C H A P T E R   38 :   9  O ' C L O C K

"Here's to being human
All the pain and suffering
There's beauty in the bleeding
At least you feel something

I wish I knew what it was like
To care enough to carry on
I wish I knew what it was like
To find a place where I belong

Here's to being human
Taking it for granted
The highs and lows of living
To getting second chances

I wish I knew what it was like
To care about what's right or wrong
I wish someone could help me find
Find a place where I belong"

We stared at each other for what it seemed like an eternity, two products of the same assembly line dismantling each other. Then the Winter Soldier took two steps towards me, moving unevenly due to the imbalance of weight between his two arms, and fished a key out of one of his many pockets, nodding with his chin towards my chained wrists.

"May I?" He asked in a soft whisper before our gazes met again. In his vacant stare I recognized mine; the lack of light or shadows. Seeing him face to face instead of through a screen for the first time made me realize we were just two pieces made from the same clay, built with the intent to shape the world in a darker shade. And now that we no longer had potters, we were just desperately trying not to turn into mud.

"Yes." I said, but before doing anything, his head tilted to the side as if his own brain was sliding from one corner to another, unable to understand.

"Do you know who I am?" He asked, all of him resembling a broken compass trying to find his North, and I suspected not even him had the answer.

"Everyone knows who you are." I whispered.

"But nobody knows me." He answered, and I could almost hear him think Not even I do.

"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes." I said, my heart aching for his. "I'm sorry, but I'm not the right person to tell you what that means."

His eyebrows rose in surprise as if he was unaccustomed with the thought of someone trying to help him.

"And yours is Felicia Hardy." He stated, but before I could ask him how he knew that he put a flashlight between his teeth and lifted my fists up to his eyes with his flesh hand.

"You saved my life." I broke the silence that had fallen upon us as he unlocked the shackles. "Does that mean you're not with them?"

He knitted his brows instantly, as if the mere thought was enough to cause a short-circuit in his fuses, and took the flashlight out of his mouth.

"For the past few months, I've tried not to be." He said, but even his voice seemed emptied of sound. Invisible. "But it's hard when they're always in my mind."

I nodded, hating that I knew exactly what he meant. When S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and the Battles of Washington DC and at the Triskelion happened in January 2014, the Winter Soldier was all over the news as a high-level threat that civilians should not by any means try to engage, neutralize or help. After the dust of the combats settled and both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA's secrets were out in the open, no one knew what had happened to the Soldier, if he had died or not, but people were instructed to take cover and report him to authorities as soon as they could if he was sighted.

Until confirmation of his death, governments, organizations and citizens alike were treating him as a dangerous fugitive and wanted criminal, but in front of me he just looked like a ghost who, after cutting his strings and rebelling against his masters, had no place to go or no sense of who he was.

"If you've tried to stay away from them, why are you here?" I gestured towards the corpses lying on the ground around us, but instead of answering me, he freed my wrists from the cuffs and handed them to me.

"They're made from vibranium. They can be of good use."

"If you're into bondage, sure." I let out sarcastically, massaging my bruised skin while it didn't heal. Now that the spike of adrenaline had passed, I could feel the exhaustion creeping over my members, even if my mind felt incredibly energized, finally having had the closure it longed for so long.

"Keep them." He told me, handing me a backpack from one of the soldiers. I shoved the cuffs inside, eyeing the content quickly: hydration packs, ready-to-eat meals, a first aid kit, a tactical radio, a survival knife, another pair of sunglasses and flashlights, a bandolier and more ammunitions, and finally something that made my stomach churn acidly. Mines and granades. If I hadn't come to the forest, if I had stayed inside and asleep, they would have used them near the mansion to lure me out, probably killing people in the process.

Luckily, we were very deep inside the forest, far from the mansion, and the only reason they hadn't used them on me was because the explosions would give their positions away, and there was no way they could win against a house full of mutants. Full of Logan.

These guys were equipped as if they were going to a war zone, and maybe, that's exactly what I was.

