A hoarse scream ripped from his throat, and his eyes snapped open as his body jolted painfully, heart hammering in his chest. Sweat coated his bare skin as he gasped, trying to slow his breathing, change the desperate wheeze to a slower, regular measure.

"Levi," the word torn from his mouth, agonizing, tearing tender flesh as it passed and a sorrow and grief so heavy they were choking settled on his chest. He rolled to his side, trying to alleviate the torment, but it was futile.

Pushing wearily to sit upright, Bucky reached for a pair of sweats and a shirt, pulling them on mindlessly. There would be no more sleep tonight, Bucky was shocked he'd managed to close his eyes at all.

The common room was empty at first glance, but Bucky knew he was here and he wandered slowly to the chair facing the window, sitting heavily beside his friend.

Steve jolted, so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't heard Bucky approach. He didn't bother to wipe away the tears trailing down his cheeks, they would continue to flow anyway, and soon Bucky would be joining him.

"Anything?" Bucky mumbled, the hope in his voice long since gone.

Steve shook his head. "The report was useless. Tony is trying again, but he's running out of favours."

Bucky nodded, more a reflex than anything else.

"She's out there." Steve replied, his voice fighting to be strong, cracking anyway.

"It's been four weeks Steve, God knows what they're doing to her right now-" Bucky broke off, fighting a sob. The full brunt of the anguish he'd been holding back since waking from his nightmare crashed down on him then, and he gave in to the misery, hardly able to breathe through the tears. After a moment, he felt Steve rest his head against his, and his friends' tears joined his own.

"She is strong." The voice held an edge of respect, a bite of frustration. "Again." He commanded.

The machine powered up, a high-pitched whine filling the air.

Levi, clad only in a sweat-soaked muscle shirt and cargo pants, tensed, eyes going wide as the memory suppressor fired through her again, lips curling back from the bite guard as she started to scream in agony, panic filling her eyes as the last of her memories of Bucky, of the Avengers, of her life were ripped away.

She slumped, only half-conscious in the restraints as the machine wound down. Flickers danced in her mind, flashes of a handsome brown-haired man, his almost supernatural blue eyes, a smile that she knew was just for her-

"Again."

Bucky shivered, ears ringing, dust clouding his lungs, his limbs jerked spastically with residual shock. He coughed violently, wincing at the pain. Half-crushed by fallen debris, he could hardly move, hardly piece together what had just happened. Then it hit him, like a freight train.

"Why do I feel like I'm in a movie?"

"What?"

"It looks... Staged! Like this is a -"

A trap.

A goddamn HYDRA trap, and they had walked right into it.

HYDRA had been lying in wait, laid the deception and, lulled by time, the team had given them exactly what they'd wanted.

Levi.

Bucky could sense that she was nowhere near him anymore. Beyond his enhanced senses, he just felt when Levi was near him, like a low-level charge... and it was gone.

HYDRA had taken their experiment back.

Bucky threw his head back and screamed, a gut-wrenching, blood-chilling, heart-breaking wail of absolute devastation.

**********************************************************************************************"Ready." The technician reported.

"Corporeal... Ravenous."

Levi jolted in her restraints, head still swimming. Something about these words was wrong- NO!

"N-no!" She fought to protest, too disoriented, too weak to make an impact. The voice continued in emotionless Russian.

"Twilight."

"No. NO!" Levi managed to scream, but it was getting harder to remember just what she was screaming for-

"Pure... Evergreen... Forge."

"Bucky! Buck-..."

"Deviate. Fracture. Sister. Sorrow... Welcome back, soldier."

"Ready to Comply."

"Goddammit!" Bucky raged, throwing all his frustration into his arm, his fist connecting with the heavy bag. The suffering chain finally snapped and the bag flew, splattering on the floor of the training area and hemorrhaging sand all over the floor. "It's been four fucking months! Where is she?!"

Steve stayed silent. No one knew, and the team had worked itself past the point of insanity to find out; but Levi had all but disappeared. It was too painful to contemplate what Levi had potentially experienced at HYDRA's hands these past months, and so Steve didn't, throwing himself into exploring every last avenue, every last dark corner. Every lead had been followed up on, every file and report reexamined for fresh information, the team attacking and raiding any potential source of information, every potential HYDRA hideout, every abandoned base.

