Leather

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/32056729.

Rating: Explicit
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Category: F/M
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America - All Media Types, The
Avengers (Marvel Movies), Agent Carter (Marvel Short Film)
Relationship: James "Bucky" Barnes/Original Female Character(s)
Character: James "Bucky" Barnes, Original Male Character(s), Original Female
Character(s)
Additional Tags: Torture, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Unhealthy Relationships,
Graphic Description, Painplay, Body Horror, Disembowelment, Suicide,
Accidental Death, Emotional Manipulation, Angst, Angst and
Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Stats: Published: 2021-06-20 Updated: 2021-09-22 Chapters: 4/? Words:
8852

Leather
by Communist_Cat

Summary

It was the year 1969, and Gabi is a woman who's just trying to get by, but one night while
visiting one of her few friends it all falls apart and she's taken by the organization Hydra.

Notes

Hello people, welcome to my newest project, I'm really excited for this! Just want y'all to
know that comments, kudos and criticism is always welcome :]
Happy reading!!
 Chapter 1

The snapping of fingers awakened Gabi from her trance as she stood in line at a cafe to get her
morning coffee. “Hey Gab, are you feelin alright?” the cashier, Catherine, said in a concerned tone.
“Yeah Cat, I’m feeling alright, I’m just a little bit tired I guess,” Gabi shrugged her shoulders as
Catherine handed her the coffee that she had ordered, half milk half coffee with three sugar cubes.
“I get that girly, I certainly do,” Catherine had been working at the cafe for almost six years while
searching for a husband, yet she couldn't find one that really made her happy, she had been
divorced once and never really got back with anyone since. Gabi felt bad for her so she had tried to
befriend her to much success. Gabi then checked the slender watch on her left wrist and looked up
and smiled at Catherine, “Welp it looks like I needa go, you know how the office can be,”
Catherine simply nodded her head and smiled before looking to the next person in line to take their
order.

The walk over to the office was loud, filled with the sounds of cars honking, people shouting and
children crying. Yet it all stopped the second Gabi stepped into the office she worked at, she let out
a sigh of a relife out of her nose before looking back up, walking over to her desk she took off her
coat and set it neatly folded upon her desk next to where she had set her purse. She clicked it open
and pulled out a few papers and tapped them against the desk to make them more even with one
another. “Stockdale!” came an angry shout from the cubical that contained a man by the name of
Todd Emerson. Gabi rolled her eyes before setting her papers down and making her way over to
the man on the other side of the room. “You do have that report that I had asked for the other
night? You know I can’t have it late when giving it to the boss,” Gabi raised an eyebrow and
shifted so she had one hand on her hip. “Yes I do, now if you would give me a minute to get it, I
could actually give it to you instead of you demanding I hand it over like a brute.”

Todd then stood up from his seat and pointed a finger at her yet she didn't flinch, only tilting her
head back a bit so she could look him in the eyes. “Listen here missy-” “You don't have the right to
talk to me that way Mr. Emerson, you are not my father, nore do you have any kind of authority
over me, the only reason you feel as if you do is because of the pre existing notion that all women
are submissive beings that don't know how to handle themselves.” She took a breath to look more
at Todd’s face which was currently dripping with ire mixed with surprise that she would have the
gaul to talk to him as if they were equals, he opened his mouth to speak but Gabi held up her hand.
“You are very good at your job sir and I can respect that but that does not mean that you are more
than I as a person.” She then turned on her heel, walked over to her desk, pulled out the report,
walked back over and pushed the paper into his chest. “Have a wonderful day Todd.” She plastered
on her most charming smile and clicked her way back to her desk in her heels.

The rest of her day went smoothly with Todd only giving her a few dirty looks on her way out. She
took a deep breath of the damp air into her nose, soon it was to start raining, she checked her watch
once more and hurried the rest of the way home to her apartment. Almost the second she got back
to her home, the phone on the wall began to ring, so Gabi quickly dropped her purse on the ground
and rushed over to the phone. A “Hey Gabi,” rang through the house coming from the receiver.
Gabi just sighed and twisted the cord of the phone in her fingers in relief, “RJ, it's just you, I
thought it was something important.” “Well I think having a good cooked meal and talking about
your day is important.” Gabi snorted through her nose, “Fine, what time do you want me over? I
just got home from the office so I have a lot to talk about tonight.” RJ paused as if he was
thinking,“Ummm, I think that 7:15 would be fine, is that okay for you?” RJ asked, suddenly
sounding as if he was afraid he was going to intrude on her evening, in contrast to how he had
asked her to come over.
Gabi simply said a quiet “mhm” before saying her goodbyes and hanging up the phone, she
checked her watch once more and saw that it was a quarter till seven so she had a half an hour until
she needed to be at RJ’s house. She shrugged to herself not worried about it, although, she thought,
she would probably need to take a taxi seeing as it was going to rain. She went over to the restroom
and closed the door behind her, she looked at herself in the mirror and frowned. It looked as if her
hair had fallen out of the curls that it had been sprayed into, her mascara had also slightly been
smudged onto her bottom lashes. She sighed slightly before she began to fix the small
imperfections in her face although there were already few.She walked out of the bathroom once she
was done and hung up the purse that was still sitting upon the floor from earlier. Gabi checked her
watch once more and then made her way over to the door to the hallway, it was seven o’clock. The
sound of rain came to her ears as she began to get closer and closer to the exit of the building she
was in.