"Check their bags for radios or phones, they might have trackers—"

"Already done." James announced, having verified and destroyed all the communications of the soldiers as I rummaged through one single backpack.

"Can you answer me now? Why are you here?" I asked, watching him attentively as he gathered some guns and inspected the magazines carefully before attaching the revolvers to his holsters. He was an attractive man, there was no doubt in that, and the way his fingers knew exactly what to do with the weapons furnished him with a very alluring semblance. And it was funny, how the whole world said he was danger and yet with him I felt safe.

He looked up at me for a second, his thousand-yard stare burying itself six feet inside me, before reloading the magazine of an AK-47. "I need your help."

My eyes widened at the only answer I wasn't expecting to get.

"I... for what?"

He pointed with his chin towards the mutilated bodies bleeding out on the ground.

"To make sure they can't get to me anymore, and to take down as many as I can in the process."

I shook my head, trying to insert some order into the havoc of my thoughts.

"Why me? Out of everyone?"

"Because I know they won't get to you, they can't. They never could."

Before I could ask him what he meant by that, or how he even knew me or where to find me and all the other millions of questions I had ringing in my mind, I heard another subtle whistle far away, like a bullet being fired from a gun with silencer at hundreds of yards from where we stood.

"Get down!" I said, before shoving him harshly onto the ground and turning towards the direction of the sound, my claws rolling out of my fingers automatically and slicing the bullets in midair.

"Impressive." James muttered as he scrutinized the shadows, hunkered down on the ground with the assault rifle in position.

"They have long-range shooters." I mumbled with urgency, squatting beside him behind a large tree. "We can't let them get near the—"

I shut up abruptly, unsure if I could trust him or not. Just because he wasn't with HYDRA it didn't mean he was with me. There was a whole grey area between those two poles where most people fit in.

He gave me a side glance before lying down on the ground and looking through the scope of the AK-47.

"I know." He muttered and pulled the trigger repeatedly in a series of warning shots to force the soldiers to take cover and buy us time. "That's why we need to go. They won't stop until they have you, so we have to lure them away from here and find a way to prevent them from ever getting to you again."

I kept quiet even if I had so many questions I needed answered.

"You can keep talking." James assured me when he noticed my concern. "I want to draw them all into our line of sight."

"You say you want to prevent them from catching me. How can we do that?"

"By entering one of their main bases and erasing all intel they have on you. If we can make a big enough mess and explode their headquarters, it will take them a lof of time to reorganize, and if their information about you is lost, there's nothing they can do to recover years of work. I know the project you were a part of in HYDRA wasn't exposed in January, and that's because it was such a confidential, important project only a few selected people knew about it and all the files were kept in paper to prevent online exposure. I only know about it because there's not many people alive in the world right now who have been a part of HYDRA for as long as I have."

"What about you?" I asked, hearing the soldiers surreptitiously moving towards us, and spotting the first few dozens of yards away. They had given up on shooting at us, aware my power could dodge bullets. "Aren't you afraid to go back into their nest after... everything they've done to you?"

"I don't think they can kill me more than they already have." He retorted, his voice stripped of identity, as if he had no existence. "Besides, I'm in the spotlight now. If someone gets to me and uses me again, that's going to drag unwanted attention to them and create a large-scale conflict within institutions, from international intels to the media. That's not of HYDRA's interest right now, since they're trying to work in the shadows and rebuild what's left of them."

I kept quiet, analyzing and measuring everything he had said. He had strong points, but the thought of leaving the mansion behind was agonizing. Most of my friends, my family, was there. And yet that was exactly why I had to leave. To keep them safe. Besides, with the ugly discussion Logan and I had had, I wasn't even sure if he'd want to see my face again, and maybe it was for the better if I just disappeared.

"I know what I'm asking you." He continued, firing another blast of shots and making the first few soldiers fall or retreat. "So, even if I'd really appreciate your help, I'll never force you to come with me. We both know from experience what HYDRA's capable of and what we will be up against. But I also know this is our best shot since they've never been more disorganized, exposed and unstable. They will never leave us alone, so that's why we need to get them first."