Nothing.

The team was unrecognizable in their grief, but none had changed more than Bucky. The only thing keeping him going was the drive to find Levi, to rescue her. Memories of his own tortures, speculation of what Levi was being subjected to haunted him constantly. He hardly slept, collapsing from abject exhaustion every few days, twitching and thrashing awake with guttural screams mere hours later.

He ate, but only to maintain his frame and power so he could deliver vengeance when Levi was found. His workouts and training had become hard to watch, the drive of a dangerously obsessed man with only one goal in mind.

He would find Levi, his soulmate; and he would tear apart and drink the blood of her captors.

Tony had called in every favour owed, begged and did deals for even more, turning the globe inside out. Money was no object, nothing was too outrageous to utilize, but still there was no trace.

Staggering, Bucky fell heavily to his knees; dropping his head, his hair now shaggy and unkempt, into shaking, bloodstained hands. Steve's enhanced hearing picked up the sound of sobs being desperately fought back and his heart broke further for his friend.

Bucky had finally believed himself deserving of happiness, had finally found the person who completed him, who soothed and healed his damaged soul and loved him back every bit as strongly as he loved them; and now, the man who'd lost his whole life at one point, had lost it again.

It wasn't fucking fair.

And, even if they did manage to find Levi this time, which was looking more and more unlikely with each passing day... what would they find? What shattered, broken, devastated wreck would they encounter; what brainwashed monster, with no memories of Bucky or her friends, only the orders to destroy them?

Movement at the corner of his eye startled him and Steve glanced over, surprised to see Tony approaching. Tony was rarely seen outside of his office or his lab; either searching tirelessly for Levi or trying to decompress by tinkering. He hadn't attended a family dinner in weeks, not that the team held any sort of lighthearted gatherings anymore anyway. Tony's eyes were wild, sweat on his face, clothes wrinkled and rumpled; this wasn't anything new, not since Levi was taken at any rate, but the stench of dread on him was.

"Tony? What-"

"Steve-" Tony broke off, swallowing hard. "You need to come see this."

This too made Steve instantly fearful. Whatever this was, it had disconcerted Tony enough to make him act completely out of character, and the man who normally would have had FRIDAY call, or texted Steve had instead thought only of running and finding the man personally.

"What is it-" He broke off with a grimace as Tony's claw-like fingers gripped his forearm painfully. Unspoken dread, horror and anguish showed in Tony's dark eyes and Steve felt the beginnings of real terror. Stumbling, he followed the billionaire as he all but dragged the Captain from the room.

It couldn't be. It couldn't... no.

"You think it's her?" It was a pointless question.

"You don't?" The barest hint of Tony's natural sarcasm bled through.

"God, I wish it wasn't. But it has to be... That's why they took her, right?"

Tony nodded soberly, turning his attention to the flat screen.

AMERICAN EMBASSY IN RUINS the headline scrolled. The commentator sat speechless, mouth opening and closing, stumbling over her words. THE EMBASSY OF THE UNITED STATES, LOCATED IN MOSCOW, HAS BEEN DESTROYED IN WHAT WITNESSES CALL 'AN APOCALYPTIC-LIKE EVENT'.

Another monitor showed the carnage, unfiltered and raw. Tony's access to live feeds not available to the public hammered home the severity. This was not what the public would see, they would be fed a sanitized version.

Blackened, still twitching bodies littered the ground. Burning people, their visible skin blistering and peeling off in raw strips staggered mindlessly. Others sat, stunned, holding bloodied rags to ruined skulls, or lay flat-out, brain dying but still making the body's limbs move in spastic, random jerks.

INITIAL ESTIMATES SAY 340 DEAD, ADDITIONAL 200 INJURED, 500 STILL UNACCOUNTED FOR.

Ice cold fear trickled down Steve's spine. Tony looked like he would be physically sick.

"It can't be her, it..."

"It's her." A new voice spoke, guttural and savage. Steve turned to see Bucky entering the office. His eyes were red-rimmed, jaw clenched. "They took her and turned her back into a killer."

