “I named this one Alpine.”

“We both know he’s not me, sweetheart.” Echoed in her mind.

“No, but you’re still in there. Different, but there.” She thought as she looked from Bucky, realizing he was shirtless at that moment, and then down to the floor where his shirt was currently being fought over by two kittens, one white with black spots, another mostly black but with white paws.

The mama just purred while nudging into Essie’s hand as she pet it, still confused. The cat was familiar. It had been climbing up to her balcony for the past three years.

Frankly, it amused Essie how determined it was to get up to her by climbing up whatever it could. However, she didn’t think that was the case this time. Not with thr-four kittens.

“Mew.” A small blue-eyed black kitten looked down at her from the couch before hopping down onto her chest.

“Bucky, did you…open a door somewhere to let them in?”

“Yes.” He nodded, “She woke me up at the window. She had Alpine. I saw others down on the ground. I went downstairs and let them in. It’s cold out…so I brought them here. This one is mine.”

“Okay.” Essie just nodded, still confused as she looked down at the mama cat, “You are…something else ma’am. I wasn’t even gone that long. Where’d these come from?”

“Mao.” The cat replied and rolled onto her back, paws in the air, adorable and Essie shook her head.

“I’m never going to hear the end of this.” She said and he looked at her, blue eyes quiet yet attentive, curious, “I’m the Alpha of a group of Wolf people and I’m surrounded by cats.”

“I like them.” He said and she nodded while sitting up, cradling the black kitten in her arms as she did, letting the mama cat flop over, “I thought she was yours.”

“No. She’s a stray. There are quite a few here. They keep rodent and rabbit populations down from being a problem and other bigger things keep them from being a problem. Most stay within the standing stone borders for that reason…” She answered.

He scowled while cuddling Alpine closer, “No. I want them to stay.”

Essie nodded gently, as she pet the kitten in her arms, looking down at the mama who just chirped up at her sweetly.

Yet she couldn’t help but hear a soft smug undertone to it.

Three years of trying to keep her out and the cat finally got her way in through a formerly brainwashed ex-HYDRA asset with a metal arm.

Looking at Bucky sitting there, letting the other two climb up into his lap while the other one looked down at them as he pet her, Essie smiled a bit.

He was there, different, but there. Choosing to be there, surrounded by cats he’d let in because he didn’t want them to be cold.

It was oddly adorable.

“Who were you talkin’ to last night?” he asked her as he looked at her, “You were cryin’ when I came in. You fell asleep when I laid down. Why?”

“Just ghosts. It happens when I don’t get enough sleep. I start hallucinating about people I lost.” She answered as she leaned back against the couch and he frowned, nodding.

“Me?” he asked and she licked her lips while looking down at the kitten batting playfully at the braid her hair was in.

“A version of you…far less adorable and sweet.”

“I am not adorable.” He said as he scowled slightly through several strands of his hair while petting the small purring kitten.

Essie couldn’t stop the smile curling up on her face as she laughed lightly.

The mama cat moved herself up onto Essie’s lap, flopping down with a satisfied little chirp. Essie laughed more at the mental image of him holding Alpine while letting a line of cats into her house, scooping them up, and depositing them there.

It was adorable.

“Yes, you are, and I have exterior security cameras on my doors. There’s gonna be proof of how adorable you are.” She said with a smile, one she could not help as he scowled a bit more and shook his head.

“No there is not.” He said and she smiled more while nodding.

“Yes, there is. I’ve hidden them so they can’t be seen, but they’re there, and there’s proof.” Essie said and he scowled more, then frowned when he heard her stomach grumble, “Come on. Let’s go make breakfast, get these little things and their determined mother some food.”

“Can we have-”

“Yes…I’ll make pancakes, but only because you’re adorable.” Essie said and he scowled once again after the initial perk up at the idea of pancakes.

All while standing up with the other two kittens in his arms, which only made her smile and chuckle. Then she smiled more when he denied it again as she started out the door into the hallway.

“I am not adorable.” He said, following after her through the house.

“Yes, you are.” She said as she looked at him, “How is any of this not adorable? You’re holding three kittens that you let in with their mother because you thought they’d be cold.”

“I am not adorable.”

“You gave them your shirt.”

“They were cold.”

“You are absolutely adorable and nothing you say or do will convince me otherwise.” She replied and started down the stairs while he just scowled again, thinking as he followed her down the stairs, “Don’t even try. I know…what you did as the Winter Soldier. That doesn’t make you…you.”

“I’m not…who I was.” He said and she nodded.

“I know. I am very aware of that.”

“You’re not who you were.” Bucky continued and she nodded.

“I know that, too, believe me.” She said as he looked at her, blue eyes taking in her features again.

He wasn’t memorizing them. It wasn’t the same look as when he did that. He was just observing them, comparing them as they were to what he knew.

She tried not to let the cold creep up her spine as she waited to hear whatever thought was swirling around in his mind. Essie could see that there was one.

More than one.

Many.

Eventually they all seemed to settle on one clear and certain.

“But you’re still mine.”

A/N: Yes, Alpine is here. (Sorry @societyfolklore no cute kitty picture). Alpine is always in all of my fics at some point. Here she just has some family. Had to end the chapter on a lighter note after all the heavy. The next chapter will have a time skip. Hopefully my Keep Reading break will work correctly this time...maybe.

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Masterlists: Howling Witch🔹MASTER Masterlist

Previous Part: Chapter 8: Ulfhrafn

Ao3 Link: Chapter 9: Castle de Krake (Registered users only)

Next Part: Chapter 10: Timber

Taglist: @calwitch

The white female with black spots was Aspen because she reminded him of Aspen trees. The black male with white feet was Knox but according to Bucky that had nothing to do with how often the little scamp loved knocking things down off of whatever he had climbed onto. The black male was Pine “because pitch”; Essie chose not to question him further about it. The mother was Willow just because it sounded soft and sweet like she was.

Essie was convinced he only thought that because he hadn’t seen her aggressively hissing at a different cat that showed up outside the window one day. That was until the day it came back. Apparently it hadn’t taken whatever Willow said to it seriously.

Initially Essie was worried Bucky would let that cat in too. In fact, when she saw him watching it through the door to the back porch he was standing by she was about to tell him not to when Willow spotted it from where she was lounging. Things went zero to 60 in a second as she leapt up and charged with a loud and angry growl straight at the door. Bucky opened it and just let her ram right into the intruder.

Bucky stood there watching, sipping his water while he did with a small smile on his face as she hissed and spit at the retreating cat while standing on the back porch, every hair on her body puffed out. Then he chuckled when the kittens all ran out the door to copy their mother. It was the first time Essie had heard him do anything close to laughing since he’d come out of HYDRA’s control.

She gave Willow some extra food at dinner that night.

Essie was right, though, when it came to how others reacted. It had been the first thing they commented on when they came over to check in or go over what needed to be done in the Pack. All but one asked the same thing.

Why?

At least until one of the kittens started playing with them. Then they all folded. Even Ruun.

Ritva just smiled knowingly when she had witnessed her Mate scratching Pine’s ears while talking with Essie about the day’s activities and business. She had never questioned the cats’ presence. She had simply accepted it and moved on to Bucky.

Bucky liked her. She was as Essie described. Calm, nurturing, motherly, and he found it easy to talk to her when he was in the state of mind to and that helped.

It was slow progress, where every two steps forward felt followed by one back, but it was progress. He talked more as the days turned to weeks and then to months. Seeing the seasons shift from summer to autumn and then to winter seemed to spark plenty of questions and conversations.

Many about the Timber, or rather the Timbers.

There were more than one and Essie found his drive to understand how to differentiate was partially caused by just how everyone tended to refer to all of them as “the Timber” and when asked only then would they specify which one.

He was very fond of the patch behind the house, the Motherswood, which Essie was most fond of as well.

She had brought him to it frequently in the first few weeks whenever he was having a hard day. It was calm, steady, and the energy there was soothing enough he would sit down and eventually talk with her about what was most bothering him that day. As winter and the snows came, deep and unrelenting, she brought him back to it.

The canopy of the space was dense enough that not as much snow would reach the forest floor as outside of it. It soothed him immeasurably from his intense dislike of the snow and cold. It allowed him to find a way to ease himself into the rhythm of the season.

Into life there.

Slowly.

In the daylight hours. At night it was quite different still.

The nightmares continued to plague them both, but it was Bucky that had the hardest time. Essie was used to her own, but his were a nightly torment. Some were worse than others and it weighed on her. Weight she hid from her people when they asked about him, all eager to know their Alpha’s Mate.

To them that’s what he was. It was what he had always been. Even if she told them repeatedly that he wasn’t, that they hadn’t even talked about what their relationship was now, that he was in no state to even decide something like that, or that she wasn’t a full Wolf they didn’t much care.

It was, to them, something simple and easy. He was her Mate. She was his. Any male would be happy and lucky to have their Alpha as his Mate. Any male that their Alpha spent so many years seeking had to be worthy of her.

For Essie it was far more complicated than that. Only Ritva seemed to understand that it was far from simple and easy. Only she was willing to sit and listen before giving her own advice.

“You need to sleep or you’ll start seeing ghosts again.” The auburn-haired female said as she tended to the flowers blooming around the base of the massive standing stone once spring finally came, “Then they’ll make you doubt.”

“He had another nightmare last night. Not as bad as the last few, but it was bad enough. Sometimes…sometimes I’m afraid to leave him on his own. Just the…the way he looks. Like he can’t stand to breathe.” Essie said as she sat in the grass, falling back into it to stare up at the sky, “Some nights he squeezes me so hard I can hardly breathe. Like if he lets go even a little bit the world will fall apart and shatter on him.”

“Because without you it probably would. You anchor him to reality, to what’s real, what’s present, and what’s past. You are from the before, the in-between, and the present while he copes with having a future that does not require him to be a slave as he remembers what happened while he was.” Ritva said as she tugged out a group of weeds.

“I always knew this would be hard, but I never thought it’d be this.” Essie sighed as she rubbed her eyes and ran her fingers into her hair, “It’d have been easier if it wasn’t this, if it wasn’t…me being a coping mechanism he looks to for answers. I don’t have the answers he wants. I don’t know how to help him with the guilt and the shame when I can barely do that for myself some days.”

“Then go to someone that can.” The older female said and sat down next to her, looking at her, head tilted slightly as she blinked, “You don’t have to do this alone. We are all here with you. For you. For him. You are not a freak of nature or a mistake of science. You are one of us.”

“I know…” Essie sighed and Ritva shook her head.