"But isn't that a suicide mission?" I argued. "I'm not comfortable at all with leaving the mansion so unprotected. It's the closest thing I have to a home, to a family. I can't let HYDRA take that away from me as well."

"Felicia." He called, the reminiscence of a Russian accent in his tone making it sound like Felitsiya. "HYDRA took everything from me. I'm not going to let them do the same to you. Or to all the other people they have captured and enslaved. I can't sit on my hands while I know other people may be suffering the same as me, I have to do something about it. I can't live with myself if I don't. Can you?"

Dammit. He really knew how to hit hard in my softest spots. He knew how to put my feelings into words because he had them too. Me and him, we were alike. Two sides of the same broken coin, I guessed.

But instead of answering him, my head snapped to the side in urgency.

"9 o'clock!" I shouted as some soldiers tried their first attempt at hitting us. This was the second strike team in less than half an hour and I was growing considerably worried. I was sure we could handle them, but I had no way of knowing if there was another team sneaking up to the mansion at the same time. Focusing harder than ever, I made reality tear itself apart just to keep both of us whole, the bullets hitting the ground mere inches away from us.

"That's what I'm here for!" He exclaimed as he swiftly moved on the ground into the right shooting stance. "Your immunity. You're my shield against them."

His fingers pressed against the trigger gently and he shot continually with deadly accuracy, the bullets perforating vests, helmets and bodies.

"What are those bullets made from?" I yelled as I kicked a guy on his chest, sending him against a tree so hard it broke his spine instantly. James moved his head towards me and his lips drew a smile for the first time.

"Vibranium. I was saving them for this. Cover me!" He asked as he prepared the rifle for another round, bullets raining in our direction when the strike team fired back. With my power working in our favor, James used all of his skill to make each shot an instant kill, but that also left him unprotected from the inevitable bullets my power couldn't stop.

"Watch out!" I warned but there was no way he'd be able to take cover before being shot in the head, so I threw the survival knives I'd been hiding to the three more imminent threats, the blades sinking between their eyes since their helmets had already flew off.

"Take this!" He shouted, throwing me another rifle he had just loaded with more vibranium bullets, and this time I grabbed it without hesitation and shot again and again with no remorse.

Once we targeted someone, they didn't stand a chance. Both James and I were lethal in our own way, moving in tune with each other as if that's all we had ever done, years of the same training coursing through our veins, years of the same ache and vengeance flowing through our minds.

Soon enough we had finish them all off, more blood soaking the dirt beneath our feet as James recollected the backpacks from the soldiers and handed two of them to me.

"We need to hurry up." He said. "They are just going to keep sending more agents once they realize the ones they sent never came back. They won't rest until they bring you in. It's not safe here and we can't fight all night."

"I never said I was going with you." I pointed out, and his head snapped in my direction, his eyes so lost for a second I thought I'd never find them.

"I know you have no reason to trust me." He let out, his rock-solid tone giving away to cracks. "But I don't... I don't have anyone else."

I wanted to tell him he probably had Steve Rogers. Even if I didn't know him, I knew he was the kind of man to stop a war to save a friend. Or to cause another just to keep him safe.

But I was the one James had searched for, because facing a stranger was easier than facing the only person who truly knew him. If his despair coming to me wasn't enough to convince me, his pleading voice was. What kind of human being would I be if I abandoned someone who didn't even feel human anymore?

It's a leap of faith, I thought, you'll land on your feet.

"So, I swear I'll explain everything to you once I know we're safe." He continued. "We just can't stay here right now. Other teams must be arriving soon, and we can't let them get us."

"But what about the mansion? We need to warn them, I— FUCK!" I let out a cry so loud I was sure it was heard across the entire state, and so primitive it felt like we had gone back to the age of caves. My top immediately got soaked in blood as I felt an excruciating pain in my ribs and left side of my abdomen. With quivering fingers, I looked down to see a circle carved on my skin from the hole of a bullet that was still inside me, twisting my every nerve. The shot had been extraordinarily silent, proving that HYDRA had learned from their mistakes.