NO SUSPECTS AT PRESENT, REBEL GROUP 'PEOPLE'S VOICE' IS CLAIMING RESPONSIBILITY, INTELLIGENCE SOURCES SAY GROUP NOT LARGE ENOUGH TO CARRY OUT SUCH AN ATTACK, PRESIDENT IS APPRISED AND HAS BEEN MOVED TO UNDISCLOSED, SAFE LOCATION.

"Jesus," Steve mumbled, numb with shock.

"HYDRA is declaring war on the United StatesGovernment, and they used Levi to fire the first shot." Tony announced, his voice bleak.

"We can't wait any longer!" Bucky raged, pacing. His fists clenched and unclenched spasmodically.

"We still don't know where to look!" Steve shouted back, breathing heavily.

"Anything's better than just standing here, waiting to hear about the next attack!" Bucky roared, slamming his metal fist into the wall. The metal gave with a groan under his savagery, the normally quiet whirring of Bucky's metal arm rising to a screech as the advanced prosthetic strained under the onslaught. Bucky stared at his metal hand in silence, chest heaving, flexing the fist a few times until the mechanical sounds settled. This seemed to break through his fury and he turned back to face the rest of the team, jaw clenched and eyesf lowered, but no longer radiating dangerous violence.

"That's why we're here, reviewing the information again." Nat spoke up now. "What do we know for sure?"

Tony turned in his chair, pointing a tiny remote at a bank of flat screens. Twelve simultaneous images appeared.

"Okay, attack number one... the US Embassy in Moscow."

The team winced, forcing themselves to watch the footage. The final body count had been just over 500, with 325 injured and over 200 considered missing because what remained was simply too destroyed to identify.

"Two... the Embassy in Paris. Not as many dead this time, but the Secretary of State was hit this time. What's the last update of his status?"

Wanda spoke up, tapping at a tablet, her voice subdued. "No longer in a coma, looks like permanent and devastating brain damage though."

The footage continued, the stakes raising with each new image. HYDRA was steadily eroding the US government with coordinated, guerilla-like attacks, and no amount of preparation seemed to help. The country was at the brink of war, with no idea where to point the missile. Speculation ran rampant, but there was never enough evidence. Faint, vague, blurry images from security cameras surfaced occasionally, showing potential leads, but nothing more could be determined.

"A solitary figure was caught on closed circuit cameras entering the Embassy approximately 15 minutes before the first explosion and exiting approximately 11 minutes later," a newscaster in the latest footage reported, twelve copies of her face speaking from the flat screens as the team watched.

Tony froze the screen. "It's always the same, if any cameras catch sight of her, it's always blurry and indistinct. It has to be deliberate..."

"Setting her up to eventually take the fall?" Steve wondered.

Tony nodded soberly. "Looks that way. It's not looking like HYDRA's planning on keeping her long-term. This is their big move."

Bruce cleared his throat, obviously already regretting what he was about to say. "Okay, say we manage to find Levi, and recover her... the government is going to want their pound of flesh, someone to punish for this."

"So, either HYDRA disposes of her, or our own country will." The bitterness in Steve's voice was startling.

"But nobody's been identified yet," Tony continued. "I've had FRIDAY monitoring everything, and Lev hasn't been identified, no one can even say with confidence yet whether the 'solitary figure' is male or female. CNN dedicated a three-hour spot to a panel of experts debating that and they still couldn't decide. If we can keep that secret, we can recover her."

"So..." Steve cut in, an edge of hope in his voice, "if we get Lev before HYDRA deserts her, and before anyone figures out it's her, we might be able to-"

Bucky suddenly leap to his feet and, without another word, stormed from the room. Silence followed him, and the team glanced uncertainly at each other. Bucky had been a volatile powder keg ever since Lev's abduction, but with the mounting evidence of the evil HYDRA was forcing her to commit, he'd become downright mercurial, swinging crazily from wild anguish and sorrow to near murderous rage and anger. The walls shook as he slammed the door behind him and a muffled roar of frustrated rage drifted back to their ears.

Steve stood slowly. "Give me a few minutes. We need to discuss this as a team."

Tony nodded soberly, looking back down at his tablet. "FRIDAY? Anything new?" He asked the AI as Steve left the room.

It wasn't hard to follow him. Even without Steve's enhanced hearing Bucky was in no way attempting to be quiet. Dull thuds and booms filled the air, Bucky seemed to be randomly slamming his fists into the walls as he raged down the corridors, and Steve could hear the occasional growl or snarl.