“No, you don’t. You hear, but you don’t listen. Your ears hear the words, but your heart rejects them because of what you were and now are. That is no longer what you are, but that does not make what you now are wrong, and it does not mean that there is nothing left from what you were as you are now.” She said as she lay back on the grass as well.

“I don’t even know what I am now.”

“Then find out. Our science people could tell you. The cat people could tell you. You could find out at any point in time you wanted what was put into you to make you what you are now, but it won’t give you the answers you really need. You focus too much on what they made you into and not enough on what you want to be.” Ritva said and Essie looked at her, “You have spent seventy years defining yourself by what HYDRA did to you and to him. Seventy years with a single goal centered on getting him free of their tendrils. Seventy years expecting him to look at you and see all the blood you spilled and consumed when you were little more than a starved and abused animal in a cage lashing out at the people that hurt it. Seventy years is a long time. Even for the Mothers.”

“I suppose they’re telling you that I need to get more help.” Essie sighed dryly and Ritva nodded.

“Yes. All the signs agree. You need help. He is ready. You are ready.” She said and Essie looked at her, brows furrowed, “You weren’t before. Who amongst us would have been? Name one Wolf here with a Mate that wouldn’t have single mindedly pursued freedom for their Mate if they were as yours was. Can you name one? No. If you tried I’d have told you to stop lying and being difficult. There isn’t one and you are a Wolf. You just started off human and have some extra flavoring added in.”

“You make me sound like a cookie.” Essie said and Ritva smiled before continuing.

“For humans, for what you were, I know this is not how things are done…I know that. For them, the self is as important as the other. For us, for you…because you are as we are, how could we ever fix the self when it is not whole? You would only have been fixing half of your soul. With him here, with you, and he is…do not fool yourself or try to convince yourself that he is not…with him here…it is time for you to seek help. For him, yes, but for you as well. You owe that to him as well as yourself. He cannot be whole without you, he is yours, and you cannot be whole without him as you are his. You always have been. Seek help.”

“You’re bossy for a Beta.” Essie said and Ritva nodded.

“Yes. I must be. You taught us to be. You taught us to tell you when you are wrong or lacking. That was what you taught us and told us to be, and you were right. So, I am fulfilling my place in this Pack: You need help. You cannot do this on your own. You will hurt yourself and him if you try.” She said, her usual calm tone firm, solid, and clear as she looked at Essie, “Let us help you. You have helped us. You came here, when you did not have to, taking time out of your hunt for your Mate…you became something you swore you never would again for us, to free us…people you didn’t know, so let us help you.”

“You do realize that letting you help me means letting people see me vulnerable and weak…right?” Essie asked and Ritva nodded.

“Yes, but there is strength there in doing so. It takes courage to do it, drive, and will. You are strong. We all know it, and it isn’t just your physical strength we know. We know you.” She said, glancing off to the distance for a second before looking back to her, “You love deeply. When you commit to something you commit with your entire being. You’re stubborn but you will bend when it is right to bend. You have questionable taste in food.”

“Eating vegetables is not questionable taste in food.”

“You might as well roll over and nibble on the grass.” Ritva replied, gesturing at it, and Essie shook her head, amused, “You are not a coping mechanism to him.”

Essie looked back at the auburn-haired female there, soft green eyes calm, gentle, soothing, and knowing. They shifted from Essie’s silver ones to beyond her. Turning her own head to look Essie saw Ruun and Bucky on their way up the hill. They were talking quietly, seriously, and calmly.

It had taken Bucky a bit to get used to Ruun and Ruun took a bit to get used to Bucky, but now it wasn’t odd to see them talking quietly. Not to say that they talked a lot. Seeing the two sitting in silence was just as frequent a sight.

“You are his, and he does not mean possession when he says it. He doesn’t see what you do in the mirror. He sees you. All of you. As you are.” Ritva said with a smile as she watched Bucky’s eye scan for Essie before lighting up when he spotted her there in the grass, “Not a coping mechanism. When he talks about you…it warms my heart to hear how he speaks of you, but that is all I will say about it…because I know it will make you curious and then you’ll hunt for your answers.”

“You’re horrible.” Essie replied as she sat up and Ritva just laughed lightly, the sound bringing a smile to Ruun’s typically scowling face.

“She is being difficult. I know that laugh.” He said, his deep and usually gravel filled voice filled with warmth and Ritva just smiled up at him pleased with herself as Essie stood up and nodded.

“Yes, she is. What trouble have you two gotten into while unattended?” she asked and Ruun answered.

“He asked who taught Maggie to fly. I blamed it on you.” Her Beta answered and she looked at him shaking her head.

“Oh no you don’t. I did not teach her how to do that. She asked if she could learn while out on a mission. I said yes, because it was useful to have someone besides myself that knows how to fly things…and next thing I knew she had some instructor that I questioned the mental faculties of and I’ve not been able to unteach her what he did. Then she went and took advice from Nick Fury about banking.” Essie said while shaking her head, “Not me. No. I fly normal. At least when HYDRA teaches you how to fly something they do it in a way that’s normal…for them, but not what she does.”

“Uh uh. Not what she does.” Bucky agreed while shaking his head and looked around a bit, “Ruun was telling me more about Ulfhrafn. Y’know…beyond this part of the valley.”

“I figured it was important for him to know that there is more than what he sees here. More than the Wolf Timber and the Motherswood. Now.” Ruun said with a head tilt that Essie knew was directed at her.

She had yet to tell Bucky about how she had become Alpha. It wasn’t that he had stopped asking. Essie just wasn’t sure how to explain it to him. Usually that task fell to either Tanis or Eric, as they were present and they didn’t embellish anything about it, and while Bucky had come to accept Tanis’s presence and nature he still wasn’t excessively fond of him.

“He didn’t explain what that meant, though.” Bucky said and she nodded, thinking for a moment, “And Steve called.”

Ruun nodded as he sat in the grass next to Ritva with a solid thump, “He asked to visit with a couple of others. By the tone he was curious about you both but mentioning another Stark had him on edge.”

“Mh…I know why it would put Steve on edge.” Essie said and Bucky nodded as well, frown set on his face, and she went over to him, thinking, “What do you want to do about it? Tony is Howard’s son…and…he’s…he’s admittedly dangerous. I can’t tell you that I trust him entirely, but…”

“I think…I’d like to see Steve. There are things you can’t answer that he can…from before we met.” Bucky answered and Essie studied his face as he looked at her, the guilt there in his eyes, the shame, yet before she could say anything he spoke again, “Let me do this. Maybe…maybe it’s a way forward.”

“Honey…”

“I made him an orphan, Essie. He has a right to talk to me, to know why.”

She sighed, thinking, frowning. Lost on how else she could say what she wanted to say. Tired.

The voice that spoke was not hers, but Ruun’s as he sat next to Ritva, his voice calm and steady.

“Your hands did it. Acknowledging what happened is good, but you need to acknowledge the circumstances, too. Were you James ‘Bucky’ Barnes when you did it?” Ruun asked and Bucky looked at him, “You knew this Howard Stark from the war. If Essie knew him, you likely did, too. When it happened, did you know him? As you say you knew Steve when he called you Bucky, as you knew Essie was important to you when you saw her picture?”

“No. I was the Winter Soldier, but I was still the one that did it. It was still me…just not…this me.” Bucky answered and Runn nodded.

“Were you allowed to fail?”

“No, I don’t…think…so, but…usually on those missions…in some way or another I can remember Essie being…around more. This one…she wasn’t.” he said and Essie spoke.

“I was, but they were expecting me and made it impossible to interfere. I was also still adjusting to being the Alpha here. There was a lot going on.” She answered while fixing the collar of his shirt gently, “If it’s what you really want…I’ll arrange for them to visit.”

“Thank you.” He nodded and was later watching her move about the kitchen, “I’m sorry I woke you up last night. I know you’re tired.”

“I’ll be alright, Bucky.” She answered while making a sandwich and set it down in front of him before sitting with her own, quiet, thinking, “Ritva…said…it may be time we both get help.”

“What kind of help?” he asked as he picked the sandwich up, looking at her concerned and she answered while holding her sandwich in front of her.

“Mental, psychological, whatever you want to call it, so we can both get better from what was done and what happened. You’ve come so far, honey, but…I don’t know how to take you farther. I haven’t…gone that far for myself.” Essie answered honestly, not too sure how he’d take it with how he’d progressed so far.

While he was leaps and bounds from what he had been when he first arrived there were still things Bucky had trouble with. Venturing beyond a certain point was one of them. Talking to more people was another. Mostly it boiled down to her, Ritva, Ruun, occasionally Maggie, and then even more rarely Tanis.

In fact, she considered him having more than two sentence conversations with Tanis to be a massive improvement. So did Tanis. He was stunned the first time it happened and so was she.

He was mostly past his nonverbal days, they happened occasionally, usually after a long and rough night where he remembered certain things. Essie had pieced together after the first week in Ulfhrafn that he wasn’t retreating into himself or his room as a way to shut her out. It was just him processing something, even if she really did not like it.

“You’re not a monster, Essie.” He said after a moment, and she looked at him just as pointedly as his tone had been.

“And you are not The Winter Soldier.” She said and he sighed, setting his sandwich down.

“Essie…I have…more successful hits than any other HYDRA agent in its history. So many I stopped counting the faces. People I knew, that you knew, that Steve knew. I shot you while trying to shoot Steve.” He said while shaking his head down at the counter then looked at her, blue eyes settling on her silver ones, “I’m not the Bucky you fell in love with in the 40s and I don’t think I can be again.”

Bucky watched her stand up and walk over to the same side he was on before sitting next to him. He also watched Willow hop up into Essie’s previously occupied chair. Essie did, too, and pulled her plate over and away from the cat before looking at him.

Her eyes searched his face. They often did. More than once he’d caught her just staring at him, memorizing every inch of him she could like she was afraid he’d be gone again. This was different even if it was just as quiet.

One of the first things he’d learned about her was how loud her silences could be. She talked quite a lot, explaining whatever he wanted as best as she could, soothing him, recounting memories, experiences, or sometimes it was just her talking to one of the cats. So, whenever she was quiet, it filled the room with silent thunder.

It wasn’t that she had never been prone to silences before. She had, but these were different. Heavier, thicker, and more cacophonous. As much as she picked on Ruun for his loud silences hers were even louder.

It weighed on him.

Her silences. The thought of what she had gone through to be as she was now. The way he felt thankful that she was there.

It was always a possibility that any one of them wouldn’t make it back from their raids. They all knew that deep down, they just tried not to think of it. Falling from the train, his thoughts went rapidly through everything, including Essie. She was there when he came to time and time again until she wasn’t anymore. Her name. He could remember looking for someone when he’d come out of the ice, he’d never known what he was looking for and quickly learned to hide that he was.