"Felitsiya!" James called, the panic making his accent thicker than ever as my teeth gritted and my head spinned around in a confusion of sounds, scents and spasms. Black dots colored my vision as I lost my balance and collapsed into his arms. The ground either looked as if it was too far away or too close. Everything around me was floating or whirling. The nausea growing inside me made me want to throw up and I could feel myself getting lightheaded by the second as the blood failed to get to my head.

"James, I..." I mumbled, my hands clinging desperately to his torso when my legs gave up on me, and the next second he was picking me up bridal style, his strong arms lifting me easily. The cold metal against my skin kept me conscious for a few more seconds, but I knew this time I would faint.

"Do we go?" He asked, his voice trembling from urgency and dread. Very faintly, I could hear cluttered steps rushing towards us as if an animal had just been let loose, and then blood being shed, shots being fired, metal fighting back.

"Yes." I let out in a murmur, the mere instinct of breathing killing me. I moved closer to James' chest for support as his grip on me got steadier. As my mind drifted apart and my eyes closed, all I could hear was screams, gunshots and that very familiar sound of metal clashing against metal.

***

If I was dead, at least the sun still existed, wherever I was. As my eyelids struggled to open, I could feel the first rays of sunlight warming my cold body, along with birds singing outside and the wind blowing softly against the window. There was also a heartbeat beating somewhere close to me, but maybe it was just mine being wrenched out of my body.

"9 o'clock." I heard him say and when I finally managed to open my eyes a little and look to my left, they were met with two liquid marbles the color of the ocean when it went from blue to green.

James was by a washbasin disinfecting his hands and sterilizing needles and he came closer to me with a tall glass of water, watching me with concern. I figured I must have looked like something in between Casper and the Bloody Baron. When I tried to move to grab the glass, a scream left my mouth as a giant headache pulsed in my brain and an almost unbearable cramp in my abdomen made me sure I was not yet a ghost.

"Don't move." He demanded, inserting a straw into the glass and holding it so I could drink. After I emptied the glass, I inspected the room we were in. The sun was sneaking through the drawn blinds and the furniture consisted in a mattress I was currently lying down in, a table with medical equipment, a chair and the washbasin beneath a mirror.

"So is this hell? Am I dead? But if I'm dead... why does it hurt so much?" I knew I was not making any sense, but that's what happened when all my senses were on leave. I felt dazed and spacey, detached from my body.

I didn't even dare to look down at my abdomen, afraid I'd see guts coming out of it. If this was a normal wound it would have healed by now, but whatever HYDRA had hit me with was slowing down my regenerative factor to the point where I actually believed I could die from this.

"I'm going to have to take the bullet out, Felicia." James said, opening a first aid kit. "I was hoping you wouldn't wake up before I could do it, but now that you have, I don't have any anesthetic strong enough to put you to sleep."

"You could just knock me out." I whined faintly. "But if I doze off again, I'm not sure I'll wake up."

"I'll try to be quick. You've lost a lot of blood on our way here. I tried to stop the bleeding as best as I could, but I'll have to clean the wound and close it before it infects." He gestured with his chin towards my top. "May I?"

I nodded and he lifted what was left of my top just long enough to see the wound, revealing a big piece of gauze soaked in blood he had secured with medical tape. I grimaced in pain once he took it out in one swift movement.

"You could have warned!" I cried out, my nails sinking in my palms.

"That would have made it hurt more." He stated, leaning down to inspect the injury. His eyebrows furrowed and I took that as a bad sign.

"Am I going to die?" I questioned, and his usually straight lips twisted into a small smile, as if his mouth couldn't stretch any further.

"Not yet. I hope." He said, bringing the table closer to us with his left arm, my eyes landing on trays with tweezers, scissors, gauze pads, bandages, suture lines, bottles of alcohol and medicines I wasn't familiar with. Everything was written in Russian so I couldn't comprehend any of it.

