Jump Twice
Astrid fumbled on her parachute harness. She hated heights, but if she was going to escape without that bitch and her boyfriend finding her, she was going to have to jump.
"You'll be fine. Just take a deep breath and jump." She reassured herself. "One." Astrid took one step closer to the edge of the open cargo hold. "Two." She did one last check of her harness. "Three." Astrid jumped into space and began her free fall. She felt completely weightless for maybe a fraction of a second before she felt a sharp tug on her harness.
"You're not going anywhere." Bucky, holding onto a cargo net for support, tossed Astrid over her shoulder and back into the plane. The hatch began to close as Astrid rolled to a crouch. She gave Bucky smile of pure hatred that could only hide the glimmer of fear in her eyes as she tried to dislodge her false tooth and the cyanide capsule beneath.
"Not even to hell." Steve dropped silently from the rafters and grabbed Astrid's cheeks, forcing her mouth open. The pill clattered out from between her lips and Bucky kicked it out of the airplane. Sources say it broke upon impact and a curious deer died under mysterious circumstances. Steve manhandled Astrid to her feet and Bucky tossed him a pair of handcuffs from one of the pockets of her pants. "In fact, the only place you're going is our holding cell--for a very long time."
...
"Tell me what you know about South Africa." Steve asked roughly perhaps the fiftieth time that day, his tone dancing across the line between diplomatic and insulting. Bucky sat on the table next to him, looking on with feigned nonchalance.
"Why would I do that?" Astrid spat, though she was secretly relieved that she had lost her suicide pill.
"Because if you don't tell us then I put a knife through your hand." Bucky's voice was gentle, but somehow more frightening than Steve's harsh demands.
"You and I have both undergone torture training. You can't--" Astrid gasped as Bucky stabbed a hunting knife through the Amazon's right hand.
"Bucky! What the hell?" Steve glanced at his partner, an expression of dismay across his face, "Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"No. But we need her to talk." With each word, Bucky twisted the knife slightly, and Astrid grimaced in pain and anger. "Your way was too slow. We've been here for six hours, and not a single peep."
"Please. More. You missed my fifth metacarpal." Astrid barked out a weak laugh. In a flash, Bucky pulled out another knife and embedded it in Astrid's left shoulder. Tears sprung to the Amazon's eyes and she swore bitterly. Steve's jaw dropped in shock.
"What is HYDRA doing in Johannesburg?" Bucky cocked her head as Astrid tried to move her left arm. "You see how that feels? Not having an arm?" Bucky tugged her knife from the cartilage of Astrid's shoulder and tossed it angrily onto the tabletop. "That's what your goddamned organization did to me."
"Bucky stop this!" Steve put his hand on Bucky's forearm. He had seen her in her rages--she had once almost killed a CIA tail--but this was frightening. "There has to be a better way to get her to talk. Stark said something about truth serum--"
"I'm not going to talk." Astrid's voice hitched with pain as Bucky pulled out the knife from Astrid's hand and wiped it. "And after this, neither will you." Astrid took a deep breath and met Bucky's eyes with a secretive smirk. "Sputnik."
"You FUCKING BITCH." Bucky screamed, dropping the knife, and if Steve hadn't grabbed her, the Winter Soldier would have tackled Astrid to the floor. Steve dragged his kicking and screaming girlfriend out of the room to a stunned audience. Well, stunned except for Agent May, she was as collected as usual, but Fitzsimmons, Skye, Bobbi, and Mack all backed away from the Winter Soldier as she thrashed. "LET ME GO. STEVE. YOU HEARD WHAT SHE TRIED TO DO--you-you heard it." Bucky squeezed her eyes tightly shut as if warding off a migraine or fighting her conditioning. "Steve you heard what she said. You remember last time." Steve led her down the hall away from the fearful stares of their team.
"Yes. I heard her. I remember. I'm sorry that bitch was ever born. But what the hell were you doing in there? You can't torture people. That's not how we do things. You know that." Steve held Bucky by her forearms and stared carefully into her blue-green eyes.
"That's how I do things. How I've been doing them for a very long time now. Do you seriously think that during my seventy-year run I was just locked up on ice until I had a sniper mission? That's pretty goddamned naive of you." Bucky shivered as she dug into memories that she wished she had forgotten.
"You're better than this! I thought you were moving on, that you were trying--" Steve began his sentence angrily but stuttered to a halt.
"What? That I was trying to be good? A hero like you?" Bucky shrugged off Steve's hands. "News flash, Captain America, I'm no hero." Steve recoiled in shock of Bucky's anger, fighting back the tears that were welling in his own eyes. "I'm the Winter FUCKING Soldier. Even those dumb kids knew that I was no good. They only like me because they're freaks of nature, and in me they found kinship!" Bucky slammed her metal palm against Steve's chest and he slid backwards. "I'm not that sweet girl from Brooklyn anymore, Steve. I haven't been since I was first captured."
"Of course not. But you're still my best friend. My best girl." Steve tried to step closer, but Bucky snarled and was about to say something nasty when Fitz almost ran straight into her, his face pale from shock.
"The prisoner. She's dead. Somehow found a knife and stabbed herself while we weren't paying attention." He gasped, looking as though he were about to vomit, "We can't make heads or tails of it." Bucky's right hand flashed to her thigh to check for her knives. One, the same she had impaled Astrid's shoulder with, was missing. Bucky swore viciously, and with tears streaming down her cheeks, pushed Steve and Fitz aside and made her way to the back of the plane.
"Bucky! Wait!" Steve called after her, but Fitz held his arm.
"Captain. Perhaps it is best to let her go." Fitz spoke softly, but even that didn't soften the blow.
"In what universe?" Steve had to be careful when he shrugged Fitz off so as not to hurt the engineer. In response, Simmons stepped around the corner.
"In the universe where she did it." Simmons held up a bloody knife in gloved hands.