Chapter Text
Bucky paced the Tower floor.
Sick.
All of this is sick.
He peered into the glass enclosure they built into one of the middle floors. It was new, clean and full of playhouse-like structures, all covered in soft, multicolored padding—Bucky insisted. He refused to trap someone in an all-white room; it was worse than having no light at all. Construction was rushed, but not sloppy. Valentina refused to let anything be built half-assed in her Tower, no sir. Especially not when it was built for the Boa.
The Boa was a myth. A horror story whispered among agents, a promise of punishment for failure. A HYDRA file shredded and burned, buried deep in the mountains of Appalachia.
Dead.
At least, that was the story. Clearly not everything was gone.
She often sat babbling to herself in the corner, holed up in one of the structures. Mostly nonsense, from what Bucky could make out, with an occasional outburst of names or dates. Nina Derozov. May 8th, 1948. Delilah Fredrick. January 5th, 1983. Amelia Thompson. September 13th, 2006. Always women. Always Amelia. She mentioned Amelia just as much as she mentioned Appalachia. West Virginia, specifically. Little town in the middle of nowhere, didn’t exist anymore. Bucky figured it was where she grew up—hell of a lot of racist neo-Nazis there today, he wouldn’t have been surprised if HYDRA had a foothold then, too.
He couldn’t believe it. She had been in the Tower for weeks, and he still just couldn’t believe it. They missed one. They thought they had raided every last base, searched every file. But they missed one girl. Locked away in a cryo tube, left for dead. Big “DO NOT OPEN” sign in red letters, caution tape, the whole bit. Didn’t stop him, but still.
Each hour he spent watching her, listening to her talk, he grew more and more sick to his stomach.
Let her out.
She’s not an animal.
But even then, he couldn’t convince himself of that after their first encounter. She had bit him. Really bit him, like she wanted to rip a piece of his arm off. Like she wanted to swallow him whole. Deep down he knew she was named Boa for a reason.
He fidgeted idly with one of the buttons on his shirt as he sat there. He had to do something. Had to. Her mind was in pieces, and he knew what that was like. She needed help, safety protocols be damned.
“Amelia… Thompson,” she muttered, slumped against the wall. Bucky couldn’t listen to it anymore. He stepped forward, shoving the lock on the metal door open. The alarm sounded, but he didn’t care. He forced his way inside, slamming the door shut as panicked guards rushed toward the glass.
“Barnes! Get out of there!” one of them yelled. Bucky waved his hand dismissively, stepping towards the structures. He had no idea what he was doing. He had no idea what was about to happen. All he knew was he could smell her, and God it was strong. Sweat and acid filled his nostrils and his stomach churned. It had been a long time since a smell made him weak at the knees.
“Boa?” he called, voice wavering. His chest tightened when he saw her, hiding in one of the structures. She just barely had enough of a window to see him through.
“Hey there…” he tried softly. The plastic wrap under him squeaked with each step. Someone banged on the glass.
“Bucky, stop! Don’t get close!” he heard Yelena shout.
“Yelena?” he faltered. She looked… uncharacteristically shaken.
“Just come back to the door,” she spoke, forcing a calm firmness into her tone. Bucky sighed sharply.
“She’s in pain,” he insisted.
“Which is exactly why you’re in danger!” she shouted. “Get out of there!” Bucky heard the squeak of plastic, and he froze.
“Amelia?” a meek voice asked. All the clamoring outside stopped. Bucky could see Yelena’s terrified face. He slowly turned. Boa sat behind him, slender limbs curled up on top of one of the structures.
“No, I…” Bucky swallowed. “I’m not Amelia. But… I’m here to help. You’re hurting.” Her eyes reflected faintly in the fluorescent light.
“Soldier,” she breathed, nostrils flaring. Bucky could have dropped dead.
“You know me?” he asked, trying to hide the way his voice wavered. She barely nodded, muscles coiling tight as she stared. Yelena tried to force her way through to the door.
