#alwaysaspy

[ He could barely make out Natasha’s silhouette in the dark. A nightmare had jarred him awake, or maybe some fragment of memory. They felt like the same thing really since he’d fled Hydra. Bucky swallowed and sat up, forcing his finger to ease off the trigger he’d found his way to in slumber. The gun itself, he let rest in his lap. It was the closest thing to comfort he had. “That your idea of empathy?” he asked, voice gravely with with sleep and general disuse. It was maybe the most he’d voluntarily said since they’d fallen in together. It bothered him more and more that he didn’t quite recall how he knew her. Reality was right there at his periphery, but every time he reached for it, it slipped away. He could ask, probably, but he was far too stubborn for that. “Your bedside manner could use some work,” he murmured instead, moving closer in a silent offer to take over keeping an eye out so that she could sleep.]    

Natasha smiled as he approached, comfortable with him and their situation in a way that she might have found difficult to explain to another. 

Perhaps he reminded her of her days before the Avengers, when dangerous hours waiting in an abandoned building was far from unusual. This felt very normal--just as normal as a Avengers mission might have been. 

No, more so. That had been part of her life for longer, after all. Stealth and being hunted, misdirection and murder.

Or maybe it was simply the number of times that she, herself, had woken from night memories, both real and imagined, with a gun in her hand. They were two of a kind, she and the Winter Soldier.

“No activity while you slept--unless you want to count a few rodents in the walls. No lights, no sounds of vehicles.”

always-a-spy

After giving Steve the file on the Winter Soldier–for which she’d called in a considerable number of favors–Natasha had left DC to begin establishing a series of new safehouses and identities.

She started in Hagerstown, Maryland, wanting a place that was close to D.C., but well out of the eye of the people whose eye she’d like to be able to avoid. Hagerstown was a small, working class city that met her needs nicely, and was 83 miles away from the capital.

Her name was currently Judith West, blond and 29, and she’d rented an apartment building that was upscale enough not to be under close watch by the police, but in a neighborhood that was dangerous enough that people didn’t tend to pay much attention to the comings and goings of their neighbors.

Things had been proceeding nicely when two police cars had boxed her in and dragged her out of her car, offering no explanation, but plenty of dirty looks.

They didn’t seem to know that she was anyone other than ‘Judith West’, and made no move to arrest her, read her rights, or take her in to the station.

It reeked to high heaven, especially once it became apparent that they were waiting for someone.

A short time later, a pudgy, middle-aged man arrived, flashing FBI identification, and led her to his car.

She could have escaped easily, but at this point, she thought that this was a heavy-handed way to get her back to Washington for further questioning by the Senate, perhaps arranged this way so as not to blow her cover. The impression was furthered when the agent whispered, “Sorry about this, Ms. Romanoff” as she got in the passenger seat.

That was not the case. As the police drove away, ‘Agent Lewis’ opened the driver’s side door, smiled in a friendly fashion, and shot her with a taser. Repeatedly.

When she woke, they were driving fast through a desolate part of town, and her hands were both cuffed together and secured to the dashboard.

Agent Lewis looked at her, a smug expression on his face, and said, “Heil Hydra. Y’know, I thought you’d be better.”

He didn’t look so smug when she brought her feet up and kicked his head through the driver’s side window.

Unfortunately, as she did that, he also slammed his foot on the gas and turned the steering wheel hard, sending the car careening out of control.

When she woke again–struggling to see through a curtain of blood and double vision, hanging upside down, secured by her seat belt and the cuffs–it was to see the impossible. Her tone was confused, and to her ears, tinny and distant, when she said, “…Bucky?”

Her vision went fuzzy, and then black, her last conscious thought being, ‘That can’t be real. How hard had she hit her head?’

What? Should he remember her? Bucky wasn’t certain, but she’d called him by his name, his real name and not the moniker of what Hydra had turned him into. If for no other reason than to find out why, he had to get her out of there.

The other guy was a lost cause, though Bucky wasn’t entirely sure that was a bad thing. He could be the enemy. Really, either one of the car’s occupants could be bad news, but he’d come over to help, and he wasn’t going to let this woman die over his own paranoia. 