She miraculously managed to actually be able to hail a taxi as she made her way downtown from
her complex as she had been walking down the sidewalk. Once she exited the taxi after she had
given the driver an extra tip for not talking to her, she made her way towards RJ's house. He used
to live with his elderly mother before she passed and since he was an only child he inherited the
house and lived there in her memory. His house was covered in the black and white photos of
himself and his mother when he was a child, she had been a single parent after his father had died
in World War One when he was barely born in 1918. They had both met at a meeting between the
organization he worked for and the newspaper company she worked with. They had hit it off
almost immediately and he had been very kind to her for little to no reason other than he was
simply a good person. Gabi knocked on the door of the large home and soon she heard the sound
of shoes hitting carpet and then tile on the other side. RJ opened it and smiled, the smile lines on
the side of his eyes wrinkling as he welcomed her inside. He was still in amazing shape for being
51 and Gabi respected him for that. He was almost like an older brother to her and she supposed
that he could be seeing as her parents had her quite late in life and were in their eighties.

She smiled back at him and he took her coat from her and hung it up on the wall next to his
singular coat. They both then sat down at the dining table for two next to the kitchen and began to
talk to one another about their days. There was always a slight tremble in his voice whenever she
asked about his profession, seeing as all she really knew was what she had heard at that meeting
many months ago when they first met. She was always brushed off or the topic was almost
changed immediately whenever she asked and she was beginning to get more and more suspicious.
So tonight Gabi was going to see what she could pull out of him or what she could find around the
house that might pertain to his work, not out of malicious intent towards him, she was just very
curious and felt like she wasn't being told important information about her friend.

While RJ was making dinner for the two of them, she decided that now was the time for her to
poke around and see what she can find. So she first started in his bedroom and looked around
trying to see if there was anything that she could find in the cabinets and within the wardrobe. She
smacked herself in the face when she remembered that he had an office and she should have simply
started there instead of within the bedroom of all places. So she made her way towards the door
that she presumed led to RJ's office. Once she got there the door was surprisingly unlocked and she
was about to open it when she was called by RJ to come and eat the food that he had prepared. RJ
had always had a passion for cooking and it showed in how good some of it was. It didn't hurt that
she had good company while she ate. Gabi was truly begging to feel guilt for what she was doing
when there was a crash behind the house. " Oh that's probably the raccoon that's been messing with
my cans for the past few weeks, but it never hurts to check." He sighed as he stood from his chair,
"I'll be right back Gabi," Gabi, shaken up slightly by the loud noise, saw this as her last opportunity
to check out what was going on in his office.

She snuck around the corner and made sure that her shoes didn't make any sounds as she made her
way down the carpeted hallway. Once she reached the door and opened it with an ear splitting
creak that she was sure that RJ heard. She was starting to wonder why he hadn't been back for a
few minutes, he was probably checking around the house for that raccoon she reasoned with
herself. She slid inside of the room and looked around, the walls were covered from corner to
corner in bookshelves all with books containing either atlases, history, or dictionaries. Gabi thought
that this was a strange assortment of books to have as she walked up to the single desk in the
middle of the dark room with a curtained window behind it.she opened the desk drawers and saw
mountains and mountains of flies that were filled to the brim with information. She began to rifle
through them when she heard RJ come back inside and he sounded like he was talking to someone.
She pressed her head against the wall that connected to the kitchen and subsequently the back door.
"... sir I'm sure you have the wrong person, now if you were to simply leave I wouldn't tell anyone
about what happened here tonight. Not a soul." The sound of RJ's voice was reassuring but she had
never heard him sound quite as frightened as he did now. Then she heard another voice, this one
was much softer and seemed to have a thick accent. Somehow she was unable to understand more
than that it was a male talking.

