Paris.

It had been a while since he’d been here, but it was hard to forget this place. It wasn’t just the fact that the Invaders and he had liberated the city from Nazi control during the war and the celebrations that followed, but it was more about the feeling of Paris. They call it romantic for a reason, and while all the romances he had had there were not at all long winded romances, even he had succumb to that. But this time he wasn’t staying for celebrations; he wasn’t here for nights filled with booze and girls; he was working.

They were calling it a cold war. There were no trenches in the middle of Europe, sure war was brewing, but none of it was out right. It was like one gigantic game of cat and mouse between Russian and the United States, and he was just one of the many soldiers caught up in it. Tonight might’ve seemed like the last time he was here--he was going to a party after all, but he wasn’t celebrating anything.

A peace summit had been held earlier in the day; it was a joke, as far as he was concerned--just something to distract the public for a little while. But he knew the peace of the city wasn’t going to last long, or at least, Russia was going to try and stop it from lasting through the night. The intel had come through the CIA just a few days ago, and he’d been in Paris since then trying to find anymore clues. All he had was a gut feeling and the words of a really bad KGB agent that he was easily about to uncover in the city.

<”Widow.”> 

The word...no...it wasn’t a word. It was a title--someone’s title. When he’d gotten the agent to say this, he immediately called Nick, and his response only lead to more questions than answers. Nick had met a Russian spy during the war who went by the title of Black Widow, so he had suggested that this Widow person might be related to that. But if they were, were they the same person or someone completely different? Russia was bound to have their own secret weapons the other side didn’t know about. He should know, the CIA had him. 

According the US Army records, James Buchanan Barnes was killed in action right before the end of the war. He was just as much of a ghost as whoever he was chasing, but that’s the way he liked it. He always got more of a thrill out of chasing some unknown over chasing exact information.

The car he was in slowed to a stop outside the venue, drawing the soldier’s thoughts back to the present.

“We’re here,” the driver said, looking at him in the rearview mirror.

“Thanks. Don’t worry about waiting around. I can find my way back,” he said to the agent driving as he checked to make sure he had everything he needed on him.

Bucky got out of the car, the cool night air whipping around his as he car drove off. He adjusted his coat, hat and gloves before he headed up the stairs and into the gala.

Inside, live music filled the air as guests made their way towards the coat check. Bucky followed their lead, showing his invited to one of the door man before he stood in line to drop off his coat. He stripped off his coat and took off his hat, keeping his gloves on to cover his cybernetic of his left arm. The soldier looked into the ballroom as best he could, keeping an eye on the slowly moving line as he took in the scenery. When the people in his peripheral moved forward, Bucky took a step forward as well, not noticing that the woman in front of him hadn’t moved.