"Oh God, what is this room, Mr. Surgeon's lair?" I inquired through gritted teeth. "I'm warning ya, if you're going to play Operation with me, you better not miss!"

"As long as this doesn't betray me, you'll be fine." James said, nodding dispassionately towards his left arm.

"What did they shoot me with?" I asked, because talking distracted me from all the worst possible scenarios my mind was coming up with, from HYDRA having gotten to the mansion to them catching us here.

"I don't know. HYDRA has many weapons and I've used most of them, but this is unlike anything I've ever seen. It seems to be a new type of technology made out of vibranium, that's why it managed to pierce your skin, and there's a chance it might be a tracker so we have to get rid of it fast."

"Great." I muttered, my heart racing as I watched him prepare everything carefully. I wondered if he had done this many times. To himself. "Do you think the bullet they shot me with is what's preventing me from healing?"

"Yes. HYDRA must have upgraded their arsenal to stop enhanced people like you. This bullet must have been designed to stop your power of manipulating reality while at the same time inhibiting your senses. It must have a particular chemistry compound or a toxic product that counteracts and diminishes them. It may spread all over your body or infect so we need to get the bullet out as soon as possible. Even though removing a normal bullet from a normal wound is usually not enough to completely heal the injury, I think your case is different due to your healing factor. Once we remove the bullet you most certainly will start healing by yourself."

"What if you're wrong? I don't know if you know this, but I'm like freaking Murphy's Law come to life, anything that can go wrong, will go terribly wrong!"

"I have to try." James said, a resolute flicker on his eyes for the first time that night as he put a glove in his right hand. "Since your superhealing is weaker, I'd give you vodka to try and numb some of the pain, but I'm afraid that might mess with your system even more and I don't want to risk it."

"It's okay." I nodded, trying to prepare myself mentally. "I've been through worse."

James stretched the bloodied skin around the wound gently, but it was enough to make my body twist. "I assume you don't want to do it yourself?"

"Just get it over with, please." I murmured and he started drenching a gauze pad in water and mild soap before cleaning the dirt and blood around the wound.

"Grab my left arm."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"It will hurt and you need to hold on to something. Grab it. I won't feel anything. Just the absence."

"If I survive, you gotta let me decorate your arm with some magnets." I said, doing as he told me and grasping the metal lightly.

"Think of something nice." He said, before coming closer with a pair of tweezers already cleaned with alcohol and dugging it inside my flesh.

"LOGAN!" I shouted automatically and James' eyebrows shot up but fortunately he didn't comment and started to look for the bullet. My teeth gnashed hard and my hands tightened around his metal arm as I felt a tsunami of electric ripples echoing throughout my body. My nails rolled out of my fingers instinctively and James' head snapped in their direction, making him miss the bullet, which resulted in me being electrocuted again.

"Focus!" I begged, a single tear running down my face as I tried to summon every part of Logan into me, from the bronze of his skin to the gold in his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I can't see the bullet yet, there's a lot of debris inside, I'll have to remove it first." He used the tweezers to take out the dirt that had gotten into the injury as carefully as possible, but with every move he made an electric bolt flashed through my veins, making my back arch violently and my chest rise and fall in harrowing breaths.

"Got it." I heard him say and the next second he had pulled the bullet out of my body and placed it on the tray. Between heavy gasps, I could feel the electricity in my body decreasing in its intensity, becoming more sufferable, and I sighed of relief upon seeing that the bullet hadn't permanently damaged my healing factor.

"Thanks." I said when I was finally able to speak again, retracting my claws and letting go of his arm. He gave me a firm nod and took out the glove soaked in blood, grabbing some gauze with his left arm and pressing it against my skin to stop the blood that had come out during the removal of the bullet.

"You did good." He said, gently pushing some sweaty strands of hair away from my face with his flesh hand. My heart contracted in my chest at his gesture. How could a man with such a hard past be so soft? "How do you feel?"

"Better. You were right, I think my power's kicking in again. You probably won't even need to stitch me up, the wound will close by itself."

