Chapter Text
Lorraine kept feeling her phone going off in her pocket the whole time she was in her meeting at S.H.I.E.L.D. Whoever it was must have had something to tell her because she got 6 phone calls within the span of a minute, then Fury got a phone call. Lorraine watched him when his phone started ringing, noticing how he seemed annoyed that someone was trying to contact him at that moment. But when he looked at the caller ID, he glanced over to Lorraine before answering. Everyone in the room was silent, and after a few moments Fury looked over to Lorraine again.
“You’ll want to take this,” he said in an oddly serious tone, handing Lorraine his phone. She glanced at the caller ID before putting the phone to her ear - it was Steve.
“Hey,” she said, furrowing her brow. What could he possibly want that was so important he called the freaking director of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the middle of a meeting?
“We found Bucky.”
Those words made Lorraine’s heart stop for a moment. The fact that Nick Fury had even given Steve permission to look for Bucky in the first place was a miracle, but actually finding the man was next to impossible. But he’d done it.
“That’s great,” Lorraine said, keeping her tone even so no one else knew exactly how she felt.
“I want you to come with us.”
“Steve, you know I don’t go in the field.”
Lorraine had tried going on missions before, both with and without her older brother. While she was a commendable fighter, she just didn’t enjoy doing the field work much. So she was more or less the personal secretary to the Avengers - she dealt with the logistics before missions, briefing the team, and going over the debrief after a mission. And she was good at it. Otherwise, Nick wouldn’t have been so comfortable giving her that kind of responsibility over someone who’d been with S.H.I.E.L.D. longer.
“Please, Lorrie,” Steve pleaded. “At least think about it.”
Lorraine sighed through her nose. “I’ll think about it.”
She handed Nick’s phone back to him before Steve could anything else to her. He nodded at her before speaking to Steve himself for another moment before hanging up and ending the meeting they were in. Everyone else who was there left, but he made Lorraine stay behind.
“I know what this means to you,” he said to Lorraine. He knew he wouldn’t have to specify what he was talking about.
“I’m just not sure I’d be a good fit to go,” Lorraine admitted with a shrug.
“Other than the captain, you were closest to Sergeant Barnes, weren’t you?”
“Yes. I’ve known him my whole life. But from Steve’s told me, what I saw in news reports after all that HYDRA mess, he’s not the same man anymore. He probably wouldn’t even know who I was.”
“There’s no way to know if you don’t go.”
Lorraine gave Nick a steady look, thinking about her options. Her first instinct was to go, of course, but she was nervous about what Bucky would do if he was still somehow under HYDRA’s control. If everything they’d done to him was still there. She took a few deep breaths to quell her nerves before giving an answer.
“I’ll go.”
“Good,” Nick smiled slightly, walking towards the door. “A team is going out in an hour. You, Cap, Natasha, Wilson. Your brother suggested a large team might spook Sergeant Barnes.”
“And what if he still snaps?” Lorraine asked, already nervous as she walked to the elevator with Nick. “The four of us would never be able to take him.”
“I trust Captain Rogers to know what he’s doing.”
Nick commanded the elevator to go up to the hangar, and Lorraine couldn’t help but feel even more nervous.
“So where is he?” she asked when the silence was about to drive her crazy.
“Romania,” Nick answered. Then he looked over at her. “Bet you’re glad you know Romanian about now.”
Lorraine only nodded, pressing her lips together. She was honestly kind of scared about what she was about to walk into. She had such fond memories of Bucky before the war, and she was terrified to learn what kind of man he might be now after everything HYDRA did to torture him over the years. The ding of the elevator brought her out of her thoughts and she followed the S.H.I.E.L.D. director to one of the quinjets. Steve, Sam, and Natasha were already there. Sam and Natasha both greeted her with smiles and Natasha pushed a wad of clothes and some boots into her arms before she went to talk to Steve. He honestly looked pretty nervous, too.
“Hey,” she said to him when she walked over to him. His back had been to her, but he only turned his head to her, busy with something she couldn’t see.
“Hey,” he said, his tone far more serious than it usually was around his sister. “I’m glad you’re coming.”
“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”
Finally Steve did turn to fully face Lorraine, noticing the nervousness in her voice.
“I’m sure he remembers something. Another familiar face, and someone who’s never tried to hurt or kill him, will probably do everyone some good.”
