The ghosts we hide (Winter Soldier x OC)

Forty nine

A/N: listen to Control - Halsey

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Bucky POV

At least three of us are on our feet in an instant, rushing for the door.

But the sound of laughter makes us freeze.

Nyx's laughter.

I can feel everyone exchanging glances around me but my eyes remain fixated on the girl behind the glass. She leans across the table, hands paused in mid air, a millimetre from Ilenova's throat. Two sets of pearly white claws gleam in the harsh light.

The man's face changes from gleeful to shocked to puzzled in a matter of seconds, his focus finding the pernicious talons hovering over his jugular then their owner's face.

Nyx's laugh is cold, mechanical.

"Is that the reaction you were looking for?" She asks, finally dropping her hands though remaining standing, towering over her prisoner. She tilts her head to the side as she observes the man. "I'm sorry to disappoint you."

There are murmurs all around me, the team struggling to keep up with Nyx's complete 180 in behaviour.

I don't doubt this is why she was Hydra's prized possession.

I find my seat again, settling into it as much as I can considering the conversation we're observing. Nausea still weighs in my stomach as I remember the night Ilenova is talking about.

The look on Nyx's face as she left that room, covered in blood and the screams of the children whose mother she just killed, will forever be branded in my mind.

The kids were still crying as we left the house, abandoning them with her dead body.

I have to fight the urge to vomit.

My attention is grabbed as Ilenova finally talks, his voice level despite his foiled plan and the claws that were at his throat a moment before.

I catch Steve's eye for a short moment, their blue depths alight with apprehension. I'm sure I see a tiny element of fear somewhere in there too, but the emotion is gone as quickly as it appeared.

Fear of what?

I watch Nyx's rigid figure as she engages in her little verbal dance once more, faking nonchalance.

She's playing his own game against him.

I just hope she knows how to win.

*****

Nyx POV

"I see you've been working on control." Ilenova muses, that smirk back on his face. "Not as easy to rile up as you used to be."

"Maybe you're losing your touch."

"No." The Russian shakes his head, eyes infinitely on mine.

Every inch of my body wants either to attack him or to run, yet I force myself to stay still, to slip into the state of emotional limbo that belongs to Agent 184. I'm going to need it for what comes next.