She heard someone stumble and covered her mouth as a gasp escaped her mouth and she heard the
sound of a sickening crack and cry of pain from RJ. She needed to leave. Right now. So she rifled
through the files until she got to the ones labeled classified and yanked them out before opening the
window which was thankfully quiet. She slipped out into the rain and closed the window behind
her before she started to walk away. Running would be suspicious and that might lead her to being
followed by whoever was in the house. Instead of taking her usual route home, Gabi went in a loop
and then turned around to where she finally found the building, with her makeup running and her
hair and clothes soaked through to the bone. Once she was back in her room she carefully walked
around and made her way over to the window after she had deadbolted the door. She then locked it
and closed the curtains making sure that all of the lights were off. She carefully took off her coat
and decided that the best place to let it air out would be hanging from the shower head in the
bathroom so that no water got anywhere. Gabi sat down on her bed with the files, hunched over
with her hands over her eyes. She began to silently let the tears escape her eyes. She had run. She
ran like a cowardly little girl. She had left her elderly friend to fend for himself all alone with an
obviously dangerous assailant. God she was selfish. All that she could hope for is that they had
spared him. That he was still at least half alive or that someone next door had noticed the ruckus
and had called the cops. But she could only hope.

Gabi didn't sleep that night, all she did was toss and turn in her bed and wonder what had become
of her friend, so in her sleepless night she had read the files that she had ‘borrowed’, she needed to
know more and it helped to distract herself when ever she was in a state of distress. In the files she
had come across very many disturbing topics, such as vicious murders, the whereabouts of
pedophiles who were unable to be taken out easily because of how high up they were in the chain
of the government, and so much worse. There was this very, from what she could gather, a
malignant organization called Hydra and RJ’s workplace had been trying to disband them for many
years. They were a nazi orgnization whos main goal was to try and create another like the famed
Captain America with something called the super soldier serum. Gabi was puzzled by all of these
strange new things that she was being introduced to but it was very easy to catch onto what was
going on. RJ had apparently gotten too close to where the Hydra base was in his research and
Hydra found out and sent a man to dispose of him.

Gabi woke up in a dark room with both of her arms tied down to a cold metal table, her skin was
bare and goosebumps covered her body from the cold chill of the room. She could hear shifting
within the room, she knew she wasn't alone so curiously she tried to speak out into the darkness in
hopes it would respond. “H-Hello? Is anyone there?” She was surprised by how small and scared
her voice sounded once it had left her mouth. She hated the way that it sounded as if she didn't
have anything under control, which she didn't, but she wasnt ready to accept that just yet. In
response she heard muffled shouting and crying coming from her corner to the left and heard more
struggling to the right, as if the people who were in here with her were also restrained, maybe not
to tables like she had been but at least they were unable to move in a way that mattered. After the
sound of struggling stopped then came the sound of the weeping of what Gabi presumed to be a
woman by the pitch. She simply wouldn't stop and it made it very hard for Gabi to devise any kind
of way to get out of this predicament when she could barely even hear her own thoughts.

She didn't have to wait long though seeing as soon bright industrial lights turned on over her head
and lit up the room. She winced in surprise and recoiled into herself as she tried to adjust to the
now light filled room. Once the lights had turned on the room became completely silent, but not in
a way where Gabi could feel any kind of relief from the noise, she was only filled with dread at the
thought that something obviously was coming and there was no way that it was going to be good.
While waiting for her imminent demise, Gabi decided that the best thing to do right now was to get
accustomed to her surroundings and check out the people who were in here with her. When she
turned her head to look for the weeping woman she found a sight that was more horrifying than she
thought it was going to be.

Her mother sat there wearing nothing but rags and her own blood with her ankles and hands tied
together behind her back making her have to wrap in on herself like a ball. “Mom!” Gabi then
began to struggle with her restraints huffing as she rubbed her wrists raw on the metal to the point
they were bleeding profusely down her forearms. She decided to take a deep breath to try and find
a better way to get her hands out because obviously she wasn't strong enough to get out of her
restraints with only brute force. Gabi looked at the cuff that was surrounding her left hand and
looked at it for a while before becoming sick to her stomach at her conclusion. She would probably
be able to escape the restraint on her right hand just fine if she slipped it just right but her left hand
was a different story. It looked as if the only way that she was going to be able to actually escape
her restraints was to snap her thumb inwards to the point of breaking it so she could then slip out of
the cuff. She stared at her hand for a very long time before deciding that she needed to do this for
the sake of her mother. So she pinched all of her fingers together and prepared to pull. Once she
had managed to escape her first cuff she looked over at her left hand, god this is gonna hurt, she
thought as she reached over to her thumb with her right hand. Gabi took a deep breath in before
cracking her thumb and yanking it too out of its hold in the cuff and the scream she let out once she
had pulled it through the metal was blood curdling.