So, when he saw her again, as himself and The Soldier, he was confused then grateful she was there, but that in itself filled him with guilt. He had wanted her to be happy, preferably with him, but not like this. It made him feel selfish and every time she held him, comforted him, and let him hold her it was a tumultuous mix of gratitude, pain, and feeling unworthy that swirled inside him.

As much as he wanted to be worthy of her comfort, care, and being the object of her seventy-year search Bucky couldn’t pretend he was. He didn’t want to lead her on, especially when she made it very clear she wasn’t going to be the Essie he once knew, even if that didn’t bother him as much as he felt it should have. As much as he hated what she went through, he admitted a couple of weeks earlier to himself that he liked her as she was now.

Not the way she looked at herself, or the heavy silences, but the way she was around others and how tender she was with him. It was different from the tenderness she had shown him in the past. Less like a feral animal always on the edge around everyone except the one person patient enough to domesticate it and more grounded, patient, knowing.

She had always been bossy, yet she hadn’t been in charge in the 40s, she was just bossy and looked down upon because she was so bossy and combative. Bucky had understood Essie’s combativeness back then far more easily than he understood Steve’s. She was a woman in an era where it was rare for one to be where she was, she was alone with no family in a foreign country she made her own after being effectively stranded there, she was angry at those that took her family from her, and she was scared. She just couldn’t show it so she fought back and defended herself however she could.

Now Essie was in charge and was settled into that role. As uncertain as she could be some days there was a confidence in her when it came to her role as Alpha. Ruun confirmed that she didn’t see it herself even if others could.

Ruun had told him a lot about Ulfhrafn and what it had been before Essie was Alpha. Not everything, which Bucky knew was because Ruun wanted her to tell him the rest. He was proud to be her Beta and like the others it was obvious he cared very much for her, but Ruun wanted Essie to tell Bucky herself. As proud and grateful as he was for her, and as much as he respected her as his Alpha, Ruun wasn’t afraid to point out her flaws. It was part of why he was her Beta and he filled his role well.

“She needs to learn to be proud of herself. Not to the point of arrogance and not the veneer of it she wears around others…but truly proud. To look out over what she has done and feel warmth, joy, and the community she helped rebuild. Not look out and fear what she is. She fears the beast inside of her, but that is far from all she is and much like you, she needs to learn the difference between what was done for survival versus what was purposely done and what was done when not in control and what was done when in control.” He had said earlier, not the first time and Bucky doubted it would be the last, though he was determined to make the last part of their conversation the last time it was discussed, “You need to talk to her about her expectations, what they are versus what you think they are. Trust one that knows.

"We are male. Our Mates are female and they are both…strange in their own ways. It is often best to just ask them what they want instead of trying to guess. Ritva’s mind and thoughts are like the caves of Grey Pine in the north…twisting, confusing, and with many paths that go one place or no where at all. Talk to Essie and get her to take a nap. I don’t care if you have to drag her into bed yourself, even if the thought disturbs me, just get her to sleep some. I am not angry with you. You are still healing yourself. You are just the only one she will listen to. She doesn’t know when to stop sometimes.”

That was clearly something that had never changed. Bucky remembered how stubborn she was about taking time to rest. It was both annoying and cute back then. To a point it still was now, and it offered him a way to pay her back for everything, if he could still get her to submit to a break. However, that was only after they finished this discussion, because Ruun was right…they needed to have it to move forward.

Essie obviously knew this as she studied his face. He could see the gears turning and see the struggle she was having internally. It was a hard and heavy silence until she spoke, shaking her head as her eyes shifted from searching to certainty and warmth.

“Bucky, I know you’re not the same man I fell in love with back in the 40s. There’s pieces of him there in you still, things you do that are the same, but I know you’re not that same man anymore. I’m not asking you to be. That wouldn’t be fair. I’m not the same woman you fell in love with back then, and…I can’t be that woman anymore.” She said and he smiled softly at her.

His lips twitched as he huffed in a light laugh that made her heart lift even though she knew he was going to be a smart ass about something.

“Mmm…you’re still really bossy and way too stubborn about taking a break.” He said and she sighed before taking a bite out of her sandwich with a small growl.

She always did this now. He noticed early on that she bit down into food when she was hungry with a tiny little growl. While it was a clear reminder of what she was now, Bucky couldn’t help it…he found it cute.

“You remember the first time I made you take a nap?” he asked and she side-eyed him suspiciously, “I’m just askin’. My memory’s…kinda…spotty on it.”

He was lying straight to her face about that and she knew it. Essie knew very well he remembered it perfectly. Yet as much as she knew he was just doing this to get around to what he wanted, she couldn’t keep the memory from slipping out of the cage.

“Bucky…I need to finish that. I…no! Give it back! Bucky Barnes give me that book back!” she scowled while stomping after him, reaching for the book he held out of her reach then put on a shelf she couldn’t get to, tossing it up there himself, “JAMES!”

“Nope. It’s break time. You’ve been goin’ for 12 hours straight. Taggart told me you were here before he was and we only stopped working last night after midnight. You’re runnin’ on fumes and goin’ in circles. You need to rest.” He said and she scowled at him, crossing her arms over her chest.

“And how are you going to make me?” she asked and he nodded.

“That’s…a fair point…hmm…” he said while rubbing his chin and glanced out the door, causing her to look and see both Peggy and Steve just nodding at him with a thumbs up before he picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder, “Like this.”

“You threw me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes in a most ungentlemanly manner…and carried me somewhere I think you had Steve drop a couch. I don’t know how we weren’t caught.” She answered and he took a deep breath in and pretended to think about it.

“I…think…mmmaybe I had Steve, Peggy, and the boys help make me a path there so we wouldn’t. Maybe…kinda…not really there.” He said and she just scowled while moving her feet to lock into the stool she was sitting on, “I do remember you weren’t complaining the whole time, though.”

“I didn’t want to get caught and have to explain why you were being a neanderthal.” Essie answered and ate another bite of food.

“Hm…good point…” he said and took a bite of his own sandwich, seemingly done with the conversation, but she knew better…much better.

Still, it had worked at the time once he pointed out that, despite what she thought, HYDRA did sleep, and therefore she needed to sleep, too. So, she had, for a little bit.

“That would have been a good nap if that blonde…thing Lorraine didn’t start looking for me.” Essie said after a bite of her food and he nodded.

“What did she even want?” he asked and she answered after another bite, ignoring Willow as she tapped the counter with her paw even if he didn’t, “This is people food.”

“Mao.” She replied and he shook his head.

“She wanted to know if I had any updates about something Steve was doing. I ignored her and walked away. Ignore Willow. Don’t give her attention. She’s learned to make cute pout faces from you.” Essie said and he looked at her.

“I am not cute.”

“We’ve been over this Mister ‘I thought they were cold, so I gave them my shirt’.” She replied with a mischievous smirk, “You’re adorable.”

“You still gonna say that if I try to make you take a nap today?” he asked and she nodded.

“Yes, because nothing is going to ever change my mind about you being adorable.” She replied with a taunting blink of her eyes, “Which you have always been…and remember, I have proof.”

“I deleted it.” Bucky said with a satisfied smile, and she raised an eyebrow at him.

Teaching him how to use the technology of the era and of Ulfhrafn had been a more recent task. Some of it he took to easily. Some he didn’t. If Essie could believe he’d found the data files for her cameras she could believe he figured out how to delete them. She just didn’t believe he found the main one.

“Hm…really?” she asked and pulled her phone out to access her recordings and smiled as she tapped the video of him opening the door for the kittens, scooping Knox and Pine up as he asked them if they were cold while Willow picked up Aspen and trotted her into the house, “Oh…look at that…the picture dictionary definition of Adorable.”

“I am the picture dictionary definition of trained assassin not adorable.” He countered and nodded his head to her food, “Finish your lunch. You’re takin’ a nap.”

“You are not throwing me over your shoulder this time. I know how to fight back now.” She said and he just nodded before taking a drink of his milk.

As soon as she was done he got up and took their plates and cups to put them into the dishwasher she had. Bucky knew she was waiting for him to enact whatever plan he’d come up with to get her to nap. Looking at her, he knew there were many more conversations to be had but he knew she was also right.

Neither of them were who they were back in the 40s, but those people weren’t completely gone. That Bucky loved that Essie enough to face down her growling, her combativeness, and to scale the walls she had around her heart. The one he was now, even though he didn’t believe he was remotely deserving of her and felt tremendous guilt about it, loved this one just as much.

Both Ritva and Ruun knew this. They just handled it differently. Bucky handled it differently himself depending on which one it was he talked to.

With Ruun it was just quietly understood and seldomly remarked on unless it was guiding him to talk to her about it. With Ritva it was different. She had been the one to start the conversation about it and not by pointing out that he still did.

“You’re just as bad as she is. She has long ago decided you were worthy of her, that has not changed and was never your decision to make…and it still isn’t. Just as she cannot decide for you that she isn’t worthy of you. You can’t decide that you aren’t worth her love. No one can decide that other than her.” She had said and despite the argument he put up about it in return, she never backed down from it, instead, like her Mate, she told him to talk to Essie about it, “Talk to her. Tell her. Let her know so she doesn’t start thinking things and so the ghosts in her mind don’t start telling her the wrong things.”

“So…” He started and she looked at him, ready to put up a fight, something he recognized from the day on the helicarrier and afterwards, “I want you to take a nap with me and then…maybe you can show me more of what’s here?”

That disarmed her just as he hoped it would. Tell her what he wanted, which she frequently insisted he do, and then ask for something she knew was outside of his usual comfort zone. A bargain.

It was something the old Bucky would do…mostly. Largely because he knew it worked with that Essie. This one was more of a toss-up.

As much as he thought the old Essie didn’t like being told what to do…this one liked it even less. Yet, in some ways, she liked it more. Sometimes it was like she relished the challenge he presented her more than she used to.

He supposed it had something to do with her being the Alpha and constantly in control.

“On the couch.” She said and he nodded with a small smile before heading over to the couch in the living room where she sighed as she looked at it.

Alpine was curled up right in the middle of it napping. The other three were currently underneath the coffee table playing with each other. Willow had assumed her perch on the new cat tower near the back porch window.

“Come on, Al. You can’t take up the whole thing.” Bucky said and scooped the kitten up before laying himself down on the couch, setting her down on the arm of it.

“Mew.” She meowed at him then looked at Essie as if she knew what he wanted, both blinking blue eyes at her.