"Buck! Stop!" Steve moved into a jog and, turning a corner, found Bucky leaning heavily against the wall, chest heaving. His knuckles were bloody, fists flexing. "I know it's hard Buck, but we've gotta make a plan, if we can find a way to recover Levi-"

"And what, punk?" Bucky barked. "Bring her back here and try to put her back together? Then what, she figures out she's responsible for almost a thousand deaths and we have to watch her go through that?"

"What other option is there?" Steve's voice rose with incredulity. "You're giving up?"

"No." All the ire and rage were gone from Bucky's voice, and only bone-deep misery remained, he sagged further against the wall, bowing with anguish. "But I'd rather she was dead then have to live with that on her conscience. It'll break her."

Steve fell into stunned silence, his baffled retort dying on his tongue. They'd all been so consumed with trying to rescue Lev, they'd failed to consider whether she'd want to be saved once she realized what she'd done.

"HYDRA knows they only have this one shot with her," Bucky continued. "They're going for it all; even if Lev lives, they've destroyed her." The anguish in Bucky's voice was thick, and tears glimmered on his cheeks. "I'd rather lose her, have her die and leave me here alone than see her try to live with that in her mind. She doesn't deserve that burden, she never did."

"No." Steve cut in bitterly, hitting his fist against the wall as he leaned heavily against it, across the corridor from Bucky. "No. You came back from that, she will too."

Bucky lifted his head, and the bleak expression in his eyes broke Steve's heart. "You have no idea what I live with... every day. I'm willing to sacrifice my happy ending if it saves her from this." His hand drifted to his chest, curled against his heart and he shuddered, exhaling heavily.

Steve was momentarily unable to speak, what do you say to that? Bucky was willing to lose Lev, let go of his soulmate to spare her this pain, what greater sacrifice was there for love?

"Buck, I..." he trailed off. "Lev deserves the chance to decide that for herself."

Bucky winced, his thoughts clear on his face. And then what? Lev decides she can't live with this weight, and he has to deal with her leaving, disappearing somewhere? Or worse, her suicide? Finding her, cold and gone, already past the mortal coils where he can't follow, clutching her lifeless body to his chest as he broke down completely? Suddenly, his knees gave out and Bucky collapsed to the floor, sitting heavily, dropping his head forward into his hands.

Steve hesitated, the anguish around Bucky was thick, suffocating, then he stepped forward and slid down the wall to sit beside him.

"We have to try."

The alarm went off suddenly, startling Bucky out of a fevered nightmare; he lay there a moment, just panting, trying to collect his thoughts but then FRIDAY was speaking, voice booming.

"All team members report to briefing room immediately!"

Still trembling, more on a soldier's autopilot right now than anything else, Bucky rolled out, snagging a t-shirt and pulling it on as he left the room, barefoot, jogging towards the stairs. As he hit the right floor he broke into a sprint, meeting Steve approaching from the other way. The confusion on the blonde's face said he had no idea what was going on either; but Bucky felt a suffocating dread. This was about Levi, had she been identified? Captured?

Tony didn't even wait for everyone to sit before he was speaking. "We got a lead, it's not much, but it's something."

"On Lev?" Nat gasped.

"Like I said, it's not much, but I'm taking it... sit down." He flapped his hands at the team where they'd frozen in shock at his declaration and they shuffled quickly to chairs.

The screens filled with a barrage of images. "There is strong reason to believe that the secret location of the President's family has been leaked inadvertently. Obviously, Madame Pres isn't taking any chances and is arranging a rush transfer for the first husband and her kids. Based on the evolution of the attacks, I believe that Lev is going to target them next. This gives us a chance to intercept. I know, it's not much, but it's a strong possibility and I think we need to move on it."

"With the President's family as bait?" Bruce asked incredulously.

"When you put it that way, it sounds bad," Tony grumbled. "But yeah."

"Where are they now?" Steve asked, all business.

"We only have the coordinates," Tony answered, and a location appeared on the screens.

"It looks like a warehouse district, in any random city."

"It's Philly, but yeah. They were going for random and unexpected."

"Okay, and where do we come in?" Clint asked, studying the image, rubbing his chin with his hand.