He reached to break the chain on the cuffs, but thought better of it. If she was dangerous, the last thing he wanted was her more mobile than she had to be. It took some finagling to reach the agent on the other side, but he found the key to the cuffs and freed her from the dash, immediately clasping the metal back around her wrist in case she woke up. The seatbelt was next, and supporting her with his still injured arm, he reached with the other to free the clasp. It was painful, and her dead weight wasn’t remotely helpful, but Bucky managed to pull the woman free. 

So much for skipping town. Bucky couldn’t leave her if he wanted any answers, and if the car wreck hadn’t drawn attention yet, it likely would soon. Out of better options, he carried her back to the abandoned power plant he’d taken refuge in. It was rundown and dirty, but it took enough effort to get into to keep them marginally safe for the moment. He had very little in the way of medical supplies, but there were napkins from a prior meal in his backpack, and he used them to mop away as much of the blood as he could. 

Natasha entered the lobby of Stark Tower and greeted the occupant she knew would be there, just as he would be in all parts of the Tower. “Hello, Jarvis. Is Tony available?”

“I’m not certain, Ms. Romanoff. I will inquire--and may I say that it’s a pleasure to see you again? Please make yourself comfortable.”

Natasha smiled, pleased to hear Jarvis’ voice again. He was a very charming AI, and she thought that she would have liked the man his personality was based on very much.

“Thank you, Jarvis.” Natasha took a seat. Not because she felt any particular need to rest, but because she thought Jarvis would approve.

Natasha was becoming concerned about the amount of time this was taking. It had been more than six hours since she’d arrived to warn King T’challa of an urgent security risk, and while she understood the reasons behind the delay, that did nothing to mitigate the risk.

It hadn’t been difficult to figure out where Steve and Bucky Barnes had gone after leaving Siberia once she’d discovered that the’d left the quinjet for Tony, and while Steve had very carefully let himself be seen in numerous locations around the globe, she’d been unable to find confirmation that Barnes was with him, regardless of occasional, undocumented sightings of him with a white man in a ball cap. 

Those could just as easily be Scott Lang or Clint, and were probably purposeful. Steve was no spy, but he was shrewd and an excellent tactician, even if she was reminded her of nothing so much as a mother bird feigning a broken wing to draw attention away from her nest. 

Suspecting, as she did, that Barnes had been left in Wakanda, she’d kept her ear to the ground, and an eye on activities relating to the country. What she was seeing and hearing now alarmed her. 

She was seeing mercenaries congregating near the boarders, seeing a flurry of encrypted messages flying to and from Ross’ base of operations, as well as an increase in communication between Ross and those in the UN who backed him most whole-heartedly. 

She’d also intercepted messages that showed more than a casual interest in Wakanda in messages which lacked the U.S. military encryption of the clearly more important others that she’d been unable to crack as yet.

If she’d had access to the Avengers compound, she could have done so by now, but as it was, she could only guess what was really going on, and she was guessing that the numerous small things that were worrisome added up to a not so small whole. 

Perhaps Ross was simply hoping to secure a source of vibranium, but she couldn’t ignore the possibility that he was also hoping to secure the Winter Soldier.

The mercenaries were perhaps a separate issue, but the fact existed--if Barnes was there, he could be at risk, and while she didn’t actually know, or even trust Bucky Barnes, she knew how much he meant to Steve, and she knew enough about what Barnes has been through to believe he deserved a chance--the same chance she’d had. He definitely didn’t deserve to be turned into Ross’ personal assassin.

What she hadn’t known was that Barnes had decided to be frozen again--a fact that boggled her mind--or that his arm had been blown off and required replacement.

On finding out the latter, she'd made a mental note to find a way to speak to both Tony and Steve, because planning operations without all the facts at hand was a fool’s game, as she was currently demonstrating. In a worst case scenario, the time that had been taken, if not wasted, could prove to be critical.

Finally, she was led to the room where Barnes waited, awake, briefed, and with a prototype arm attached, a full seven hours after her arrival.

Pausing in the doorway, she looked at the former Winter Soldier. He cleaner than when she’d last seen him, although he still had scrapes from his battles up to, and presumably including, Siberia. Of course they wouldn't have healed while frozen.

He was also dressed for battle, and currently engaged in stowing weapons on his person in a deliberate and efficient manner. There were also two packs nearby, one being for her, no doubt.

Good. They were ready to go, although she doubted that he was pleased by this turn of events, given that he’d chosen freely to put himself on ice.

“Hello. How would you prefer that I address you?”