“Fine.” Essie sighed and laid down with him, moving around with him until she was wedged against the back of it on her side, her head on his shoulder while he laid on his back holding her close, “Come on you little snow clump. We both know what you’re gonna do.”

Alpine just mewed in response before hopping from the arm of the couch onto Bucky’s other shoulder. She padded herself down his chest and then into the valley created by his and Essie’s torsos pressed together. Then, with the stubborn determination of any kitten that knew they were going to get away with it, she jammed her little body underneath Essie’s arm and went straight back to sleep as if nothing had even happened.

“You spoil her.” Bucky said softly as he gently pet her head with his metal hand.

“You’re one to talk. You let her get away with everything. She’s never the one that starts a fight. They’re always the ones pickin’ on her. You carry her around in your coat…which is admittedly adorable.”

“I’ll accept that only because it involves Alpine bein’ the main source of cute.”

“Mmm…nnoo…you’re equally cute in that scenario.” Essie replied with a smile as she relaxed, listening to his heartbeat and the sound of his voice rumbling through his chest.

“She’s cuter.”

“You’re both cute…now stop arguing with me so I can nap. That’s what you wanted, right?” she asked and he nodded while slowly taking her hand in his metal one, smiling when she gripped it without hesitation.

“Yeah.”

A/N: Next one does not have a time skip, it picks up right after this and discusses the Alpha incident in which Essie became Alpha. That was discussed during the Prologue but this will be in Essie's own words...including some stuff that was not in the prologue.

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Masterlists: Howling Witch🔹MASTER Masterlist

Previous Part: Chapter 9: Castle de Krake

Ao3 Link: Chapter 10: Timber (Registered users only)

Next Part: Chapter 11: Alpha

One he wasn’t prepared to fail no matter how scared he was of it.

To his surprise they all knew who he was, and to his great amusement they found Alpine’s head sticking out of his jacket to be stranger than the fact he had a metal arm. They were wolf people to the core and that continued to amuse him once he pushed past his nervousness to explain why he was there in town on his own.

As much as he hated to burst their bubbles that it had been solely to finally meet them all it wasn’t. They took it in stride. They were more than happy to when he explained his real reason.

“Essie’s in The Eye on…some important business…and she’s going to get back late, be hungry…and…she’s always cooking for me. I appreciate it and…yeah it’s…what I grew up used to but…I wanna do something for her. I don’t know anything about how to make something more than a sandwich…but I can learn. As long as it’s easy…and won’t blow up. I really don’t want to blow anything up. She’ll never let me do anything on my own again if I do that.” he had explained to a group of older females gathered around one of the food stalls.

He'd gone to them with the hope that they’d be the best informed of the bunch present to teach him the basics of cooking something without setting it aflame. Bucky was good at setting things on fire, HYDRA made sure he was, but he didn’t want to set anything on fire in this instance so he swallowed every urge he had to avoid people to ask a whole group of what appeared to be little old ladies how to not set something on fire. He knew they were much more than that, but it was that they visually looked about as threatening as a tuft of dandelions that actually pushed him over the last hurdle.

That and Alpine purring contently. If she was purring she didn’t hate them. If she didn’t hate them then they were relatively safe.

They didn’t hesitate to help. If anything they seemed to love it and he spent the next couple of hours with them learning how to do the most basic thing they could teach him: cook a steak and boil potatoes. They even begrudgingly taught him how to boil green beans…though they all did it with a look of utter abhorrence for them before they sent him off back home with everything he needed.

It wasn’t perfect, far from it, but he enjoyed the act of making something instead of destroying it and the look on Essie’s face when she walked in exhausted was the absolute best reward. She was so happy. Not just because of the food but because he had gone out on his own to do something for her.

The only thing she didn’t like that he’d done that day was the laundry.

He didn’t turn anything pink.

Instead he washed everything together. Including the blanket the kittens used. There was cat hair on everything.

“You tried. I’m proud of you for trying…but…just…no cat stuff with people stuff.” She said while shaking out a shirt before grumbling about how she didn’t understand why there was so much hair when they groomed themselves.

Still, it was a start and he found other ways to help more until they could go on their planned tour of the country. He was excited for it when it finally happened a couple of weeks past their original plans and he enjoyed every moment of it. Even if it left him stupefied at times.

Ulfhrafn was, to Bucky, far more than just a small country. He had seen the maps of it, but he hadn’t really correlated its true size to that map in his mind. Then again they usually didn’t have a scale on them so he really couldn’t.

So heading out with Essie to see more of it, Bucky found himself in far more than just the city-state sized thing he originally imagined. He also encountered things he had only seen skeletons of in museums as far as the animals went. It amazed him and the more he saw the more he understood what Ruun had meant.

Ulfhrafn was unified into one country and one Pack. It hadn’t always been that way. Essie hadn’t been the one to start the process, but she was the one that finished it.

The former Alpha was the one to start it, but not through the act of Challenging the Alphas of the other regions. He wasn’t strong enough to defeat several of them in fair combat. Instead he used various means to take them out of the game and out of his way, yet he refused to fully integrate the regions into his Pack properly. It took one of the elders of those regions explaining it to Bucky for him to understand what that meant, and he understood more fully why the old Alpha was referred to as Low.

“Alpha Essie explained to you that an Alpha is responsible for the protection wards around the towns and hunting regions, the safe places. There are places here that no one goes because to walk into them…is inviting misfortune and woe. As great and strong as we are, there are things beyond our wards that scare even us…because they are worthy of being frightened of. We call them Terrors..

“The old Alpha…what he would do…village by village, Pack by Pack, destroyed those wards. There was no Alpha to take up the mantle for the wards so they would fizzle out and break. It forced people to seek out safety from Alphas with intact borders, but eventually the only one was him and his protection came at the cost of invisible bars.

“He took over the regions, but he would never extend his borders around them. He would never perform the rites to make them truly safe. He would only do it for the villages, no more beyond the last row of houses of any town.”

He explained to Bucky that the Terrors grew so great in number outside the wards that travel was impossible unless the old Alpha agreed to put up temporary wards along roads with fake stones made in The Eye that were not exactly efffective, but better than nothing. It always came at a price, though. People, food, silver, medicinal herbs, whatever resources a region had specifically or that a village had just enough of to get by.

“We had no choice sometimes but to pay. None of us that tried to assume the title of Alpha of the region ever survived the process. We have proof it was him interfering but we never needed it to know it was. Before the end…it was so bad…the Terrors would come in the day and lick the standing stones to see how much charge they had. If they were low…they’d come in and tear through town until morning. Many were lost…which only made more Terrors. We even resorted to begging for full Pack membership. He always pretended to think about it if we did one more thing. That never came until the night he fell.”

The elder explained while gesturing at the tall standing stones in the distance that all of them had activated at once. Bucky understood then that was the magic she had worked with the Alpha’s blood. That was the protection she had triggered, they however didn’t know that at the time.

Instead they thought it was a trick. They thought the news of the old Alpha’s defeat was a lie. Even when she showed up they didn’t believe it until Ruun confirmed it. Ruun had been of that region originally one of the ones that tried to assume Alpha status until he was ambushed and hauled to The Eye.

Even still they didn’t welcome her with open arms. She was foreign, unknown, strange, and they made the mistake of thinking she cheated somehow and had enthralled Ruun into service. Several Challenged her outright. They all lost, yet unlike what she had done in The Eye, she let them live.

“We then mistakenly thought she was too soft and would wear down with time. So more tried. Then one behaved dishonorably and tried again as she was being Challenged by another. We learned then she wasn’t soft, she wasn’t weak, and she wasn’t using her full strength in any of the challenges. She was just giving us a chance to get it out of our systems because she knew we were angry.” He said and sighed, shaking his head, “Still she didn’t execute him for it. Instead…she kept to the Old Way. Something we know Ritva taught her in preparation for the visit…that was when we stopped.”

The Old Way meant a series of things depending on what context it was said in or what event was occurring. In this case it meant Essie had banished the male from the Pack, casting him out into the wilderness with enough provisions to last him a week to seek forgiveness from the ancestors and The Mothers at two of the farthest shrines in the region.

He was the first she did it to, but not the last as village by village, region by region, she repeated the same steps. Each region reacted in its own way, some welcoming her openly even though others protested with Challenge. Not every Challenger was shown mercy and with Essie’s arrival to the regions so too came Essie’s personal brand of justice that left a definitive mark upon people.

“We love her far more than we fear her, but anyone that’s not a little afraid of her is an idiot.” A village’s council member said as they sat watching Essie explain something to a group of the school aged children there, “One of the old Alpha’s loyalists retreated here after her ascension. We’re the farthest region out from The Eye and back in those days it took much longer to travel between the regions than it does now. He came and took up residence in what used to be the region’s Alpha’s residence, that big castle up there on the hill.

“It now serves as a hospital where our doctors go to learn, but back then it was impregnable and we had never met anyone that could get into it if the gates were closed. Then we met her…and she made her own door straight into the side of it. That’s why the stone looks different in that spot there in the middle. That was her. BOOM. It caused me many issues as a father afterwards…because both my pups thought it was the most amazing, epic, and stupendous thing they had ever seen.”

Bucky had tried not to laugh at that, but the male’s flat and exasperated facial expression made that impossible. Especially when he continued that thought. Or rather when he told Bucky what his kids did now.

His daughter was the mind that made several features of the Amarok possible. His son’s career didn’t seem connected to the incident at first until he pointed out a restaurant on the edge of the village and Bucky read the name.

Boom Burgers. Their specialty was a massive flame grilled elk burger with cheese stuffed in the middle all encapsulated within a toasted roll. When it was bit into it would ooze out.

Essie loved them and Bucky had to agree. They tasted good and were quite filling. For him.

Essie ate two and washed them down with a skyr smoothie from one of the other restaurants. Ultimately it was that which brought the tour to its end and they returned home. It heralded a Feeding Day on the horizon.

The people understood and accepted it. Each one told packed her off with at least a small bag of something to eat and as they rode side by side down the paved trail that connected the villages together, Bucky found a sense of peace as he thought about all he had seen and learned.

Not once did any of them make him feel unwelcome. Not one was afraid of him. Not one questioned why, of all the males she could have had that he clearly saw admired her as far more than their leader, she chose Bucky.

To them it had been simple. Even to her admirers. They accepted it almost solely on the basis that she had spent so long hunting him. To them, if she had hunted him for so long, then he had to be worthy of her.

It helped Bucky understand what Essie meant when she said they didn’t think the same way other people did. Yet, it also lightened something inside of him that had been weighing on him. It all did and he could see it did the same for her, not their acceptance of him…but of her.