Lorraine only shrugged as she walked past her brother to a closed-off section of the plane that was reserved for team members to get dressed. She was in a pant suit and small heels - certainly not suitable for a mission, whether or not fighting would be involved. She smirked when she realized Natasha was just letting her borrow some of her own clothes; they were close to the same size, so they’d borrowed clothes from each other before. Natasha particularly borrowed from Lorraine for missions sometimes. Once she was dressed, she joined the others, who were talking with Nick just outside the back entrance to the quinjet.
“Once you get him back here, he’s going to need a psychological evaluation. Dr. Shelton will be doing it,” Nick explained. Lorraine couldn’t help but nod in approval - it was the same psychiatrist she and Steve both saw pretty regularly. They’d even had a couple appointments together at the very beginning; it only made sense for them to since they were siblings, both had the serum, and had a lot of things to work with in getting used to the twenty-first century. Nick continued to explain some of the usual things with missions involving extracting someone to bring them back to S.H.I.E.L.D. - don’t engage unless they start the fight and try not to call any attention to themselves in the process.
“Not that the four of you ever get unwanted attention,” Nick said sarcastically with a smirk. Steve scoffed and Natasha smiled, knowing the four of them, particularly together, usually did bring a lot of attention. “If you’re all ready, then head out.”
They were in the sky before Lorraine was really fully prepared for it - she didn’t fly often, and she knew Steve wasn’t a huge fan of it, either, but it had to be done.
“You ready for this?” Sam asked Lorraine after Natasha had the plane on auto-pilot. The four of them did have to come up with some kind of plan, after all.
“I think so,” Lorraine said with a huff of breath, staring at the holographic map of the city where Bucky was. Then she turned to Steve. “So what’s the plan?”
“Well, I’m thinking this might end up taking a few days at least,” he said, immediately in his leadership mode. “We don’t know what kind of mental state he’s in, so we need to be cautious. Start slowly. There’s a market in the middle of the city that we’re pretty sure he’s been seen at quite a few times, so we’ll start there. Natasha, Lorraine, you two will handle things the first day. Stay together, and don’t try to ambush him. Act like you’re just shoppers like on any other day. Sam and I will have an aerial view, so we’ll be able to tell you where he is if we see him. “Bump into him” if you think you have to in order to get his attention. Do whatever you need in order to talk to him, but do so subtly.”
“Steve,” Lorraine said with a deadpan look. “I’m just as bad at lying at you, and you expect me to go into this trying to act like I don’t know him?”
Steve just shrugged, moving the map around.
“We’re pretty sure he’s staying at an apartment here,” he continued, zooming in on a holographic building. “We’re not going to approach it yet, though. We need to try to see him in a public place so he’ll be less likely to do something drastic.”
“If he’s still got the Winter Soldier programming in him, it won’t matter if he’s in public or not,” Natasha pointed out. “If he sees us as a threat, he’s going to try to kill us.”
“As long as he’s been living in this place? I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be an issue.”
“And if it is, Steve and I will see it,” Sam counterpointed.
Once the plan was laid out, Lorraine sat away from the others to collect herself. She hadn’t seen Bucky Barnes in seventy-three years. And both of them looked exactly like they did that long ago. Steve, too, obviously. But Bucky had seen Steve since then, whether or not he remembered the man. Lorraine wasn’t sure if Bucky would recognize her or not.
“Hey,” Steve’s voice beside her brought Lorraine out of her thoughts and she looked over at him. “You ready for this?”
“Hell no,” Lorraine said with a scoff, giving him an uneasy smile. “I haven’t seen him in seventy-three years.”
“Yeah,” Steve said with a nod, staring out in front of him. “But, based on the intel we have, he’s actually doing okay. As well as he’d be able to, at least.”
“So not homicidal?”
Lorraine couldn’t help but smirk. Steve did, too, and smiled.
“According to the files we have on what HYDRA did, he was in an out of cryostasis for a long time. This is the longest he’s basically been out of a freezer literally ever.”
Lorraine internally cringed when she thought about Bucky being in cryostasis and taken back out so many times. While she had never been able to bring herself to read the whole file they’d gotten from HYDRA about him, she did know that particular detail.
“You think you’re ready to see him again?” Lorraine asked her brother, giving him a questioning look.
“I don’t know,” Steve answered honestly, resting his elbows against his knees and leaning forward. “Last time I saw him, his mission was to kill me. And you, even though he never saw you. I’m just hoping he doesn’t remember all that.”
Lorraine could remember how she’d been under Nick’s protection for a while after he’d faked his death because they found out she was one of Bucky’s targets. She was glad she never had to face him in those circumstances.
