Chapter Text
You feel his eyes on you as you nudge the refrigerator door closed with your hip.
“Nice pajama bottoms,” Tony quips over his open laptop. “Old Navy have a special?”
“Christmas gift from my college roommate,” you offer, walking past his spot sitting at the kitchen island to place your bowl of Frosted Flakes on the dining table.
“Well, I have to say,” he began to deadpan, “The neon kittens really compliment all the holes. I mean, come on… what are you doing with your salary? You’d think you could squeeze some room in the budget for a pair of pajama bottoms. I thought our compensation package was quite generous myself.”
You glance down at your pants before taking a seat in front of your cereal bowl—he wasn’t exactly wrong. It had been a couple of years already since you’d graduated college, and your pajama bottoms had certainly seen better days.
“Okay, point made,” you say in between bites of your cereal. “I’ll add new pajamas to my shopping list. Maybe I’ll check out some of those Old Navy online sales.”
There was a glint in Tony’s eyes. He rubbed at his mouth in an attempt to hide that he had wanted to laugh. He didn’t allow himself to show his amusement at your banter.
“Alright, well, that was fun,” Stark says, closing his computer and turning to face you. It seems he’d reached his tolerance for small talk. “Rogers and Romanoff report that you’ve been excelling in all of your training. Kicking ass, taking names, all of that. You’re good, by all accounts… including mine.”
You rest your spoon against the ceramic bowl, giving his words your full attention.
He continues, “And of course, my account’s the most well-funded, which makes it the most important. That’s why I thought I should be the one to tell you.”
He didn’t try to hide the smile overtaking his face now as you asked, with perhaps a bit too much eagerness, “Tell me what?”
“Welcome to the Avengers, kid.”
Leaping to your feet in excitement, you stumble over your words. “I don’t even know what to say—”
“How about ‘Thank you, Tony, for recruiting me in the first place?’ I think that’d be a good start,” he teases.
He jests, as you’ve come to learn is typical for Tony Stark, but you really are grateful. You didn’t know where you would be if Tony hadn’t come waltzing into your office nearly a year ago. You hadn’t even been sure, then, what you were truly capable of doing.
“Thank you, Tony,” you say in earnest. “Thank you for bringing me here and for seeing something in me.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get all sentimental on me now. It was hard not to see you, what with all the viral news coverage.” He says, slinging his laptop bag over his shoulder. Patting you on the back as he exits the compound’s kitchen, he adds, “By the way, Rogers wants to see you once you’ve downed your… Fruity Pebbles.”
“Frosted Flakes,” you correct him.
He’s already approaching the elevator as he calls over his shoulder to you. “That’s what I said!”
You finish your breakfast uninterrupted, in no rush to catch up with Steve just yet. Officially an Avenger, huh? Washing your dish out in the sink, you wonder if you should text your mom. Technically, you’ve just been promoted, and kids typically share that kind of news with their parents.
Setting aside the white ceramic bowl to dry, you decide that you would send your mom a text this evening, maybe before bed. She’d be excited for you, even if she was a bit worried about her baby girl becoming ‘one of earth’s mightiest heroes.’
For now, though, Steve Rogers was waiting for you.
“What’s that?”
“Jesus,” Steve startles in his seat at the long, sleek conference table. There’s enough seats in the room for every recruit and Avenger on the team, but this morning the room is empty, save for you and Steve. “If you’re going to teleport around the compound, you’ve at least got to properly announce yourself when you enter a room.”
“I’m sorry,” you apologize, committing yourself to not laugh at the thought of you making Steve Rogers jump. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Steve sighs. “I know, but would it kill ya to at least teleport outside the door and then maybe just… knock?”
“Good idea,” you smile, tapping your pointer finger to your temple. “I’ll commit that to memory for now on.”
“Good,” Steve says, and he can’t help but to offer you a small, though maybe still slightly exasperated, smile back. “I do have to admit that I’m glad to see our newest Avenger has become so comfortable with her skillset.”
Seeing you beam with pride, he adds, “Congratulations, kid. Glad to have you on the team.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” and you mean it. “Or Nat.”
He nods, taking in your gratitude knowingly. You were a damn good kid, and he knew it. Your eyes wander back to the dossier in front of him.
“So, what is this?”
“It’s an assignment.”
“Oh?” You wondered aloud. You had never gone out into the field by yourself before. “An assignment just for me?”
He must have sensed your eagerness, or perhaps he just saw it written plainly all over your face, because he placed his large hand over it almost protectively for a moment before finally sliding it over to you.
Before you could begin to read the files, a serious shift in the tone of his voice demanded your attention. “Y/N, I need you to understand that this assignment is… personal… to me. It’s important.”
“Okay.” You look into his eyes, gleaning from them just how important this is to him. “Does this… does this have anything to do with what Sam’s been working on?”
“Yes.” If Steve is surprised that you know about Sam’s side missions, he doesn’t let on.