Seeing as her feet were not bound to the table, she stood on wobbly feet and made her way over to
her trembling mother. She then unbound her mouth and her mother let out a gasp of air breathing
heavily. “Mama, are you okay? What happened?” her mother began to then try to choke out noises
that sounded similar to words but still indecipherable to Gabi's ears. She then looked at her
mother's mouth to see if she could read her lips and found that there was a lack of movement by her
tongue within her mouth. "Mom, hold on, what's going on here?" Her mother then wrenched her
jaw open revealing that her tongue had been violently removed and was still bleeding. Infection
had already begun to set in as the look of a sickly green color was lining the edge of the ragged
wound. Gabi wretched at the sight and her mother looked away and shook as she began to cry once
more. Her face was swollen from the tears and three nasty looking welts that were along her orbital
and jaw, her fingernails were torn and disgusting, with the same kind of infection setting into her
hands as it had in her mouth. She was almost unrecognisable from any other person's perspective.
She had matted hair with clumps that had apparently been torn out and had taken bits of her scalp
out with it. Her body was secreting puss and blood from her wound, Gabi had never seen someone
go from as beautiful as her mother was to a shell of who they used to be in such a small amount of
time.

Gabi took a deep breath in through her nose and tried to ignore the scent of death that was hanging
in the concrete room and attempted to power through her horror to try and comfort her mother. Her
poor mother. Gabi held the woman in her arms after she had managed to undo the rope that had
been binding her to the floor. With her broken hand temporarily forgotten Gabi began to weep with
her mother. She had no control over the situation and that was devastating to her, she needed to be
able to help her mom and herself but she was unable to. So she did what she could and held her
naked untouched cold body up to her mothers wrecked one and wept.

Soon though they were interrupted by the sound of rubber souls hitting metal flooring and
approaching quickly. Gabi saw that her mother was beginning to panic and wither in fear of the
people who were coming for them. So Gabi gently held her face in her hands and spoke to her in a
soft tone, “It’s gonna be okay mama, I promise okay? It's gonna be alright.” There was banging on
the door and the same accent that Gabi had earlier rang through the room with Gabi’s mother, Pam,
cowered into her daughter seeking some kind of comfort away from the madness around her. The
sound of the people stopped right outside their door, there was a moment of silence before the door
was unlocked and opened revealing a tall man with a strange uniform standing next to a slightly
shorter man with a mask on in a kind of constricting looking outfit made completely out of leather
like material. What struck Gabi most about the man was the fact that he had a metal arm that stuck
out like a sore thumb in the midst of everything else around it. She clutched her mother tightly to
her chest and looked at the men with what she hoped was the most threatening look she could give.

The man in uniform stood and looked at her with a mocking smile upon his face before he spoke
"Greetings guests and welcome to our facility. We are very happy you decided to join us with little
struggle, well exempt for the man, but he's been put down already so, no hassle there." He then
began to wave his hands around as he talked, circling around the two women who were huddled up
against the wall with Pam shivering in fear, Gabi continued to make strenuous eye contact with the
man as he looked at her lazily. "Hello my dear, my name would be Alexei Popov, and what might
you be doing out of your restraints?" He punctuated his sentence by grabbing a hold of Gabis left
wrist and pulled her up until she was standing. She had let out a strangled yelp as she was yanked
into position, her brokenness remembered for the time being. The man looked at her curiously
before looking at her hand that he still had grasped in his hand. "Oh I see you sly little minx, you
broke yourself in order to get out, but that's okay well have them patch you right up," he then let
his eyes trail over her bare form and then grasped her to his chest making sure that her struggling
was kept under control by pinning her arms to him. He then took out his revolver and pointed it to
Pam and pulled the trigger right in her lower diaphragm. Both women let out wails in anguish as
Pam crumpled even more into herself as the bullet wound started to set into her mind as the shock
faded away.

Gabi clawed and screamed bloody murder for her mother as she was dragged away kicking and
screaming from Pam who was currently drowning in her own bodily fluids. She thrashed about in
his arms, that is until she was knocked out cold by the back of a Makarov pistol. She sagged in the
man's arms and twitched in her unconsciousness.
 Chapter 2
Chapter Notes

Hello everyone :]
I finnaly managed to push out this chapter, I hope yall enjoyed the previous one!!

Gabi is violently awakened, she's no longer being taken down the hallway and is instead on her
knees with her hands tied behind her back. In the room there were quite a few different figures,
there were two people also on their knees on the opposite side of the room that she was on with
dark burlap bags covering their heads making it impossible to discern their identities. Gabi looks
around the room a bit more and feels panic rise in her for the safety of the other people seeing as
there was a whole squad of men in uniform holding rifles. Gabi looks around in the silence for a bit
longer before Polov clears his throat. "Hello my dearest audience and welcome to target practice!
Today we had three special guests in our midst today, and they all know each other, but how, they
don't yet know." Polov then pulled out a black jack and started to gently tap it against his knuckles
with his right hand as he spoke. "You see today's topic is about family," Gabi trembled as the
memories from earlier began to flood back into her brain, the look of pain and fear on her mother's
face as she bled to death. Gabi let out a sob and looked down at the floor as tears tracked down her
face and onto the concrete below.