"And don't you sound relieved with that?" James asked with a smile, but a brief inspection to my injury proved me right. "Looks like luck is on your side after all."

"You're on my side. Maybe my luck is you." I smiled and James just stared at me, his face unable to decide in which emotion to settle.

"You should rest. Hold this until it stops bleeding." He said, gesturing towards the gauze and getting up to start cleaning everything. When I moved to help him, he looked at me with a stern expression. "Don't move."

I rolled my eyes and rested my back against the wall. "Fine, Mama Bear."

When I finally gathered enough courage to look at my abdomen again, I was relieved to find the wound completely closed, a small, fading scar and a light tingling the only remembrances of the pain. I dropped the gauze on the tray and managed to sit up, my eyes accidentally moving to James as he took off his bloodied tank top in front of the mirror, his broad back and defined muscles greeting me as I sized him up. Ok, it's official, I either have a thing for older dudes or for dudes named James. Or both. His eyes met mine in the mirror and the edges of his lips curled up ever so slightly, but I didn't look away and neither did he. Then he reached for a backpack and took out a chocolate protein bar, throwing it at me with a mildly annoyed, but mostly tickled expression on his face.

"Eat. You seem hungry."

"I'm thirsty too." I said, half joking, and James rolled his eyes but threw me a protein shake as well. "How old are you?"

James snorted and put on a clean shirt before meeting my gaze on the mirror again. "Too old for you, doll."

"Yeah, seems like everyone is." I mumbled under my breath, but if he heard me, he preferred to ignore me. After making sure everything was cleaned and that we didn't leave any traces behind, James grabbed most of the backpacks easily, hanging them over his shoulders.

"We should move." He said, holding out his hand to help me get up. "We're about twenty miles away from New York but there's no guarantee HYDRA isn't coming right now. I'm going to leave the bullet here, in case it has a tracker, and hopefully they will think we're still here. Works for you?"

"Yup. Let's go."

***

Logan's POV

The night before

With our fight playing over and over in my mind and trying to ignore what I almost blurted out to her, I climbed the stairs heavily, knowing I wouldn't be sleeping that night. I didn't know who I was most upset with, her or me. I hated that I had run my mouth over things I didn't want to say, all because I couldn't run my mouth over the one thing I wanted to taste. Felicia was like sand slipping through my fingers; every time I thought I had a piece of her, she crumbled, which just made me want all of her even more.

Sighing deeply, I made my way towards my room, a sinking feeling twisting my guts as I heard her leave the mansion. A part of me was tempted to go back and solve things out, but it was worthless when we couldn't even solve each other out. We were like two pieces of different puzzles that would never fit together. Like a chess game without a checkmate.

There was a time that night where I was resolute on telling her how I felt, how she made me feel, and yet I went and told her everything but that. It was like my feelings had been made specifically for me to screw them up. But she didn't make it any easier. I mean, why the hell did she have to go and play the hero all of a sudden? Why did she have to go and play it with him?

Nice, Logan, really nice. Now you're jealous of a guy who probably doesn't even have a beard yet.

Grunting in frustration, I entered my room and took off my shirt, going into the bathroom to splash some water on my face and some sense into my head. I tossed and turned on my bed for some minutes, before getting up impatiently and going to the window to see if I could spot her, but she was nowhere to be found.

Against all reason, I wanted to go search for her, but Felicia had specifically told me to stay away from her so that's what I was going to do. Even if it was this hard. Even if it was one of the things that hurt the most because my system couldn't heal it. Why can't love be a disease, I thought, so I can be immune to it? To her?

I paced back and forth in the room for what felt like ages, a rising terror piercing my defenses as paranoia invaded my front lines. What if something happened to her? What if she went away and never returned? What if somebody took her? What if you never see her again?