“I’m glad you’re coming with us.”
Lorraine smiled at Steve at his words, beginning to feel the same.
A few hours later, the quinjet landed at the airport closest to the city where Bucky had last been sighted. There was already a car ready for the four when they arrived - well, an armored SUV. Lorraine opted to sit in the back with Sam as Natasha drove them to the hotel where they would be staying, only a few blocks from the apartment building Bucky was supposedly living in. Lorraine was beginning to feel nervous again, not sure what to expect from this mission.
After getting to the hotel, the four met in the room Natasha and Lorraine were sharing and got their comms before checking them. So they were throwing themselves right into things. Lorraine wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, but according to some information they’d all gotten on their phones, Bucky had been spotted in the marketplace Steve had been talking about earlier not fifteen minutes prior.
“Alright,” Steve said as they left the hotel and got back into the SUV. “Nat, Lorraine, this might be the best chance you two have of confirming he’s here.”
“Got it,” Natasha said, glancing back at Lorraine who just nodded. It didn’t take them long to get to the marketplace, and Steve and Sam split up with Natasha and Lorraine as soon as they got there so Sam could discreetly fly them to the roof of a nearby building. The two women were on high alert as soon as they entered the crowd, scanning every face for a sign of Bucky.
“You guys good?” Sam said through the comm, having already gotten into position with Steve.
“Yeah,” Natasha said into hers, eyes darting across the crowd. “Got eyes on him yet?”
“Not yet.”
“He’s probably trying his best to blend in,” Steve said.
Natasha and Lorraine walked through the marketplace for a while, making sure to take the time to stop at various booths to look at the goods being sold so they looked like they belonged. Steve was smart to make both women be the ones going to the marketplace - they both knew enough Romanian to handle the small conversations they had with the various vendors. Several minutes later, Sam spotted who they were looking for.
“Found him,” he said into the comms, keeping a close eye on the man in question. “Across the road, two more vendors down.”
“Got it,” Natasha said, immediately going in that direction. Lorraine’s heart was picking up speed with the thought of seeing Bucky again and she wasn’t sure she couldn’t handle it.
“Lorraine, you alright?” Steve said over the comms, somehow sensing that his sister felt uneasy.
“Honestly, I’m not sure yet,” Lorraine responded, looking around her as she walked. “But I guess it’s too late to back out now.”
“Way too late,” Natasha said from beside her with a small smirk. They were close to the spot Sam had pointed out, and Lorraine was pretty sure she saw him with his back to them. But she couldn’t be sure because the man had long hair.
“So uh, if Bucky has long hair now that might’ve been a good detail to let me in on,” she said over her comms, almost annoyed that the others apparently forgot to tell her. Steve apologized and Natasha just shrugged.
“We see him,” she said as a quasi-explanation to what Lorraine said.
Bucky was stopped at a vendor selling fresh bread and pastries. Natasha led Lorraine around a crowd of people and stopped just out of his line of sight.
“Okay, we’re gonna split up for this,” she said quietly, her gaze never leaving Bucky. “You go around to his right, look at some of the stuff that vendor is selling. Hell, buy something if you really want to. Just look as inconspicuous as possible.”
“And what exactly are you going to do?” Lorraine asked, having a bad feeling about where Natasha was going with her plan.
“I’ll be right here, making sure he doesn’t try to kill you.”
Lorraine could only nod, her throat suddenly feeling dry. Natasha nudged her forward and Lorraine was so close to backing out.
“You can do this, Lorrie,” Steve said into the comms. His voice was the only thing that kept her from running in the other direction.
Slowly she came up beside Bucky, looking over the array of breads and pastries and trying to keep from blushing when she saw Bucky glance her way.
“Cu ce vă pot ajuta? (How can I help you?)” the vendor asked her with a warm smile.
“Uhh ... Am nevoie de ceva care merge bine cu tocană, (Uhh… I need something that goes well with a stew)” Lorraine said, looking over a few loaves of bread that were right in front of Bucky.
“O pâine franceză ar face probabil,(A French loaf would probably do)” Bucky suddenly said from beside her. She looked over at him, trying her best not to freak out about hearing his voice again. It wasn’t easy. The vendor agreed with him and picked up one of the bagged loaves.
“Asta va fi șase lei, (That will be six Leu)” the vendor said. Lorraine paid, noticing her hands were shaking.