"Now dear, don't be too sad about what happened earlier, it was necessary to get the point across
that we're serious about you being here. That we're not to be taken lightly. You're here for a reason
missy and I'm not sure you're going to like it when you find out why." Polov said all of this with a
cheerful grin plastered across his face in a menacing manner. Gabi had nothing to say and was too
scared to see what would happen if she did speak up. "So onto today's game, we’re going to be
playing a questionnaire, fun for the whole family.'' The longer he spoke the more it was sinking
into Gabi’s mind that she wasn't going to be leaving this place alive, if at all. She would either be
executed like her mother or she would be tortured until her body gave out and gave up.

“Now the way that this game is played dear is I ask you a question and you answer, and if you
don't answer fast enough or incorrectly there will be a bit of a consequence. For example you’ll get
a bit of a pinch on the shoulder, or maybe a smack on the wrist, or we’ll gun down the last of your
family before your very eyes.” At this Gabi looked up in confusion in horror as the bags were taken
off of the two figures right in front of her. On the left was her little brother Jackson who had a gag
in his mouth and tears streaking down young his face, on the right was her older sister Eliza who
also had a gag in her mouth, although she wasn't crying, but was instead struggling against her
restraints and looking back and forth between her two younger siblings with concern and fear.
“Why have you taken my family, what do you want?!” Gabi yelled with renewed vigor now
knowing that what was left of her loved ones were now in imminent danger. She had to find a way
to get them out of this, or to maybe reason with the uniformed psycho in front of her, taunting her.
Gabi straightened her back and gave the most feral look she could muster towards Polov before
starting to struggle against the man that was holding her to her knees above her. The man in
response let go of her with one of his hands and ran his fingers through her hair before yanking it
towards him making her screech in pain at the feeling of her hair follicles being pulled out of her
scalp. Polov then walked up to her and crouched down so he was now on her level. “You need to
start behaving yourself little girl or I might just have to begin the light show already and put a few
more holes in the feisty chick up front.” Gabi then froze and glared up at the man craning his neck
so that he could still look down at her whilst still being near her. Polov then stood and made his
way back over to where he had been standing and began talking once more much to Gabi’s dismay.
“You see I’m going to ask you a few questions and all you have to do is answer them, no more, and
I think that's pretty easy considering the circumstances you seem to have found yourself in doll,”

Gabi simply took a deep breath and looked back up at him with a harsh glare, and if looks could
kill then Polov would be on the ground twitching from being struck dead. He either didn't notice or
he didn't care about how hard she was looking at him and simply continued his dramatics as if he
was in theater in front of an audience. “So doll, were you in the house of Richard James Wilson the
night of the fourteenth of June nineteen sixty nine?” Gabi then shook her head, a lie, “No Sir, I was
at my apartment the night of the fourteenth.” Polov simply smiled before shouting “Wrong
answer!'' and snapped his fingers at the man who was holding Jackson, the man didn't hesitate
before blowing a hole in the twelve year old boy's head splattering his grey matter all over Eliza
and the man that was holding her along with himself. Jackson let out a final twitch before he fell on
his mangled face after being let go of by the man. The whole room was silent before being broken
by the strangled cry of Eliza and tears forming in her eyes as she angrily tried to make her way over
to Jackson’s body but still being held back from doing so by the man that was holding her in place.
Gabi’s eyes went wide and she almost was unable to process what had just happened, there's no
way this could have happened, this had to be a nightmare that she would wake up from any second.
Tears slipped down her face as she took in the scene of her little brother's face turning inside out
with more hair left than anything.

“I told you that there would be consequences for giving an incorrect answer, now i’ll give you one
more chance, were you in the house of Richard James Wilson the night of the fourteenth of June
nineteen sixty nine?” Gabi choked out a sob and looked down at the ground before nodding her
head as tears splattered onto the floor. “Yes Sir I was,” Gabi choked out , shivering as she spoke.
“See, that wasn't so hard was it doll? You just need to play by the rules of the game and everything
will be fine,” Polov began to pace once more and continued his line of questioning. “What was
your relationship with Mr. Wilson? How long have you two known one another?” Gabi took a
breath before answering, “It was good, we were just friends that met every once in a while for
dinner or a game of chess. We had met each other at a meeting between our two companies.” Polov
raised an eyebrow at that but chose to move on with a different question. “Did you know what kind
of job Mr. Wilson kept, or the kind of power he possessed?” Gabi shook her head and hiccuped
before answering, “Not until recently, no.” Polov nodded his head and faked a perplexed
expression with his hand on his chin, “And how did you come into contact with this information?”
Polov smiled wolfishly before bending over and looking Gabi in the face. After a long pause the
smile on Polov’s face melted away and was replaced by a look of frustration. He then smacked her
in the jaw with the back of his gloved hand “Answer me girl!”