It's fine, I told myself. Felicia can take care of herself. You should be fearing for her enemies, not for her. Maybe she went to pay a visit to that Spider of hers. Maybe she just went for a walk to blow off some steam. In any case, she's fine. You don't have to wor—

I never got to finish my thoughts because a scream speared the air, so loud and clear for a moment I thought it was just in my head. But then I heard people waking up and my heart started racing when I realized that not only was it real, it was hers. Felicia's voice was distorted from pain, but I'd know her anywhere. The aching scream had come from a great distance, and everything inside me howled for her, desperate to get closer.

With my senses on full alert, I opened the window brusquely and jumped out, not feeling anything on the impact because all I could focus on was her and that primal need to find and shelter her. My fists were clenching and my claws had come out at some point, already claiming the life of whoever had dared hurting her. Not knowing what was happening was killing me, but not as much as knowing this wouldn't have happened if I had just stayed with her. By wanting so desperately to keep her safe, I had put her in danger.

In the back of my mind I could vaguely hear Ororo telling the kids inside to stay calm, while Jean, Scott and Longshot walked out of the mansion, but then I put reality in second place and ran like my life was on the line, because if hers was, then, yes, so was mine.

Blocking out everything else, I tried capturing a whiff of her scent or the vital beat of her heart, and I almost stopped dead on my tracks when I couldn't find either. There were few times in life where I had feared this much, and so I ordered my legs to move faster than they could, my ears catching the faint sound of rushed steps and rapid heartbeats.

I ran towards the sound as fast as I could but roared once I spotted a dozen of soldiers hiding in the shadows, ready to move in to attack their target. I didn't care about being discreet; I wanted them to focus on me instead so I could see the life being sucked out of their eyes when I killed them.

All of them turned their guns at me in a haste, startled by my sudden appearance, but no matter how much firepower they had, they wouldn't get out of this alive, not when I knew what these motherfuckers had done to her in the past, and what they had come here to do now.

HYDRA could have many heads, but I had two sets of claws, a bad case of bad blood and a strong urge to let them taste it.

"Well, look what the cat dragged in..."

"Nice choice of last words." I snarled, and the next second I was burying my claws into the soldier's bones, looking around for her. I couldn't see her, but I could smell her in the blood a few feet away. There were signs of struggle everywhere and I felt proud knowing she had put up a good fight. This must have been the third team or so HYDRA sent, by the amount of bodies I could spot far away on the ground. And that's how I knew she was still alive. They wouldn't have waited in the shadows to attack if she wasn't.

"If you kill all of us, you'll never find her." Another one said as the bullets hit my chest one after the other. I let out some heavy growls, but I didn't feel anything. I grabbed his neck with one hand and dug my claws into his chest with the other, staring him in the eye as I dropped him to the ground.

"Neither will you."

Suddenly, the wind blew in my direction and I thought I captured her feeble breath for a split second, but I couldn't be sure.

"Where is she?" I yelled at the next one, droplets of blood dripping from my claws to the soil. "What have you done to her?"

"What she deserv—"

He never got to finish because I sunk my claws on both sides of his body and turned around to face the rest of them, allowing my primal roars to do the talking. I didn't know where she was, or in which state. All I knew was I'd never let them get to her. They had to go through me first and that's where they'd end. The only person that could go through me and last was her. And if there was one thing I could do to make it up to her, it was this.

I was going to give them hell for her.

"It wasn't supposed to be this way
We were meant to feel the pain
I don't like what I am becoming
Wish I could just feel something

I am machine
I never sleep
I keep my eyes wide open
I am machine
A part of me
Wishes I could just feel something
I am machine
I never sleep
Until I fix what's broken
I am machine
A part of me
Wishes I could just feel something"

A/N: Song is "I Am Machine" by Three Days Grace. Love this band and their songs, and this one especially fits the Winter Soldier perfectly.

Gif is Bucky played by the lovely Sebastian Stan.

Also, 9'o clock is Felicia and Bucky's version of "on your left" since I love that quote so much. And I had this idea of them becoming partners in crime because I can't stand the thought of Bucky being alone from the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier to Civil War, and I think he really needed someone that could understand and help him, and Felicia is the perfect person for that. Hope you like them as much as I do ;)