“Mulțumesc, (Thank you)” she told the older man, trying her best to give him a friendly smile. Then she turned to Bucky. “Vă mulțumim pentru sugestie, (Thank you for the suggestion)” she told him, finally looking up to his face. When he looked at her, a flash of recognition crossed his features and he gave her a slightly suspicious look but it didn’t last long.
“Cu plăcere, (You’re welcome)” he said with a friendly smile.
Lorraine felt so stupid - she didn’t think she would be able to move from the spot she was standing. Until Bucky spoke to her again, this time in English. “I’m sorry, for some reason you look familiar, but I’ve never seen you here before.”
“Oh,” Lorraine said, feeling her blush come back in full force. She gave him an exaggerated shrug before saying, “I guess I just have one of those faces.”
Bucky started walking away then, and Lorraine looked towards where Natasha was standing. Natasha was motioning wildly for Lorraine to follow him, but she felt that their conversation was obviously over.
“I’m guessing you like to cook?”
The sound of Bucky’s voice made Lorraine whip her head around, and he gave her an amused smile. He could tell that he’d startled her.
“I do,” Lorraine said as she walked towards him again, trying to keep her voice from quivering. She was just glad no one was trying to talk through the comms at that moment.
Bucky nodded, still smiling, before saying, “I wish I could. It never works out, though.”
“That’s too bad.”
Lorraine had absolutely no clue what else to say.
“I’m Bucky.”
The man suddenly held his hand out to her, still smiling. Lorraine gulped, trying not to show just how nervous she was.
“You better tell him your name is Lorrie, not Lorraine,” Sam suggested over the comms.
“Hell no,” Natasha argued. “That would be a dead giveaway. Tell him your name is Lydia.”
“I’m Lydia,” Lorraine said as she outstretched her hand to meet his, giving him her best smile. Hopefully. They shook hands, but Bucky wouldn’t let go. Before Lorraine knew what was happening, Bucky pulled on her arm roughly, turning so he could grab her. She yelped out involuntarily and could hear Natasha saying something over the comms, but she wasn’t sure what. Suddenly Bucky pulled down her shirt on her right shoulder, exposing the top of her arm and ripping her shirt in the process.
“Wait Natasha!” Steve said, seeing from his and Sam’s position that Bucky probably wasn’t exactly hurting Lorraine. “I don’t think he’s trying to hurt her. She’s got a scar on the back of her right arm. If he knows who she is, he’s probably looking for that.”
And Steve was exactly right. Lorraine felt Bucky press a finger to the scar in question before whirling her around to face him. He almost looked like he might try to kill her.
“That’s not your name,” he said, his grip on her arm starting to hurt. “Your name’s Lorraine.”
“What?” Lorraine said, trying to wrap her mind around what was happening. Bucky looked around them, somehow missing Natasha in the crowd before walking off, dragging Lorraine with him.
“Follow them,” Steve said into the comms obviously to Natasha.
“Way ahead of you,” she responded from somewhere behind Lorraine. Far enough away that Lorraine could only hear her in her comm.
Bucky was silent as he dragged Lorraine through the marketplace, trying to make it look like he wasn’t hurting her when people started giving them weird looks. At the edge of the marketplace he suddenly turned to his left and into an alley, forcing Lorraine up against the wall of the nearest building.
“Your name,” he said, his breathing heavy, “Is Lorraine Rogers.”
Lorraine could only stare at him, honestly terrified that he actually might try to kill her.
“You’re my best friend’s little sister.”
His sudden change in tone made Lorraine relax, but only slightly since he still had her pinned to a wall.
“What are you doing here?”
Finally he let go of Lorraine, but she didn’t move from her spot on the wall.
“Do either of you have a visual?” Natasha said over the comms, startling Lorraine slightly.
“No,” Sam said, starting to sound concerned.
“Lorraine, you better not be dead,” Steve said, sounding scared.
She wished she could assure them that she was fine, but she knew that wouldn’t go over well. She and Bucky stared at each other for a long time, and for a few minutes she wondered if he would actually try to kill her. What she wasn’t expecting, however, was for him to engulf her in a bone-crushing hug.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he said into her hair, loosening his grip on her slightly when she made an uncomfortable sound. He finally let go of her and as soon as she did, she ripped her comm out of her ear and turned it off so no one else could hear her.
“Honestly?” she said, slightly out of breath. “Looking for you.”
She watched Bucky as he processed this information; she could tell he wasn’t the same man she last saw in 1943, but he obviously wasn’t under any kind of mind control, either.
“When did you learn to speak Romanian?”
The question caught Lorraine off guard and before she could help herself she was laughing. She noticed Bucky smile, too.