Gabi had let out a cry of pain at the contact and her tears started to fall faster at the stinging
sensation in her face. Once she looked up she saw Polov start to gesture to the man holding Eliza,
“No! Please don't hurt her!” she shouted to the man begging him, pleading for her sister's life, “I’ll
tell you what you want… please just… I’ll give you whatever you want, as long as she's okay.”
Polov then raised an eyebrow at her with a slightly amused glint in his eyes when he looked at her,
he lowered his hand that was pointing towards her sister, leaving Gabi feeling relief, terror and
distrust that this wave of mercy will last very long. So with some of her last bits of strength she
looked at him and answered the question hoping and praying that this would lead to them being let
go or be in the process of being released. “It doesn’t look like you're in any kind of a position to
negotiate, but since I am a merciful and benevolent man I shall go with your slurred demands,” His
eyes darkened once more, “So answer the question,” Gabi sighed and tried to get her tears under
control so that she could speak more normally and without pausing awkwardly to sniff in the
mucus in her nose. “I found out about where he worked because I was snooping around his office
and found a classified folder.” Polov took in a theatrical scandalized breath and looked at her,
aghast at what she had said “Snooping?” He gasped, “I didn't take you for the type to take
advantage of an old man being beaten to death to steal his information and run,” He then turned on
his heal in a spin before looking at her once more, “And yet here we are, talking about how you
had done just that,”

Polov straightened the cuffs on his suit and looked at her with a blank look and she stared back at
him tiredly, not even caring that he was blatantly mocking her, more worried about her and her
sisters safety than anything. “So you did not know of anything pertaining to something by the
name of the Winter Soldier did you?” Gabi’s puffy face twisted in confusion as she looked at him,
and he could already tell she had no idea what he was talking about, “No sir, I have no idea what
that is,” Polov seemed to deflate for a brief moment before regaining his pompous attitude. “Well
then that mean that you’re in no way shape or form the person we thought you were,” Gabi's
stomach felt as if someone had just dumped a bucket of ice into it, this couldn't be good, “Not to
worry, we will still have some holes you could fill in our glorious cause, Soldier,” the man who
was holding her perked up and looked at him, “Take her to the infirmary to have that disgusting
thing on her hand taken care of.” Gabi was barely registering what was happening and was too
exhausted to do anything about it, so she simply left the room with the Soldier guiding her down
the halls. She gave one last look at Eliza as she left and prayed that she would be safe. False hope
at that but hope is hope.

When she finally got the energy to look around she saw that the walls were nothing but pristine
metal, so pristine to the point she could see her own reflection, she looked like a mess with a
bloodied rats nest atop her head blocking the vision of her left eye. She then surveyed the rest of
her body and seeing that her naked form was covered in the dirt and grime of the floor that she had
been forced upon, her knees were blooming bruises against her pale freckled skin. After she had
been looking at herself for some time she managed to trip over her own feet and go tumbling to the
ground. The man who was leading her down the hall didn't even make any signs of caring that she
had fallen and simply watched as she struggled to get up with her hands being bound. Once she had
finally gotten herself standing, the Soldier grabbed her bound hands again and made his way back
down the hallway with Gabi trying hard not to stumble once more as she made her way after him.

They arrived at the infirmary and Gabi immediately disliked it, it was covered in propaganda
posters on the wall and it smelled of antiseptic and ammonia making the whole room smell like a
cat's litter box. Gabi wrinkled her nose, it didn't take long to locate the origin of the smell, being
large jars and tubs filled with different colored liquid of different consistencies, some were left
uncapped leading Gabi to believe that's where the smell was coming from. Soon an odd looking
person arrived, covered head to toe in brightly colored shawls and beads. They looked Gabi up and
down quickly taking assessment of her wounds. It made her feel as naked as she looked. Being
observed even in a medical scene while naked made her extremely uncomfortable. She just wasn't
able to pay attention to her nakedness until now so she went to cover her breasts with her arms.
However pitiful and superfluous it may have been, it made her feel better so she stayed like that,
clutching herself and standing awkwardly with the Soldier behind her staring at the wall, hyper
focused on what was going on in his mind.

The person then smiled a bright and slightly unnerving smile before speaking. "So what am I
seeing you here for?...'' They then made a hand gesture in her direction. "Gabi, Gabi Stockdale."
The person then lifted up their name tag that was clipped onto one of their shawls, "Alistair Blaise''
they said before looking at the Soldier. "Winter, could you please let go of her for a bit, I need to
tend to her wounds." The Soldier behind her, Winter, let go of her and took a step back into the
corner. Alistair then beckons Gabi forward and pats the seat in the middle of the room requesting
that she sit on it. Gabi follows the wordless instruction, mildly fearful of what would happen if she
doesn't follow orders. “So let's see what you’ve got going on Ms. Stockdale,” Gabi then held up her
hand to show that the places where she had torn through the skin when struggling in her restraints
had become a slight pale green and were burning with fever. Gabi could barely feel the pain as her
body was still flowing with adrenaline from her earlier encounter with Polov, “Is this the main
injury? Do you have any other places that have large open wounds or traumas?” Gabi shook her
head in a no, “Good now if you would just wait a moment I’ll be right back with some disinfectant
and some treatments that will hopefully help with the inflammation and slight infection,” They
then left the room to go and shuffle through some cabinets within a closet over to the side of the
room. Once Alistair came out of the closet in their arms they procured a bottle of pills, a tube of
cream and a roll of bandages.