They had both started therapy a couple of weeks prior. A few days after the thunderstorm. Essie had meticulously selected the doctor he’d be working with and arranged for him to come to the house initially while she went into The Eye to see hers as hers had to be outsourced. No one in Ulfhrafn was really prepared or able to take on their Alpha as a patient so she had contacted someone that came highly recommended by a close ally.

She got along better with hers than he did initially until his got rid of the notebook and just used a tablet instead once Tanis explained why Bucky was being so difficult and verbally hostile.

Tanis had been surprised to be the one asked to be there with him as he expected it to be Maggie, Ruun, or Ritva. He understood when Bucky explained that Ruun and Ritva hadn’t seen him as The Winter Soldier. Then he found it hilarious when Bucky explained he’d never had nightmares of Tanis flying a helicopter.

His therapist was named Doctor Tad Clawson and, once they got past the initial hurdle of the notebook, he explained he went into his field after Essie had become Alpha as a way of helping others in the Pack process everything that had happened during the old Alpha’s rule. He explained that he specialized in helping those that had been captured, imprisoned, and forced into certain situations that left them with similar symptoms as Bucky had.

It was then Bucky learned that Tanis had been one of his first patients due to everything that had happened with his sister. The Gamma served as something of a bridge between the two until Bucky relaxed enough to open up. Relax and remind himself why he even agreed to it in the first place.

Alpine helped. The other cats went about their usual business. Willow on her perch surveying her children and the world outside for feline intruders. Aspen doing her best to sucker Tanis into giving her a treat. Knox doing his best to knock the notebook off the end table it had been tossed on while Pine sat looking up at the doctor like he was the one there psychoanalyzing someone.

Alpine had hopped up beside Bucky and sat there with him, providing a calm, serene, and warm presence that soothed him. The doctor had looked at her and nodded. He never questioned why she was there just how she got to be there, what prompted Bucky to extend help to her and her family, how it made him feel to care for them, and a number of other questions before the end of the session.

Doctor Clawson had left him with several suggestions, ones Bucky was initially skeptical about. Ones it turned out Essie’s had recommended as well. They helped.

Bucky had to admit he liked his doctor. He had asked and suggested instead of told. That was the main reason he agreed to see the doctor on a twice weekly basis due to the level of PTSD he had, among other things.

For Essie it was more complicated. She agreed to twice weekly when possible. Her duties as Alpha wouldn’t always allow her to make time for it. So far they had.

It was a good start and though they were a long way from finished, some things had improved for them both. Individually and together. Namely his actions he’d taken towards becoming more independent and self-sufficient.

It took a lot of weight off of her shoulders and made him feel more in control. His cooking wasn’t fancy, but it meant the world to her that he did it and had done so without making a mountain of mess. She particularly loved the lunches he’d send her off to The Eye with on days she had to head there.

Arriving back at the house Bucky smiled as they went in and were greeted by the cats. Essie went straight into the kitchen to set down the snack bags she’d been given. When she returned he smiled lightly at her, at least until he saw she was lost in thought with a small frown.

“What is it?” he asked and she blinked and looked at him, thinking for a few moments before speaking again.

“Tomorrow…it’s gonna be bad.” She admitted with a particular look he had learned meant she was pushing herself to not hide an aspect of what she was now from him, so he waited for the rest of what she had to say about it, “It’s going to be a Feeding Day…and you know what those are, but sometimes they coincide with what they think should have been my first shift day. That’s the best they can figure out here. I’m going to be in pain, miserable, and…honestly I don’t really know what’s going to happen with you here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve hallucinated you on those days. Not just you from the war…”

“The Winter Soldier.” He said and she nodded.

“Not…doing anything. Just…sitting. Silently, head tilted, watching me…but honestly I prefer him to her.” Essie said and he frowned as he went over to her, knowing who she meant.

She had explained to him that the ghosts that haunted her when sleep deprived included not only him but also her family. All of them except for one. Emmaline.

She relaxed into him as his arms wrapped around her, her head on his shoulder as she took a deep breath in and calmed herself. Her doctor had urged her to stop avoiding certain things as, while he understood that Essie didn’t want to overwhelm or hurt Bucky, not telling him in advance could do just that and worse. It wasn’t healthy for her either and neither was isolating herself in times of need or stressful situations.

He approved of the cats, saying something about how taking care of animals was shown to help those with PTSD. She had expressed her concerns over their presence as small animals being trapped in a house with someone that had a history of eating anything. He pointed out that those instances were under conditions that were not the same as the ones now as she regularly fed herself and took steps to not repeat those conditions. Then he doubled down on the cats being a good thing once he asked several more questions about them and received her answers.

Other topics had come up, including her care for Bucky’s condition having acted as a trigger yet he understood it was a difficult and complex situation she hadn’t intended to go about the way it had. He had given recommendations on how to proceed forward with it. All while stressing that she remember she was not alone, didn’t have to do it on her own, and that she needed to do things for herself as well. The main one being not isolating herself off from help by hiding things.

“He doesn’t talk. He just sits.” She said as he held her close and ran his hand up and down her back gently making her smile a bit even as her stomach grumbled, “There was…one time…I didn’t mind seeing her there. She came when he was sitting there. I think it was because it was…it was also that time of the month so I was…really out of it from pain, eating, nausea, and just being exhausted. He’s sitting in the corner chair staring, I was annoyed at him just…staring and not doing anything…feeling like absolute…shit. Physically, mentally, emotionally…and usually when I get to a low enough point Eddie comes and tells me stories. I don’t…know why, but anyway, this time it wasn’t him. It was Emmie and when I tell you I was completely out of it, I mean it, and I’m sorry…”

Essie heard the footsteps before she saw her, but then there she was. Green dress with white flowers, hair braided in two pigtails, flowers in her hair, a light jacket and brown boots. Just like always.

Emmaline.

The Soldier didn’t care as the little girl stared at him. Grey eyes blinking. Rocking back and forth on her feet as she smiled.

“You have pretty hair.”

He looked at her, blinking. Emmaline smiled more and giggled. Essie reached for her phone and dialed. It picked up on the second ring.

“Tanis…I need you to get me out of this house…and take me to Ritva. She’s in the grove…right?”

Tanis’s voice was quick to answer, concerned, and she heard him moving already, “Yeah. She’s in the grove. I’ll be right there…what’s…are you alright?”

Emmaline was sitting on the back of the chair, braiding the Soldier’s hair while he stared at Essie again. Silent. Absurd.

“No. I need…I need to get out…Emmie’s braiding his hair.”

“I was waiting on the steps for him when he got here. He took me straight to Ritva and she gave me some of the berries while listening to me. Admittedly the sight of you as the Winter Soldier with pink ribboned braids sticking out from your head is hilarious…and it also prompted me to seek help for the first time on one of those days…but it was a lot at the time.” Essie finished and Bucky huffed softly as he stood there holding her close, smile playing at his lips, “She never…says anything horrible. She just plays, asks questions, asks for stories, and…is my little sister. It just hurts to see her. More than it ever hurt to see him…”

He nodded, wondering about his own little sister, his family, and understood. The Winter Soldier wasn’t beyond Essie’s reach. Emmaline was.

“Well…if you see either of them tomorrow…you’ll tell me. Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She nodded while nuzzling into him more, calm, “You smell good.”

“I’m not dinner.” Bucky replied, light and easy, teasing her a bit and smiled gently when she chuckled.

“At least you didn’t try to tell me you don’t taste good. I’d argue.” She teased back and Bucky smiled at the memory it triggered, holding her closer as he remembered it.

“Then I’d argue it mustn’t have been that good. You haven’t kissed me like that since the 40s.” he replied and she smiled warmly.

“Oh no…no no no. We are not leaving it up to me to do that again. No. It’s not raining and interrupting you trying to kiss me again. Besides…I’m the one that got turned into some supernatural thing by some other evil thing.” Essie retorted as she knew what he was referring to.

Tink. Tink tink tink. Tink tink tink tink tink tink tink tink tink tink tink…

Bucky groaned as he took a deep breath in while they sat on her couch in her flat, leaned in halfway as the rain began to hit the windowpanes, “Every time…I swear I’m cursed.”

Essie smiled and laughed lightly while shaking her head as he scowled at the dark skies outside the windows, “Well…then I better do it.”

“Huh?” he asked as he felt her pull on his tie and turned his head to face her, instead finding her lips pressing against his.

“And I didn’t? I’ve got a metal arm.” He retorted and held it up, “Courtesy of evil thing.”

“Knights have metal arms. Yours is just permanently attached.” Essie countered as she looked at him and he shook his head.

“I’m not a knight in shining armor with a mustache and a goatee like Robin Hood.”

“I don’t know if I’d laugh if you did have that or if I’d like it. I can never decide if I like the stubble, clean shave, or when it gets longer…they’re all equally nice…but Robin Hood combo…not sure.” she replied as she gently scratched his jaw, “But I’m not doing it this time. Last time we established you’re not cursed and you didn’t turn into anything else.”

“Mh…good…” Essie purred against his lips smiling against hers, his arms pulling her against him to take her lips in his sweetly and swiftly, “Hmm…you didn’t turn into a prince.”

“Why is that good?” Bucky asked.

“Because most of the princes in the fairytales are either boring, stupid, or treat their princesses horribly. I’d much rather have you.” She answered.

“I thought you were happy I didn’t turn into anything else.” He said before kissing her cheek softly, smiling as he felt it light up beneath his lips.

“I was, yes, very. I still am because I’d still rather have you.” She answered while wrapping her arms around his neck as she looked at him, “You’re better.”

“How? They’re literally Prince Charming.” Bucky asked playfully and raised his eyebrows when she just looked at him flatly.

“I am not giving you a dissertation on fairytale princes to prove my point. They were creepy, boring, or stupid…or worse if you want to get into the true depths and origins of some of them, which I’m not.” Essie answered while looking at him, “You were always better. You still are. I mean…really, Bucky…can you imagine me now with some Prince Charming like from the stories? Me? Madam Alpha? Can you imagine someone like that walking in here and trying to do anything like that?”

He smiled and shook his head while laughing lightly, “No…well…yeah, but after today I just imagine everyone tryin’ to get rid of him. ‘Who the hell are you? You see that building over there with the different stonework? That was unassailable. She blew that up and just walked in. She fought every warrior we had the day she got here and even showed mercy. She made us magical cookies after punching the town bully in the face. She gave us all a new catchphrase.’”