“You haven’t seen me in seventy-three years, and the first thing you want to know is where I learned Romanian?” she said, still smiling. “No, “how do you still look the same as before I left for the war?””
Bucky only shrugged, not even bothering with telling her that Steve had told him about her mishap with the serum.
“But I learned Romanian for my job,” Lorraine continued. “And, I was put in cryostasis for almost seventy years. Only got woken up because Steve was found.”
At the mention of Steve, Bucky’s whole demeanor changed.
“Is he here?” he asked, almost sounding hopeful. Lorraine just nodded, unwilling to give him much information past that. Bucky looked both happy and worried about that. “Last time I saw him wasn’t… great.”
“I know.”
Now Bucky’s worried expression was directed at Lorraine. Almost as an afterthought, Lorraine put her comm back in, making Bucky give her a confused look.
“I probably need to go,” she said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “Have you caught up with the twenty-first century and gotten a cell phone yet?”
Bucky gave her an amused smile as he produced his own phone from his back pocket, nodding. Lorraine took it and put her cell phone number in his contacts, which literally had nothing in it. Though she thought that was strange, she tried not to make her feelings obvious.
“Call me if you want,” she said as she was getting ready to walk off. “If I don’t get back out somewhere visible Steve might come looking for me.”
Bucky nodded before saying, “Okay. I… I guess I’ll call you later? Let you know where I am if Steve decides he wants to see me?”
Lorraine smiled at him and nodded before walking out of the alley, and directly into Natasha. The other woman immediately grabbed her by the arm and crossed the street before Bucky could see them.
“What the hell were you thinking?” she said, obviously angry that Lorraine just disappeared like that. “Turning off your comm? Seriously?”
“Natasha,” Lorraine said in an aggravated tone. “Obviously nothing happened.”
“Yeah, but your brother is about to have a panic attack because he thinks Bucky hurt you.”
Lorraine rolled her eyes before talking into her comm.
“Steve, I’m alright,” she said as she and Natasha started walking down the road, towards the SUV. “Bucky remembers me.”
“So he’s not all homicidal maniac?” Sam asked.
“Not right now.”
“Alright, let’s all go back to the hotel to figure out our next move,” Steve said.
“So much for moving into this slowly,” Lorraine commented dryly.
Lorraine and Natasha only had to wait a few minutes for Steve and Sam to get to the SUV, and Natasha got them back to their hotel quicker than she’d first gotten them to the marketplace. Lorraine could tell Steve was furious with her - he hadn’t spoken to her at all, and remained silent until they got to Lorraine and Natasha’s hotel room.
“What the hell were you thinking!?” Steve practically shouted at Lorraine when the four were alone.
“Steve, if he knew that we were being followed, or that someone might be trying to watch him, there’s no way I would’ve been able to get out of there without getting hurt,” Lorraine tried to reason, crossing her arms.
“That was still reckless!”
“Like you’re not reckless when you’re gone on missions without me!?”
The two stared at each other until finally Steve looked away from her.
“Did you find out anything?” he asked, sounding considerably calmer.
“Well, he has my phone number.”
“I think we can work with that.” Steve thought for a moment before continuing, “Lorraine, I have a feeling you might be the only one needing to do any work on this mission. It’s obvious he still trusts you, I’m not sure if he would trust me, and I know for a fact he wouldn’t trust either of you.” He pointed to Natasha and Sam at his last words. “But let him reach out to you first.”
“He wants to see you,” Lorraine pointed out. “I know the last time you saw him, he tried to kill you, but obviously that’s not going to happen now. I think it might help him to see you, too, Steve.”
Everyone was silent for a moment, all thinking about what they needed to do to convince Bucky to go back to the States with them. Suddenly Lorraine’s phone started ringing, and it was an unfamiliar number with an international area code.
“Probably him,” she said, holding up the phone so Steve could see the number on the screen. “Hello?” she answered, turning away from the others.
“Hey,” a familiar voice said on the other line. “Thought I should go ahead and call you so you have my number.”
“Okay.”
There was silence on his end, then, “I’d like to see you again, if you’d let me.”
Lorraine turned back to the others and made eye contact with Steve before putting her phone on speaker.
“Of course. When?”
“How long are you in Romania for?”
“A couple days.”
“Would it be too forward of me to ask to see you tonight? Steve, too, if he’ll come?”
Lorraine couldn’t help but smile and look to Steve, who looked on approvingly.
“That’s fine with me.”