They dressed the wound while humming a song that Gabi was not familiar with, she hissed as
Alistair dabbed some of the cream onto her wound with a cotton ball before wrapping the wound.
They then took out two pills from the bottle that they were holding and handed them to Gabi with a
small glass of water. Once the liquid touched Gabi's tongue she realized just how dehydrated she
was and chugged the rest of the cup down with the pills. She whipped away the excess water that
was on her top lip with the back of her less wounded hand, her right hand had only got a simple
bandage around it to prevent infection. “So,” Alistair started, “How are you holding up?” Gabi let
out a huff of a laugh as this was the last thing she thought they would be asking her, “Do you mean
emotionally?” They nodded their head yes, “Well I just now watched my little brother get gunned
down right in front of me and right before that I saw my mother get shot in the lung and drowned in
her own blood,” She took a breath in trying to hold back another onslaught of tears, “So I'm not
doing too good,” Alistair then deflated and went to put their hand atop Gabi’s, but they pulled away
right before they could touch her. “I’m so sorry honey, I know their methods are harsh, unusual
and cruel, but I know you can get through this, I can already tell you're a very strong person, you’ll
be able to pull through no matter what.” Gabi then sent them a very watery smile before looking
down at her dirt covered thighs. “For now though, let's just get you cleaned up hon.” Alistair then
grabbed a rag and a towel from the closet and handed them to Gabi before helping her off of the
seat she was sitting in seeing as it was too high for her legs to touch the ground. They led Gabi
down the hall with Winter in toe before they reached what Gabi assumed to be the showering area.
“Winter I want you to guard outside of her stall as she showers and make sure no funny business
goes on.” Winter then nodded his head stiffly and looked at the wall behind the doctor's head. Gabi
stepped into the shower and slipped behind the curtain before turning on the frigid water making
her flinch as it came pouring down her naked form.

Once there was nothing but the sound of the water and her own thoughts to keep her company, she
began to have the images of her brother and mother flash before her, so before long she then
decided to try and focus on what Polov had said, “The Winter Soldier”. Gabi only had to think for a
moment before coming to the conclusion that the only person that she knew of that could be The
Winter Soldier was the man that was currently escorting her around. But why would they send
some obviously important person to babysit her when they had many other officers that could do
that just fine. She really didn't need this strong, strikingly proportional man to show her around and
get her what she needed. She took the soap and lathered it onto her skin trying to scrub away all of
the things that she'd seen today. She rubbed at her skin until it was pink and raw, say for the parts
that were still bandaged which she was carefully trying to keep out of the water, she didn't feel like
having soggy bandages on her for the time it took until they were changed once more. She rinsed
off her hair and the rest of her body before just standing in the water for a bit. Gabi slowly walked
out of the stall making sure that she wasn't being watched and dried herself off suddenly very self
conscious of how she looked. She wrapped the towel around her breasts and walked out to greet
Winter outside of the door still looking at the same spot in the wall. “Hey” she addressed the
Soldier awkwardly, trying to wave her hand in front of his face as if trying to wake him from a daze
into the unknown.
Winter shot his right hand out and grabbed onto her hand surprisingly gently and put it back by her
side, he then handed her what looked to be a hospital gown. She quickly slipped it over her head
and took the wet towel out from under it. Much more comfortable now that she was covered, if
only a little, she rested her towel on her right arm before Winter took it from her and made eye
contact with her for the first time. She tried not to stare at him for too long but his eyes were so
curious looking, so dead yet with a little glimmer of light trying to break through the surface and
get out.
 Chapter 3

Bucky's shoes were silent as he led the woman back to the room she was originally in, blood still
splattered the walls where the other prisoner had been kept and subsequently killed. Bucky wasn't
sure how he felt about it. He could nearly remember anything before Hydra but he knew for a fact
that this wasn't the best outcome to this situation. He felt a twinge of pity for the woman as she
crumpled to the ground after she saw the stain and sobbed. Bucky really wished that all of this pain
and suffering wasn't necessary but at the same time her suffering was her own fault, she shouldn't
have crossed Hydra.

Bucky soon left the room and bolted the door behind him, handling the station outside of her room,
guarding it. That is before his commander came around the corner and ordered him off of it,
explaining that he had better things to do. So he obeyed orders and left his station giving the man
outside of her door a threatening glance.