Essie laughed and dropped her head on his shoulder. She had forgotten to tell him before they left that he’d likely hear Steve’s name at some point. Her people had followed her example and elevated it. Anyone, usually children, that said they were going to do some grandiose thing much larger than they were capable of physically doing or announced they were going to something recklessly stupid, or were in the process of doing it, were responded to with two words: “Okay, Steve.”

He had heard it halfway through their day when a kid climbing the side of a building to get his sister’s toy was called out by his mother.

“Okay, Steve, get your little rear down here this instant! You could have just come inside and gone out the window to the flower box, not scale the building!”

Bucky had looked at Essie immediately as she started laughing while explaining she had inadvertently caused them to adopt her habit of naming people Steve. He just shook his head laughing. It wasn’t the last time it happened.

“I didn’t make magical cookies.” Essie countered as she laughed while looking back at him and smiled when he pressed his forehead to hers.

“I know, but they’d tell some prince walking in that they were and then ask if he could make magical cookies. If I hadn’t gone down to the village here already I’d have been worried about today more than I was. Your people love you, are proud of you, and…if anyone ever…took you or tried to take you…not only would I lose my damn mind completely…but they’d all be there helping me rip things apart.” He said and she ran her fingers through his hair tenderly.

“They definitely wouldn’t let you do it alone. You’re part of the Pack. Doesn’t matter if you’re a Wolf or not.” She said as she looked into his eyes before kissing his cheek, “I told you…I’m not doing it this time, no matter how much you try to distract me from that and flatter me. I’m not doing it this time . I want you to make the decision to take that step forward. I’m not gonna make it for you no matter how much I want it. It needs to be your choice. It doesn’t have to happen now. Or ever. We can continue as we are. Whatever you want, whenever you’re ready.”

Her stomach grumbled. They both glanced down and Essie sighed, yet she smiled at the sensation of his hand tilting her head back up to look at him, thumb gently running over her lips, remembering them.

She watched him swallow as he thought about it. Longing yet…unsure. There was something there holding him back.

“What if it’s not what you remember?” He asked and she smiled.

“Nothing has been like what I remember, Bucky, but that doesn’t make it worse or bad. Maybe it’ll be better.” She answered and shrugged her eyebrows up, “I mean…you cook now. That’s better.”

He smiled before pressing his lips to hers softly, pulling her closer as hers pressed back. It ended must as softly as it had begun, his nose lightly running against hers as he caressed her face with a smile. Then her stomach grumbled again.

“Let’s get you some food.” Bucky smiled and she nodded with smile before pressing a soft kiss to his lips he happily returned, “You want me to cook?”

“Please.”

A/N: Progress. Yes. Mentally and romantically. Next chapter sees more of the changes to the MCU canon I have made.

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Masterlists: Howling Witch🔹MASTER Masterlist

Previous Part: Chapter 11: Alpha

Ao3 Link: Chapter 12: Rain (Registered users only)

Next Part: Chapter 13: Visit

“Didn’t think you’d come.” Fury said as he stood with Steve and Sam under the tree while Essie walked up.

She was in a black leather jacket, hair pulled out of her face into a ponytail, thick sunglasses on, red high necked tank top underneath, black jeans and combat boots. Casual. Tired.

Steve glanced behind her and spotted Bucky by a tree, standing mostly behind it. Cap on his head, denim jacket, a dark red henley shirt, jeans, and boots. He was writing in a journal, hands gloved.

Beyond him was the car. Black, dark windows. Her people standing there waiting obediently. Some were at attention, others, like Tanis, were more at ease.

“I already said my farewells to Steve and Natasha. It’d be rude not to say them to Sam…or you. Strange feeling isn’t it?” Essie asked, nodding her head at the stone by their feet and he nodded, “Welcome to the club.”

“He here?” Fury asked and she nodded, glancing at the tree, and he looked over and nodded before looking back at her, “Shouldn’t stay long.”

“I’m not. We’re out of here as soon as I’m done here. Heading back to Ulfhrafn. My business is concluded here for the time being. Set a new record in destruction this time…even if I had some help.” She said and he nodded, “Maggie said you had a message. What is it?”

“We’ve been datamining HYDRA’s files…not everyone went down with the ship.” He said and she shook her head, “Not surprised are you?”

“We cauterized this stump pretty good, but…there’s others. Right now they’re scrambling around here still. Lost. Confused. They’ll head to the other bases soon. Like cockroaches seeking cover.” She said as she crossed her arms across her chest.

“I was wondering if you wanted in.” Fury said and nodded, “You’ve got a lot cut out for you right now, though. Rehabilitating The Winter Soldier is a tall order.”

“He’s not The Winter Soldier anymore. He can be. Duke has his notebook with his triggers in it. I’m going to be calling in a lot of favors from my allies to get them out of his head. We’ve got good tech at home, but nothing that can do that. That’s delicate work. Our stuff’s far more robust and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I have very bright minds amongst my people, but as good as they are with things…they’re not wired to develop something that can unwire commands from him.” She said and Steve frowned then sighed as Sam spoke.

“What if he goes back? To being the Winter Soldier? It’s a lot to take in right now and you’re his main caregiver. You’re emotionally invested. This is going to be rough on you, too.” He said and she nodded, “It already is.”

“It is and I know. If he goes back? I know how to stop him. There’s a trigger failsafe if I have to do it. I know he won’t hurt me. Not on purpose. He’s…still very upset he shot me instead of Steve.” She replied and they all nodded, “It’s not the first time. We’ve shot at each other before, which he knows and hates, but that one actually knocked me down so…he hates that more.”

“For all your talk about sacrificing Steve for him you went and sacrificed yourself for Steve.” Fury chuckled and she looked at him.

“I wouldn’t call it sacrificing myself exactly. Not if I know the bullet won’t go through. We’ve got good tac suits. Smarted like a bitch though. I’d still toss any one of you off a train though and I’m still undecided if I’m upset he didn’t aim higher at you after that shit you taught Maggie.”

“I’m gonna have to agree with her on that one.” Sam said as he looked at Fury who just looked at them both offended.

“Well you’re here aren’t ya?” he asked and she chuckled and looked behind her as she heard Tanis talking, spotting Natasha talking to him for a moment, “He doesn’t stop, does he?”

“Tanis? No, not unless she asks him to. If she did, he would. He’s a flirt, but he’s got a heart of gold when you get in it. Best thing in the whole world with him is watching him sit himself down in his sister’s house, on the floor, put on a little straw hat with flowers on it, and play teatime with his niece. He loves that little girl with all of his heart and soul and he keeps a picture she drew for him of his ‘superhero ID’ in his wallet. Laminated.” Essie said and they looked at her making her laugh as she nodded, “Yeah. Maggie’s more of a hard ass than he is. He just hides it most of the time.”

“Yeah, but Buck still hates him.” Steve said as he watched Bucky watch Tanis, eyes narrowed a bit.

“Yeah. Of all the scenarios that went through my head of how any of this could go…him being possessive of me was not one of them. I had a whole plan in place of how to handle this. I know it’s not really good for me to be constantly there with him. I had a whole plan. One where I’d go see him and talk to him if he asked for me, but I’d let our medical team handle it. Let him heal. Let him adjust. The whole nine yards. With professionals.” Essie said as Natasha made her way over, stopping briefly to say a few words to Bucky before continuing on her way over, “That plan has gone right out of the window. The only person he really seems to trust is me. I’m still rather stunned by it.”

“He loves you. I think he loved you from the first time he set eyes on you flapping papers around yelling at that corporal in the map room, beating him with a rolled up map while calling him an…um, ‘an illiterate moron that wouldn’t know how to spell A even if someone guided his hand while doing it’.” Steve said with a laugh and Essie looked at him.

“You’re no better. Peggy punched someone and that earned her your instant admiration. Any woman that wants your attention needs to be able to punch someone while wearing heels and a skirt.” She retorted and Natasha’s eyebrows went up.

“Well that explains a lot.” She said and Steve sighed.

“Ignore her.”

“Don’t ignore me. I’ve known him since before he was buff and shiny.” Essie said and Steve shook his head.

“I’m not shiny, Essie.”

“You were when you came out of the tube. Shiny, buff, half-naked, instant heartthrob. All the ladies were enamored with you. I was just confused.”

“You weren’t into him?” Sam asked amused and she looked at him.

“I’ll tell you what I told Bucky: ‘I’m not a magpie’.” She said and Bucky looked over as he heard his name making her smile at him softly, and his lips twitched upwards for a second before his brows furrowed as he looked at Steve again, “I never wanted something shiny, just something bright. I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again without it being an old film reel…but that man had a smile that could melt a glacier…and it did. Me…and despite it all, I don’t regret letting him do it. I’d do it again and again and again.”

Steve nodded. He knew this was going to be hard for her. He knew it was going to push her to her limits. Sam had already made that perfectly clear when they had talked about it. Essie had her own trauma to deal with and she was going to pile Bucky’s on top of her own. It wasn’t the best of ideas, but Steve understood why she was doing it…even if he didn’t understand why she thought the way she did.

She still thought Bucky wouldn’t want her as she was. Still thought he’d come out the other side of this and see her only as the monster she saw in the mirror every morning. Steve knew damn well that wasn’t going to happen, but she hadn’t seen the look on his face when he shot her.

She hadn’t seen how his heart shattered. She didn’t see how relieved he had been to see her get back up. She didn’t see how he looked at her anytime she wasn’t looking at him.

Maybe he didn’t remember everything, but Bucky still looked at her like she hung the moon. Steve knew his friend well enough to know that. That and he knew damn well that if anyone could get him through the other side of this it was Essie.

“We need to get going.” She said, drawing him out of his thoughts and she looked at Fury, “I’ll help where I can. I can’t promise more than that. I do have a small country of my own to run. It’s not much, really, but it’s my responsibility. Natasha has my information, but…you’re welcome to visit. You, too, Sam.”

“Really?” he asked as she dug out three cards and handed them out to him, Steve and Fury while nodding.

“Yeah. You’re allowed to visit. Bit cynical but you’ve got your head screwed on right.” She said and he smiled a bit.

“Can I talk to him?” Steve asked her and she looked at Bucky and gestured her head at Steve.

He took a moment to respond. Obviously he was thinking about it, but eventually he nodded. Only when she gave the go ahead did Steve walk over while she talked with Natasha, warning him beforehand that it was a talkative day for Bucky.

He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he hoped it was good.

“Hey, Buck.” Steve greeted and Bucky gave him a tight, unsure, small smile; Steve took a deep breath in while looking around and gathering his thoughts, “I…know…you don’t remember much, about me right now, do you?”

