╭━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━━━✶━━━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━╮
❝ do you pinky promise? ❞
╰━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━━━━✶━━━━ ⋅𖥔⋅ ━╯

𝘈𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘢'𝘴 𝘗𝘖𝘝

"Dr. Nagel?" Sam speaks and the doctor's shaky gasp confirms his identity.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Nagel demands.

"We know you created the super soldier serum" Sam reveals.

"Get out of my lab" The doctor retorts and I raise a brow at him.

"That's not very nice, doc" I declare and the man moves towards me at a fast speed.

"Hey!" Sam yells but Nagel doesn't stop until Bucky steps in front of me, glaring at the doctor.

"You know who he is, right?" Sam taunts the now scared man who is practically shaking while he eyes up Bucky before turning him to face the other man in the room "This is Baron Zemo. I know you've heard of him, too, right? You seem like a pretty smart guy. So you better become conversational real quick"

"How about a counter proposal?" Nagel suggests and I step forwards beside Bucky "Make me a better offer and I'll talk"

"Or how about you talk and we don't kill you?" I offer him.

"Guys, we have company" Sharon warns us through the earpieces.

Bucky grabs the doctor and sits him down on his computer chair, aiming his gun at the man's head.

"Every bounty hunter in the city is here. We gotta go!" Sharon yells at us.

The Barnes man moves his gun a little to the right and lets of a shot, causing the jittery doctor to jump in fright.

"Okay. Okay" Nagel gives in.

"I was brought into HYDRA's Winter Soldier program to pick up their work after the five failed test subjects in Siberia" Nagel admits while Bucky glances at me and the boys "When HYDRA fell, I was recruited by the CIA. They had blood samples from an American test subject with semi-stable traces of serum in his system"

"After much labor, I was able to isolate the necessary compounds in his blood" Nagel explains to us "I was a god. I did what no other scientist since Erskine was able to do. But mine was going to be different. No clunky machines or jacked up bodies. Mine was going to be subtle, optimized, perfect"

"How have we never heard about this?" Sam asks in disbelief.

"Because before I was able to complete my work, I turned to dust. Then when I returned, it was five years later, program had been abandoned, so I came here. The Power Broker was more than happy to fund the recreation of my work" Nagel answers simply.

"How many vials did you make?" Sam questions.

"Twenty" The doctor replies "Karli Morgenthau stole those, so... I can only imagine what the Power Broker has planned for that poor girl"

"Where's Karli now?" Sam continues his interrogation.

"I don't know where she is. But a couple of days ago, she called and asked if I could help someone named Donya Madani. Poor woman has tuberculosis. Typical of overpopulation in displacement camps like that" Doctor Nagel speaks nonchalantly.

"Then what happened to her?" I speak up.

"Not my pig. Not my farm" The doctor shrugs.

"Is there any serum in this lab?" Bucky asks and when the doctor doesn't answer he pushes the barrel of the gun into the man's temple.

"No" Nagel rushes out.

"Now what?" Bucky questions Sam and I, but I merely shrug.

"Guys, we're seriously outta time here" Sharon bursts into the room in a rush.

Using our distraction with Sharon, Zemo pulls out a gun that none of us knew he had and he shoots the doctor in the chest, killing him immediately.

"No!" Sam shouts, tackling Zemo to the wall with the help of Sharon.

"What did you do?" Sharon snaps.

"Are you serious, Zero?" I groan in annoyance "When I said we'd kill him I was joking"

Before anyone has the time to speak or even react to the murder we just witnessed, the whole building shakes and the whole lab bursts into flames.

I'm tackled to the ground by a pair of muscular arms and I grab said arms, flipping our positions so I'm the one covering him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Bucky groans from underneath me, an alarm blaring in the distance or it might be in the lab but my ears are ringing "Aurelia!"

"I'm a god, Barnes" I grin down at him, shaking the dust out my hair "A silly little explosion can't kill me. I'm not the one who needs saving here"

"Get off me" He huffs out and I roll my eyes, crawling off of him.

"Anybody see Zemo?" Sam calls out.

I pull myself to my feet and take a look around but I don't see shit as I make my way over to Sam and Sharon. Bucky yanks Sam to his feet while I offer Sharon my hand, pulling the woman up.

"Let's go" Bucky orders.

We manage to escape into a different shipping container just as the lab explodes, going up into thick black clouds of smoke.

"All right! Wait for my signal!" Bucky says as we exit the container to see a whole bunch of bounty hunters with weapons waiting for us.

Sam shoots at the hunters without waiting for any kind of signal and the whole place erupts with gunfire, causing me to duck behind some debris.

"Damn it!" Bucky curses.

"Why do I never get a gun?!" I cry out as Sharon, Sam and Bucky shoot at the people who are shooting at us.

"Because you don't know how to use one!" Bucky fires back.

"Then someone should teach me!" I retort.

Bucky crouches down next to me and takes a break from firing to look down at me.

"I'll tell you what. If we don't die today, I'll teach you" He compromises and I grin happily.

"Do you pinky promise?" I hold out my pinky to the man.

"I'm not pinky promising shit" Bucky scoffs, standing to let off a few more shots while I glare up at him.

He realises that I'm not happy with him and he lets out an irritated huff of breath, crouching down with me again.

He scowls at me in annoyance and holds out his pinky, causing my glare to melt into a smug smile. I hook my pinky around his and press my lips to my thumb, locking in his promise.

The man jumps up again, tearing his eyes away from me to shoot at the hunters but his gun merely clicks to let him know that he's out of bullets.

"I thought we were going left?" Bucky shouts at Sam.

"You went the wrong way!" Sam retorts.

"I was clearing the way!" Bucky argues.

"I came out first. You had to follow me" Sam counters.

"And where are we now?" Bucky yells, gesturing to the war ground we're currently on.

"Guys, not the time!" Sharon warns them as her gun runs out of bullets too "I'm out!"

"This is a barricade" Bucky continues.

"It's in every action movie!" Sam does the same.

"Will you both shut up!" I scream at them.

The trio all look at me in surprise and I turn away from them to get a good look at the bounty hunters.

Using as much power as I can currently muster up, I watch with a smirk as green vines sprout from the cracks in the cement ground and I wince a little when the bounty hunters start shooting at them.

"Can you feel that?" Sharon questions me in awe and I nod with a grimace.

The vines lurch forward and grab three men in their grasp, twisting around their bodies like a boa constrictor as they kick and scream for help from their buddies.

I watch in a transfixed state as their bones snap one by one and they fall limp to the floor as the vines grown bigger, grabbing more and more hunters.

The vines take on a life of their own, violently slamming the men against the metal containers and the cement ground.

"Holy shit" I hear Bucky mutter.

All of a sudden a huge explosion erupts and a scream escapes my lips as my vines are disintegrated, the feeling of burning alive crawling up my skin like a bad infection.

The pain is so bad that my vision goes black and my knees go weak.

"Aura?!" Sam yells, although it sounds as though he's underwater or really far away from me.

"Aurelia, wake up" Sharon cries out, sounding the same as Sam.

"Come on, doll" A closer sounding but still muffled Bucky pleads.

The last thing I feel before I pass out is Bucky's warm arms lifting my body up bridal style and Sam patting my face gently, trying to waken me up.