"Half of the President's advisors want a full armored guard escort, basically a lineup of tanks to lumber the family out of there, and the other half wants an above top-secret in and out. I think they need both, one as the red herring, the other real."

"And we watch both, ready for Lev to attack either way?"

"If she's even going to be sent out for this." Bucky spoke for the first time. "This might be a wild goose chase."

"Maybe," Tony agreed, surprisingly amiable. "But it's the only lead we have, and there isn't much else HYDRA can do at this point. If they succeed and take out the first family, it pretty much guarantees they win, the President will either break down, or knee-jerk retaliate, and either way, the pricks will be ready. I get the strong feeling this is what they been building to the whole time. Take away everything until the President has nothing left to lose."

"So, we're going rogue then," Steve replied, his voice rising as he began to agree more and more with the decision. "We don't report, we don't let anyone know; that way, if there is a mole in the government, they can't alert HYDRA."

"It was a software fail, not a mole."

"I'm not taking that chance, from now on, we assume sabotage."

The team fell uneasily silent. HYDRA had infiltrated the highest levels of government before, had they again?

"We need a plan, and I have to talk with the President, we need to secure Lev's safety if we're successful." Tony's voice broke in. "Whatever we decide, the family is being extracted within the hour."

"Divide in two, one team per extraction... and prepare for war." Steve replied.

Bucky shifted his weight, grip tightening on his rifle. Nearby, Steve eyed him warily. Two stories below, at ground level, a non-descript SUV idled. An old coal transport tunnel linked the nearby warehouse with another one across the block, and the first family was due to emerge from the inky depths of the underground any second, then creep through the abandoned building to the door before scrambling carefully into the vehicle. Six blocks away, a full armored escort rumbled, flanked by innumerable police and secret service.

The red herring, the decoy.

Despite the team's reluctance, the President and her advisors had chosen this. Tony and Steve wanted the family to be protected by the armored transports, knowing HYDRA was both skilled and cynical enough to suspect a decoy, and would be searching for the real hand-off, but they'd lost. The best they could do now was watch and wait, do their best to help. Maybe, just maybe Lev would be set loose on the tanks. It was a long shot, HYDRA was smart, and they could have sniffed out this trap already, but maybe not; maybe, for once, luck would be on their side.

Half the team watched the tanks, the other half waited within comm distance of Steve and Bucky. Tony led the other team, managing to look grim even with his full suit on.

Tension radiated off Bucky like body heat, and his jaw was clenched so hard Steve worried he'd shatter his teeth. Bucky was way too off balance to be here, but there was no other choice. Other than completely incapacitating the former assassin, there was no way to keep him away. His complete and sole focus was finding and recovering Lev.

A hastily made agreement was in place. Without identifying Lev as the attacker, Tony had negotiated with the President, asking for and receiving her promise that if the team kept her family safe, the President would allow them to do with Lev what they wished. In other words, the team would deal with the fist of the attacker, while the government would turn and go for the head, attacking HYDRA with everything they had while the Avengers kept the organization's most dangerous weapon subdued. It was a shaky agreement, and would dissolve if anything bad happened to the first family; but the President was aware of HYDRA's mind-control experiments, realizing this was again the case and was willing to let the weapon go for the bigger picture. Just how Tony had managed this, what it had cost him, Steve didn't know, but there was no time to ask.

The door at ground level opened, and a wary head poked out, scanning back and forth down the deserted alley.

Steve tensed, heart beginning to hammer in his chest, if something was going to happen, if Lev had guessed their decoy, it would happen now.

Movement, in the shadows of a nearby roof; without his enhanced senses, Steve would have missed it. The way Bucky's breath hitched told Steve he'd seen it too. Swallowing hard, he aimed his rifle. There was no way they would be able to get closer without Lev noticing, she needed to be disabled first.

Steve whispered into his comm, readying the team. Six blocks away all hell broke loose, HYDRA attacking the convoy and Steve realized with lurch that the final battle had begun.

The next few minutes seared forever in Steve's mind, both over in the blink of an eye and seeming to drag on forever.

The muffled sound of a silenced shot, Bucky suddenly sprinting towards Lev, silent and single-minded. Lev disappeared into the shadows and Steve followed his friend, adrenaline almost painfully pulsing through him.