“You’re Steve Rogers. You’re…Captain America. You were my friend…but…smaller.” Bucky said as he thought and looked into the notebook, flipping through pages of it, and Steve saw it was all in his handwriting of different memories, “You puked on a roller coaster once. More than once. You got beat up a lot.”

“I did. Yes. I’m not small anymore, but I’m still your friend, Buck. You know who she is?” Steve asked and nodded his head at Essie and Bucky nodded, “Tell me who she is.”

“Essie. My Essie. She…she’s not the same as she was back then. She’s different…more hurt, and…they did things to her that made her…different, but she’s still my Essie. Isn’t she?” he answered and Steve nodded with a small smile.

“She always was and always will be. She’s not the same as back then. She’s different, but…she’s not as different as she thinks.” He said and Bucky nodded.

“I know. She’s afraid I’m going to leave.” He said and sighed, “She’s afraid I’ll turn back into him.”

Steve shook his head, “No. That’s not what she’s afraid of.”

“Then what?” Bucky asked, confused, and Steve debated how to handle this for a few moments.

“She’s afraid…that…when you get better…that you’ll look at her and see what she sees in the mirror…and then you’ll leave. She’s afraid of that, but she’d let you go. She’s never going to let anyone keep you as a prisoner, not even herself. She loves you too much to do that to you, but if you wanted to leave, leave her, she’d let you.” Steve said and Bucky looked at Essie from where he was, “She just wants you to be happy and free. I want the same. I want you both to be happy and free. Together. Apart. Whatever happiness looks like. You both deserve that. She’s been through a lot, so have you.”

“She won’t tell me what happened to her. It’s frustrating. She…has me writing down things I remember, but…sometimes it doesn’t feel real. Did…” Bucky started and flipped through the past few pages of his journal, and showed it to him, “Did this happen?”

Steve looked down at the page and read the words. He remembered the event perfectly. Exactly as it was written.

“You’re hopeless.” Jim laughed as they sat around a fire and Bucky laughed, shaking his head, Monty agreed with Jim.

“No, you really are, Barnes. Of every woman back at base that you could have, and there are plenty that would have you, you pick…Agent Esteria Stark. Granted I didn’t think she’d have you at all, but you still pick her? She’s like a rabid schnauzer.” He said and Bucky just shook his head again.

“Yeah, well, she’s my schnauzer…and she’s not rabid.” Bucky said while cleaning his rifle, “I’d watch saying that in earshot, too. She’s a damn good shot.”

“Since when?” Monty asked and they all looked at Bucky, “You didn’t.”

“Why not? We’re at war. Anything happens she should know how to defend herself. Look…you just see her being hostile all the time but think about it. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s smart. She wouldn’t be here and doing what she does if she wasn’t smart enough to do it and all anyone sees is a pretty skirt. That or they flip back and forth between trusting her and not trusting her depending on how her accent slips. Yeah, she’s German, but I don’t think there’s a single person back there that wants to take down HYDRA more than she does.” Bucky said and Dum Dum gestured at Steve.

“He punched Hitler over 200 times.” He said and Bucky shook his head as they all laughed a bit.

“Maybe…but if she had the chance she’d lock him and Schmidt in a room, set it on fire, and watch it burn drinking schnapps. Her whole family. Mother, father, brother, and sister. Grandparents. All her neighbors. All her friends. Schmidt took them and did to them what he did to us and probably worse. Her sister was just a kid. A little kid. Her own aunt betrayed her entire family and village to HYDRA. If anyone has a right to be an angry schnauzer she does. She’s not rabid, she’s angry and I don’t know a single damn person that wouldn’t be angry about that.”

“Neither do I.” Steve agreed and they all nodded, “You still got it bad, though.”

“Yeah, well none of you have ever seen her smile. Really smile. If you did you’d understand. Sure, there’s plenty of girls back at base, but you know what? I’ll settle for just one.”

“He’s been tamed.” Gabe said in playful awe and they laughed, including Bucky, “This is great news, though. The rest of us have a chance again!”

They all laughed harder and Bucky just smiled.

“Yeah. We knew about her family, but not her aunt. Knowing what happened to her now…her aunt knew the whole time what they wanted but she did it anyway. Y’know…I always knew how much you cared about her. I just never understood how much she cared back.” Steve said after a few moments, frowning gently as Bucky looked at him, his expression attentive, yet it was almost like he was listening to Steve talk about a different person, “Then again I never spent that much time with her to learn. She’s a good lady. Took me seventy years to say it but I like her.”

“Why didn’t you then?” Bucky asked then paused, thinking, “Did you ever like any woman I went with?”

Steve thought for a moment about it, trying to remember if he had and eventually answered, “Well, pal, you went through them so fast I don’t think I ever had an opportunity to get to know them. You were a lot like Tanis.”

“No I’m not.” Bucky replied instantly with a scowl and Steve chuckled.

“Not now, but you were. You even tried with Peggy. Then you met Essie and that all stopped.” He said and shook his head, “Tanis doesn’t want to take her away from you, Buck. He’s her friend. That’s it. They just want her to be happy and they trust in her leadership.”

“Are you going to visit?” Bucky asked him and Steve nodded.

“Yeah. I’ll visit. I have some things I gotta do here first, though.” He said and Bucky nodded then looked as Essie walked up, “Time to go?”

“Yeah. We can’t linger here too long. Too exposed.” She said and he nodded and looked at Bucky.

“Can I hug her without you getting mad about it?” he asked and Essie rolled her eyes with a sigh.

“Yeah.” Bucky nodded and Essie chuckled before hugging Steve as he hugged her.

“You want to visit, just call the number.” She said and he nodded.

“I will. You take care of yourself and if you need anything just come get me.” He said and she nodded.

“I will. Be safe. Don’t do anything dumb.” She said and he laughed lightly.

“I’ll try. No promises.” He said and looked at Bucky, holding his hand out and smiled a bit as he took it and allowed Steve to pull him into a short hug, “You’re going to be alright.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t you. You take care of yourself and don’t do anything stupid until I get there.” Steve said and Bucky smiled a bit as he remembered something once he let go and took Essie’s hand in his.

“How can I? I’m leaving all the stupid here with you.” He said and Essie shook a bit with silent laughter as she smiled gently at the two of them.

“THAT is your plane?” Bucky asked as they walked towards the sleek, white and black private jet with twin turbines, sun shielding, and a suspicious amount of red runes painted on the bottom of it.

“Yes. Let’s get in.” Essie nodded.

She held his left hand in her right, knowing he could feel it as she squeezed reassuringly. She didn’t really know how, but she knew he could feel something. Heading up the steps with him she separated from his hand long enough for him to get in through the door before letting him take it again so she could lead him to a seat as Maggie and Tanis followed.

“You’re not flying this…right?” Bucky asked Essie’s Delta who shook her head.

“No. I’m not allowed to fly this.”

“Good.” He said and several of the other Wolves there that made up Essie’s guard laughed, including Essie and Maggie herself.

They sat down and buckled in. Soon enough they were taxiing down the runway and taking off into the air. Bucky wrote in his journal once they were leveled out in the sky while Essie got to work on several things she needed to tend to as Alpha.

Eventually, though, he put his pen down and looked at her, drawing her attention to him from the laptop she was using. He glanced at the screen, seeing it contained numbers, codes, and a multitude of things he didn’t understand. Bucky wasn’t sure he wanted to understand it all since it looked confusing, but curiosity compelled him.

“What is that?” he asked and she looked at the laptop, “I know you explained what that is…but…what are you doing?”

“Ulfhrafn is a small country. Very small, but it does have a substantial amount of business it conducts with other countries since I took over. This is largely resource management and trade agreements. Business proposals. Updating allies on the situation we just left. A few things.” She answered and he nodded quietly, thinking, “I know it’s…different…and a lot to take in all at once, so…don’t worry about it right now.”

“Stop telling me not to worry about things right now. I want to know so I know if what I’m remembering is real or not. You weren’t there in the exhibit but you’re in my memories. Not all, but a lot. I know you were there back then…but why aren’t you there in that? Why does it matter if you had a fight with Peggy?” he asked and she nodded, swallowing before she spoke.

“Peggy helped create SHEILD. She helped memorialize you. I’m not there because HYDRA, pretending to be the British version of SHEILD, told them that I was a traitor and told her what I did to escape their facility. It’s what I have nightmares about most nights and why I eat so much food. They told her and showed her what I did to convince her that I was dangerous and a monster. That’s why I’m not there.”

“You’re not a monster.” Bucky said as he looked at her, frowning, and she took a deep breath in, not wanting to explain what happened, not yet, not in that moment, not in a jet with the people there that looked to her for stability even if he was being rather talkative instead of just shutting down, “Not like I am. You’re not a monster. You didn’t do what I did.”

“You’re not a monster, Bucky. You didn’t have a choice. That doesn’t make you a monster. If you were a monster you wouldn’t regret what they made you do.” Essie said gently as she slipped her hand into his, squeezing the metal and he squeezed gently back.

“Then that means you’re not a monster either.” He replied and she opened her mouth yet shut it again.

“I forgot about your ability to turn my words against me.” She said with a slight scowl then looked at the screen when he pointed at it with his right hand.

“Tell me what you’re doing.” He said, his tone bordering on an order, but she let it slide…sort of.

“I just did.” She said and he shook his head.

“No. What you’re really doing. There’s a map. I saw a map on here. Tell me.” He said and she nodded before hitting a few keys to bring the window up.

“This is Ulfhrafn, where we’re going, but it’s unplottable to the rest of the world. It’s in something called a pocket plane. There are others that exist, ones I have contact with, but am forbidden from discussing anywhere not Ulfhrafn, even to you. I’ll tell you about them one day, but not now even if you pout at me.” Essie began to explain and tabbed up another map with a blinking red dot on it, “The dot is us. We access Ulfhrafn via a tunnel and a bridge that we can raise and lower at will to different access points in the world. There used to be only one but that’s not strategically a good idea and I like having multiple exits at all times, so there are others just in case someone tries to lay siege to one. The one we’re heading to is here, in the North Atlantic. It’s a small island, large enough for an airstrip. We’ll land here and then head underground where the tunnel is.”

He blinked at her, absorbing the information and trying to make sense of it, which a lot of it didn’t. Pocket planes? Access point he understood. Pocket planes he didn’t.

Bucky realized very quickly that that was a good thing. If he didn’t understand it then HYDRA very likely didn’t even know about it. That meant it was safe.

“So it’s…safe?” he asked and she smiled at him gently as his hand lightly caressed hers while it continued holding onto it.