“Goddamnit, she’s going to kill him! Let me through!” she barked at the guards blocking her way, throwing elbows.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” Bucky tried, hands raised. Boa tilted her head, eyes narrowed as though she were choosing her words.
“Plaything,” she hissed, putting her weight on her hands.
“Plaything…?” Bucky echoed, confusion melting into horror. Plaything.
All the playthings were supposed to be dead.
She was supposed to be dead.
The playthings were HYDRA experiments gone wrong, doomed to die anyway. They’d throw one into a cage with Bucky every now and then, watching for entertainment and betting on how long they’d last after he was given the order to kill.
None of them survived. He knew it.
She couldn’t have been one.
Right?
The sound of the door opening managed to snap Bucky out of his own thoughts.
“Bucky! Come on!” Yelena shouted. He took a step back, determined to at least say something before they dragged him out of here.
“I’m not the Soldier anymore,” he tried, locking eyes with her.
“I know,” she growled, nails digging into the plastic. Bucky swallowed the lump in his throat, stepping toward the door slowly.
“I’m sorry,” he breathed.
“I know,” she hissed. Bucky was just a few feet from the door now, Yelena reaching for him to grab his sleeve. She yanked him out of the enclosure and slammed the door shut. Guards rushed to fix the lock.
“What the HELL were you thinking?!” Yelena shouted, arms outstretched in utter bewilderment. “We haven’t even got proper scans to see what HYDRA did to her, and you just threw yourself in there, no weapon or anything?!”
“I know. I know, it was stupid. I just…” Bucky sighed. “I don’t know. I just… don’t know.” Yelena observed him closely. Something told her it was more than just a reckless endeavor.
“What were you hoping to accomplish,” she tried, a bit calmer this time. “Tell me that, and I’ll get off your ass.” Bucky fell silent for a moment.
“I’ve been listening to her talk in there. Repeating names, dates… They’re all dead people, but… I don’t know. She’s seen something. Or done something. They’re all women, and they’re all from the same area,” he explained, rolling his tongue around in his mouth. “I just… there’s no way they used her for assassinations. She’s too unstable for that. There’s a lot we don’t know and it’s driving me up the wall.”
“Because you feel responsible for us missing that base,” Yelena assumed. Bucky exhaled sharply.
“That too,” he grumbled. Of course he felt responsible. He had made it his responsibility to finish dismantling HYDRA’s work. Forgetting one base was more than just a slip-up. It was failure.
He never failed.
“It’s not your fault she’s in pain,” Yelena insisted. “We just need time to figure out what happened to her.” The muscles in Bucky’s jaw flexed.
“But it is,” he admitted, the words bitter on his tongue.
“Bucky, you didn’t-” Yelena argued.
“I killed her, Yelena.” The words put an abrupt stop to her defense.
“You… what?”
“As the Soldier. I killed her with my bare hands. I remember it. She’s supposed to be dead.”
“How do you know it was her?”
“She knows about the playthings. The failed experiments they’d watch me fight for fun, she knows about them. There’s no other explanation.” Yelena fell silent for a moment, clearly thinking hard.
“I don’t know what the solution is here,” she spoke carefully, “but you throwing yourself in that cage with her is not it.” Gently, she placed a hand on his shoulder. His gaze remained fixed on the enclosure. Boa sat perched on the structures, clearly visible to the guards standing outside.
“She’s waiting for something now,” he observed. Yelena took a moment to notice.
“You think that seeing someone she knew might have snapped her out of it?” she asked.
“No. Couldn’t have been. She’s seen me so many times at this point.”
“Then why’s she acting different?” Boa sat perfectly still, eyes trained on the window. No muttering, no hiding, just eerie staring. She looked ready to pounce.
“It’s like she’s… fixating. Locked onto a target,” Bucky muttered. “She must have…” His eyes widened as he trailed off. “Oh my God.”
“What, what is it?” Yelena asked, looking up at him.
“Did you smell her when you opened the door?”
“Yeah, it was rancid. Why?”
“Because I think she smells us.”