verb.
To fall back under pressure. To shrink back physically or emotionally.
noun.
The kickback of a gun upon firing.
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It takes a stubborn mind to cling to their humanity when the world seeks to strip it away.
It takes a desperate soul to reach f...
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The man's cool utterance of that date made the breath catch in Kat's throat. December, 1991.
She couldn't let him know how the mention of that time made her feel sick to her stomach. She had to stay composed, and she had to keep him talking. She couldn't check, but as far as she knew, Bucky could be listening to this conversation. She had to give him the chance to get as far away from this man as possible. Everything about him, his composure, his calculating, dark eyes – it all screamed of danger. He was dangerous.
This wasn't like when Sam Wilson had found her, when her instincts had detected something genuine in the American, and the fact that he hadn't posed a threat to her. This wasn't like that at all.
Clearing her throat, Kat nodded slowly; "That was a busy month. A lot happened." She murmured softly. It was true; it was the month she had learned the Winter Soldier's name. The month the Starks had died. The month the stolen serum had been administered to Josef's kill squad and the month her father had been killed. The month the Soviet Union had fallen, and HYDRA decided to flee Siberia. All a few weeks before she had made her attempt to escape.
"Please don't be coy with me, Miss Irwin." The man pressed, "HYDRA's secrets don't deserve your protection, after what they did to you."
"HYDRA can rot." She spat at the implication that she was protecting that organisation; "It and all its damn heads – it doesn't mean I have to tell you anything."
"No." He agreed softly, this time reaching inside his coat, watching her carefully as her frame stiffened at the sight of the pistol he slipped from beneath the garment, making sure she saw it before he tucked it away once more. Suddenly the wrench in her hand didn't feel quite so reassuring. "But if you tell me what you know, I will leave you in peace. Katrina Ivanov will remain forgotten in the eyes of the world, and Katie Irwin can keep on living."
"Sounds like you were planning on killing me away." She muttered, loud enough that he would hear, and loud enough that the phone in her pocket would pick up the words.
"Perhaps I was." He admitted, gesturing to her as she stood before him; "Perhaps a girl with Super Solider serum running through her veins shouldn't be allowed to live. Perhaps that is too much power for one person to have."
"I never wanted the power." She snarled softly, knowing he was deliberately provoking her, but unable to ignore the coiling heat of anger in her stomach; "I did it to protect my father and look where that got him. Look where it got me – I lost twenty years of my life because I made the wrong choice. I'm just- I'm just trying to take back the life HYDRA took from me, before the serum, before all of it. If it would bring him back, I'd pull this stuff from my veins in a heartbeat – but I can't, and I live with that every damn day."
"And perhaps that is why I would let you live, Katie. If you tell me what I want to know."
He was right, she owed no loyalty to HYDRA. They didn't deserve to have their secrets protected, but there was someone who did. Bucky was so closely tied with everything she knew about that place, that time. She had to protect him, even if that meant keeping HYDRA's secrets.