The rest of the team descended on the first family and Steve heard the beginnings of a firefight, then all other sounds faded away. A scuffle drew his attention and he ripped around a corner on the roof, seven buildings over from where they started, shield up, not knowing what to expect.

Lev had Bucky down on the ground, a knife to his throat; he was frozen, paralyzed beneath her, eyes wide, his chest heaving, brushing against her shins as she crouched above him. Her eyes were hard, determined as they lifted to meet Steve's. Her gorgeous auburn mane had been shorn off, close to the scalp and, as her icy gaze met Steve's, he saw a fresh vertical scar bisecting her right eye, marring her once perfect visage. Dropping her gaze again, she pulled her arm, ready to slash across Bucky's throat, more than likely decapitate him with the force she was capable of and Steve did the only thing he could.

He had no idea if Lev was just so focused on hurting Bucky that she didn't notice, or if, in some subconscious way, she wanted to be stopped, but she didn't twist out of the way fast enough to evade the flying shield and it slammed into her skull with a dull thud, knocking her away from Bucky's prone body.

Steve caught the tang of fresh blood as he sprinted towards them and a shiver of dread hit him as he saw Bucky struggle to sit up, pressing a gloved hand to his throat, thick blood welling between his fingers; Lev may not have been able to deliver a killing blow, but she'd definitely injured him.

Bucky pushed aside Steve's fretting fingers and coughed, blood flecking his lips. "Help Lev," he gritted, teeth stained red.

"But-"

"Help her! Get her out of here, I'm fine!"

Steve was about to disagree when Nat appeared, breathless and disheveled. Her eyes snapped back and forth between her nearly unrecognizable sister, still sprawled unconscious, to Bucky, still coughing and choking, glaring daggers at Steve.

"He's right." Her voice was decisive. "Get Lev out of here, I've got Barnes."

Nodding tightly, Steve complied, scooping Lev's limp body into his arms and sprinting away.

The glass rattled worriedly in the frame and Steve looked up warily before glancing to his side. Bucky sat nearby, pale and withdrawn, a fresh bandage around his throat. Steve had managed to get Lev back to the quinjet and properly restrained before she woke back up, but she'd been raging ever since, deaf to everyone's pleas and, when she did actually verbally answer, snarling in guttural Russian.

They were back in the sub-basement of the Tower, in the same detention cell that Lev had first been placed in. Tony had been gone for hours, negotiating with the President, fulfilling whatever end of the bargain he'd struck on Lev's behalf. The first family had been whisked away to safety, but Steve was unsure if the team would be called back into action to help hunt down HYDRA, apparently an agent had been captured during the attack, and the President was, at this point, not above 'physical and psychological persuasion' to get him to talk.

Another bellow, the glass rattled again and Bruce looked up from his tablet, swallowing hard. "Her readings are off the charts, they've been chemically enhancing her."

It was easy to see, although Lev had been in amazing shape before her capture, Olympic athlete level, she had at least an extra twenty pounds of corded muscle on her now, and her movements, although still graceful, were jerky, almost feral.

"She's been pumped full of anabolic steroids." Bruce continued, tapping at the screen. "And, at this point, I can't rule out cognitive treatments to increase aggression."

"What do you mean by that?" Bucky demanded, nerves strung tight.

Bruce sighed heavily. "If I had to guess, she was restrained and made to watch unfiltered footage of carnage, like those chimps at the beginning of 28 Days Later; that, coupled with the steroids, has transformed her into..." he faltered, trying to find the right words.

"A She-Hulk." Bucky supplied, his voice raspy.

"Without the radiation, yes. And they re-integrated her previous training. She's a Winter Soldier again, 2.0."

"So, she's triggered by the same words again?"

Bruce nodded. "This is probably what they would have done to her before, if her cryo-stasis hadn't been compromised."

Lev appeared in front of the glass, eyes unnervingly finding the men. Although the glass was one-way only, and all Lev could see was her own mirrored image, she knew they were out there. She spat angrily in Russian, and Bucky winced.

"What did she say?" Steve asked, heart sinking; Bucky looked like he'd just had his heart torn out.

He took a deep, steadying breath and answered. "She said 'You are still my mission, Asset'."