Bucky walked down the hall following his commanding officer into his office, it was there that
Polov spoke to him, “How do you feel about our new prisoner that we have gathered?” Bucky
shrugged his shoulders, keeping a stoic look on his face. “I feel nothing for or about her, she is a
prisoner and I am here to do with her what I am ordered, Sir.” Polov just nodded his head before
gesturing for Bucky to sit down in the set across from him. He then slid the folder in front of him
over to Bucky and told him to open it. Bucky, following orders, opened up the pale package and
looked at the contents inside. Within it were, as far as he could tell, what appeared to be all of the
data on the girl, Gabi was her name, she was in perfect health and kept up a good diet and a
standard amount of exercise for someone her age.

“What do you think?” Polov said with his elbows resting on the desk and his fingers folded in front
of his face. “She is of above average performance in her day to day life, Sir,” Bucky looked at him
with a slight furrow in his brow, why was he being told all about this girl, he saw no reason to
seeing as he had never been so intimately acquainted with a prisoner before. “She’s perfect for the
program that we have been working on recently, she’s got a strong will on her as you witnessed,
her only weakness are those who are close to her.”

Ah, that made sense as to why he was telling him all this but what did he want from him? It was as
if the man in front of him could read his very mind as he continued with, “I want you to train her,
she’ll be your apprentice Soldier.” For the first time in months an expression of something other
than rage was splayed across his features, surprise. This was the first time that he had ever been
assigned to do anything other than kill and be good at killing. Now he was going to have to take
this poor woman under his wing and teach her, in a way he almost wished that she was to be
executed if only so she didn't have to suffer the same ways that he had.
 Chapter 4

Gabi sat in that dark and cold room for she didn't know how long. It felt like days but it could have
only been a few hours. She was left with nothing to do but stew within the shit soup that was her
thoughts. She heard the man outside of her room shuffle a few times letting her know that the
guards had shifted people out, not that she was even trying to escape at this point. The only thing
she was truly thinking about as the time passed was her sister. She was probably in some other
room being tortured for Gabi’s mistakes, or she was just as lonely as Gabi was, all alone in a dark
room with nothing to do but count the seconds as they went by.

Soon a person came knocking at her door when she was drifting in and out to sleep on the hard
floor, not daring to climb back into the table to get onto higher ground. Winter seemed to have
come for her as he was the one who opened the door and stepped in to see her tucked away in the
corner trying to make herself as small as possible. Polov was behind him and whispered something
in an unfamiliar tongue to Winter before Winter looked over to her.

He walked over with a slight hesitancy in his eyes as if he knew something horrible was to come
and grabbed her by the arm that wasn't injured. "Let go of me!" Gabi shouted having regained her
will to speak in the time she had spent alone. Winter simply ignored her with what Gabi thought
was a look of regret and pulled her out of the room kicking and screaming.

Winter dragged Gabi down a hallway that Gabi hadn't seen before, although all of the hallways
looked the same, this one seemed different, more dark. There were less and less guards and people
walking by as they got deeper into the corridor. Eventually they came upon a room, or a set of
rooms rather, one with iron bars on it and what seemed to be a block for sleeping with a sink and
toilet. The others of the set had simply iron doors on them. Polov, who had been following them
the whole way, stepped in front of Winter to unlock one of the iron doors and held it open in a
mock gentlemanly act before waving them inside with Gabi still struggling to get out of Winter’s
grip.

Gabi was then tossed down on the floor in front of Winter with Polov just following behind them
after he shut and locked the door behind him. “So, you still seem to have a bit of fight left in you,”
Gabi didn’t answer, only looking at the ground in anger, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of
getting a reaction out of her. “Aw, have you forgotten how to speak?” Polov violently grabbed her
chin, “Well at least your sister knows how to scream,” He hissed with a grin on his pointed face.
Gabi's eyes went wide at the mention of her sister, tears of anger and regret filling them. "Oh yes,"
Polov said, obviously realizing that he had struck a nerve, "She cried and cried as they had their
way with her, she begged for you to come and save her." Polov moved her head so she was looking
at his hand as he theatrically moved them to emphasize Elizabeth's pain. He waved both of his
hands before mocking a sad expression "but nobody came,"

Having heard enough, Gabi stood and lunged at Polov only to have Winter stop her with a large
hand wrapping around her waist restraining her. She resumed her kicking and screaming only this
time mixed with crying. Her shouts of "You bastard" and "I'll kill you" could be heard all down the
metal hallway. Soon she had tired herself out to the point where she was hanging limply in Winter's
arm sobbing quietly. Polov once again grabbed her face by the chin only this time gently before
tilting her head up so their eyes could meet. "I. Will. Kill you." She said through gritted teeth her
eyes bloodshot from crying; he smiled and dropped her head before leaving and locking the door
behind him.
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