“Mostly. There are animals and things that might try to eat you if you wander out too far into the woods at night like anywhere else with wildlife and a predator population, but yes. I make sure it is. For everyone.” Essie answered and hit a few more keys to bring up what she was working on earlier, “This is just resource management. Funds, farming, prey animal populations, predator populations and locations for the big ones, timber, mining, export tracking, import reliability, everything you need to know and pay attention to so everything runs smoothly, safely, and happily for people. This tab is filled with testing scores from the schools so I can make sure the children are getting well-rounded educations. If one subject is lacking across the board then there’s something wrong with how it’s being taught. If one child is lacking then they may need some extra help or there’s something else going on. Things like that. This tab is just a list of business proposals I have to look over from inside and outside of Ulfhrafn and I’m telling you not to worry about that right now because I don’t want to worry about that right now.”

“Why?”

“Because a lot of them are admittedly quite dumb or disturbing to me.” She answered with a look he nodded in understanding to, yet he was still curious.

“Like what?”

“Bioengineering sheep to be different colors.” She answered and he looked at her with a confused scowl, “Exactly. I don’t like the idea of bioengineering anything for…personal reasons, so…no. I don’t want to invest in that and I don’t want to read through more things like that right now. This tab is purely correspondence with Ruun.”

“Who is Ruun? You keep mentioning them.” Bucky asked and she hit a few keys to bring up a personnel file.

It depicted a scowling broad shouldered, muscular, male with an eye patch and dark hair heavily salted with silver. His one good eyes was bright silver like hers. He had a thick beard, braided down from his heavy mustache. His arms were large and heavily tattooed with ropes, knots, and runes from his knuckles on up to his shoulders.

He looked…imposing.

And very male.

“This is Ruun. Ruun is my Beta. Meaning if I’m not in Ulfhrafn he’s in charge. He’s not much of a talker but his silences are often enough to say plenty. His Mate, or wife as you’d call her, is Ritva.” Essie explained and hit another key to bring up a picture of a smiling, outwardly younger looking, female with bright auburn hair that went down past her waist in a thick multi-stranded braid, a few strands of silver streaking through it, and soft green eyes, “She’s the talker of the two and spiritual leader of Ulfhrafn. She’s very nice, very calm, very motherly, and Ruun…as imposing as he looks he’s a teddy bear with her. He’s the more…technologically competent of the two so he’s the one I hear from when I’m away. Ritva writes letters when I’m home, though. Everyday. Just little notes sometimes or big long things. A lot of people think she’s kind of nuts because of how she talks, but she’s not. She is…the most calming person I know.”

“What’s that?” he asked as he pointed at something on the screen.

“That is an email from another country I am allied with regarding your recovery and…deprogramming.” Essie answered and he looked at her frowning, “I’m not afraid of you, honey. I’m not afraid you’re going to just…turn back into the Soldier, but…with the triggers…someone can make you even if you don’t want to and that’s not right. Ulfhrafn has a lot of advanced technology you’ll have to get used to, but we don’t have anything that can do that and our top scientists aren’t even mentally wired to be able to conceptualize undoing something like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wolves live by Ranking and following orders from the Alpha. They’re just born that way mentally. It’s been hard getting them to a point where they feel even slightly comfortable telling me I’m doing even the slightest thing, like cooking something, wrong. A lot of that was conditioning, but a lot is also just…how they are. That means they can’t fathom how to make someone not follow orders when they’re given or to take the urge to follow orders out of someone.” Essie explained and he nodded slowly, not really there in understanding yet he could grasp the basic concept of it easily enough, “So I’m talking to one of our allies, a different country that has a thing with cats, in order to procure help in that area for you…so you’ll be free.”

“Are they in a pocket plane?” Bucky asked and she paused before answering.

“Nnoo…they do something different that is very technologically advanced and that I don’t understand at all so couldn’t even begin to explain. I’m smart…but I’m not that kind of smart.” Essie replied before quickly answering back a bit of correspondence with someone from where she was talking about, “They have some of the world’s brightest minds there…but that’s still in the works and likely will be for a while.”

He nodded and quietly watched her work on and off in between writing in his journal. Occasionally he asked her other questions, questions about her memories, his memories, and things he was unsure of. Essie answered them as best she could. Some she wasn’t present for so couldn’t. Some she could only gently run her fingers through his hair during as they came in hard flashes that made his head hurt.

Eventually he dozed off with his head on her shoulder. It didn’t take her long to doze off herself, her head against his. It didn’t last long as she felt his left hand squeezing hers tighter and tighter.

Waking up she looked at him to see his brows furrowing while he slept. A few seconds later he startled awake, blue eyes darting around to orient himself until they landed on her face and her hand squeezed tight in his. Bucky released it instantly, worried he’d hurt her until he saw she was fine.

“It’s alright, Bucky. I’m okay. You’re okay. We’re all okay. My back’s a bit stiff, but I’m okay. You didn’t hurt me. I’m tougher than I look.” Essie said and he felt a memory flash back in.

“Listen to me you overgrown ass with ears if you touch me one more time I will hit you so hard you’ll have to use the chiclets in your rations to replace your two front teeth!” Essie’s voice snapped while Bucky and Steve were walking past the communications tent.

They both stopped what they were doing, eyes narrowed and started for the other side as the other person spoke, “That’s real cute, dollface.”

They both started running when they heard the sound of flesh hitting into flesh and the soldier cursing. Sliding into the tent they were greeted by the sight of the soldier holding his face. Blood flowed freely between his fingers while Essie stood there panting and infuriated, hands balled into fists.

“You fucking bitch!” the man mumbled through his fingers, “You broke my fucking nose!”

“I thought I heard her say she’d take out his teeth.” Steve said and the soldier stiffened, turning around to face the two best friends, and Bucky nodded, seething.

“So did I. Maybe we should give her another try.” He said while glaring until standing at attention when the Colonel walked in.

“What the hell is going on here?” he asked and glanced at the bleeding soldier then at Steve and Bucky until the soldier spoke.

“Fucking Kraut bitch broke my nose!” he said while pointing at Essie and Philips looked at Essie, raising his eyebrows.

“Well? Did you?”

“I didn’t mean to. I meant to knock his teeth out for touching me inappropriately.” Essie admitted while glaring.

“What are you doing in here at this hour?” Philips asked her and she took a deep breath in to calm herself before speaking.

“A new transmission came in. Heavily coded, but I recognized the name. He was here because Peggy, Agent Carter sent him in to fetch me for dinner. I told him to go get Sergeant Barnes for cross reference. He decided that he would show me how much better at what he assumes it is that Sergeant Barnes does for me. I told him not to touch me again. He did. I punched him.” She answered and Bucky scowled yet kept his face straight when Phillips glanced at him before looking back at the soldier.

“Rogers. Escort this man to the infirmary and then to the guardhouse for disciplinary measures. I know it’s not your usual line of work…”

“I’d be happy to, sir.” Steve said and gripped the soldier’s arm, tight, and pulled him out of the tent.

“Where’s the transmission from?”  Phillips asked and Essie answered.

“Castle de Krake. It’s located in the Black Forest.” She said and both Phillips’s and Bucky’s eyebrows rose.

“Your neck of the woods?” the colonel asked.

“Close enough I grew up hearing horror stories about that castle. It’s right up HYDRA’s alley. Big, imposing, creepy to look at, and right in the middle of some of the thickest of the forest. It won’t be a weapon’s base. I know that. You couldn’t ship anything large out. Not through the trees unless you clear cut it but then you’d ruin its defensive capabilities. It’s got to be something else.” She answered and he glanced at Bucky.

“You remember anything about this Castle de Krake, Barnes?” he asked and Bucky took a deep breath in, thinking.

“I heard some talk from some of the officers about higher ups meeting there. Other talk about…” Bucky said and paused as he remembered some of what it was and what she had told him.

“Go on.” Phillips said to him and he continued.

“Tests that didn’t go as planned with their subjects.” He said with a look at the colonel he understood and they both glanced at Essie, her jaw set tight, muscles shifting as she swallowed and took a deep breath in, “So it’s either a lab…or one of their headquarters. Not the big one. That one’s somewhere else and they’d be shipping things to it she says they can’t to this one.”

“Sounds like a nerve center. What’d the transmission say?”

“It said they were stopping their hunt for the Morbach myth.”

“What’s that?” Phillips asked and she sighed shaking her head.

“It’s a legend about a werewolf in Morbach, but that wasn’t the bulk of it. Schmidt has apparantly ordered a meeting  of other higher ranking HYDRA members to discuss a ‘solution’ to Captain America. Not what they call him, but I know what they mean.” She answered and Phillips nodded.

“How much time we got?”

“A week from today.” Essie answered and he nodded, thinking.

“How difficult was this code to break through? Any chance it’s a diversion?” he asked and she shrugged her eyebrows before answering.

“Sir, it’s HYDRA. It’s always a possibility it’s a diversion, a trap, or some plot. They’d sacrifice their own families to get what they want. The code was several layers. Referenced several different things across four different sources. It’s them though. Their codes aren’t like the others. They’re more twisted. Like their precious tentacles they’re so proud of.” She said and he nodded, thinking.

Barnes. Escort Agent Stark to get some dinner in her and some ice on those knuckles. She won’t be of any use to us if her hand swells up.” The colonel said and Barnes nodded, saluting before gesturing out of the tent for Essie.

“I’ll be fine. I’m tougher than I look.” She said and Phillips spoke again.

“That wasn’t a request.”

“Yes sir.” She nodded with a resigned sigh.

“You punched some guy in the nose the night of the Castle de Krake transmission.” Bucky said and Essie thought for a moment and nodded.

“I did. I think Phillips had a thing about women punching his soldiers.” She replied and he raised an eyebrow, “Peggy punched Hodge in the face once. He just let it slide.”

“Did he know about…what happened to you?”

“I don’t really know, Bucky. There’s a high chance he did. What he thought of it…I don’t know. Probably the same as nearly everyone else. He was alright with me, treated me fair, but I wasn’t allowed on that last mission everyone else went on in the Alps so I volunteered elsewhere I’d be useful which ended up getting me captured and turned into what I am now.” Essie answered while shifting in her seat, “I never saw him again so I can’t answer your question. I need to stretch a bit. My neck is stiff and I don’t know how long we were asleep for.”

“Did you have a nightmare?” Bucky asked and she shook her head.

“Not this time…not one of those. I had a dream Maggie took over being pilot.” Essie said and he looked at her horrified.

“That is a nightmare.”

A/N: That's about it. More past experiences and a long road ahead into healing. Reblogging motivates me and so do comments.

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