He watches silently as you begin to leaf through the dossier, scanning the assortment of files and documents. Attached with a paperclip is a series of photographs that catch your eye immediately. Many of them are grainy surveillance photos. The first features a man with long brown, unkempt hair donning a blask mask. His expression is unreadable while carrying what appears to be a high-caliber rifle. In the next, it’s apparent that the man has a metal arm. There’s a distinct, red star etched onto the arm. You glance up at Steve, and his eyes are looking for recognition in yours. You know this man.
“The Winter Soldier?” You half ask, half mouth the words.
Steve shakes his head to confirm.
He wanted you to chase down the Winter Solider? One of Hydra’s most successful assassins? He’d been a hit man for Hydra longer than you’d been alive on this earth. You had even seen the leaked CCTV footage on YouTube after the incident in DC last year. Steve couldn’t possibly think you would be able take on the Winter Solider on your own, could he?
You’re starting to sweat a bit when Steve gestures for you to keep looking through the photographs. After wading through a few more surveillance photos, you come across one that you instantly recognize—you’d seen it maybe dozens of times before. It’s the same one they’d used in history books, documentaries, and at the Smithsonian.
Among the surveillance photos of the Winter Solider, there was an old photograph of James Buchanan Barnes. It was his enlistment photo.
Of course, you had known the stories about Captain America, his childhood best friend Bucky Barnes, and the Howling Commandos before you had ever even met the man behind the shield himself. It was impossible to go through public school in the US without learning about them—Captain America’s sacrifice arguably made him a greater face of the American war effort than even President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hell, you had even watched two really terrible Lifetime movies about Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes with your mom when you were still in high school.
Looking at the enlistment photo of Barnes now, you remembered how dirty the television network had done him in casting his actors. He was quite handsome, evident from his enlistment photograph, and the movie actors had not come close to conveying that.
“Bucky Barnes?” You questioned aloud, looking to Steve for answers. When you met his eyes, something clicked… but it couldn’t be. “Steve, are you saying—?”
He nodded. His features with steady, not betraying any emotion. Something swam within the blue of his eyes, however. Was it pain?
“But Bucky Barnes died in—,” you began.
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Steve cut you off. “He died. At least, I thought he did… until he was taking shots at me in DC last summer.”
You realized the look in his eyes was more than just pain. It was haunting. He had seen a ghost.
“Oh, god, Steve. I’m so sorry.”
You reach out and place your hand atop his without even thinking. Your friend—not your boss, not your captain—is hurting. He doesn’t recoil at your touch, and you internally breathe a sigh of relief that he hadn’t thought you had crossed any boundaries.
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you, truly. Your best friend in all the world, right in front of you after you thought you’d never see him again, and he doesn’t even know you. Steve, I’m—,”
Steve suddenly pulls away his hand from underneath your own, and you worry that you’ve offended him until he begins to shake his head and a tiny, incredulous laugh escapes him.
“That’s the thing—he recognized me.”
“But… he tried to kill you,” you say, realizing after that maybe it had been a little too bluntly.
“He saved me,” Steve corrects you. “He pulled me out of the water. I would have died had he not done that. He knew me—he knows me, Y/N. He’s not their assassin anymore, not the Winter Soldier. He’s just Bucky, and he’s out there somewhere.”
“And Sam’s been trying to help you find him,” you finally put it all together. Looking back over at the pile of surveillance photos, you ask, “Are any of these recent?”
Steve shakes his head. “No. Sam hasn’t had any luck.”
“And you think I will?”
Steve looks at you, willing a hopeful smile to don his features.
“I think you might.”
“Steve, I—I’m an infant. I’m a baby Avenger—I’ve never even gone into the field alone before.”
He lets himself laugh freely at this.
“Well, ‘baby Avenger’ or not, you know your way around Eastern Europe.”
“How’d you—?”
“Read your thesis,” he chuckles, pulling a stack of papers from a folder next to him and tossing them to you. Stapled neatly together is a copy of a paper titled: International Political Negotiations and the Domestic Landscape of Eastern Europe: The Soviet Legacy and Socio-Political Attitudes. “An Honors college grad, huh?”
You flush a bit. You’d expected that Steve and Natasha would have read your personnel file, but you really hadn’t given it much thought until now.
“Have to admit,” he says, smiling all the while, “It wasn’t quite like reading the Times, that’s for sure. You’re a smart kid.”
“Would’ve had my PhD by now,” you say a bit awkwardly, and as it’s coming out, you hope that Steve doesn’t pick up on the twinge of sadness in your voice.
If he does, he doesn’t acknowledge it.
Steve returns to the folder he pulled your thesis from and turns his attention to another page.
“Studied abroad for a year in Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic, too,” Steve reminds you. “Interned at the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs in 2011 and with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s European Intelligence Division in 2012.”
“What is this?” You wonder aloud, laughing a bit at the absurdity of it. “Are you reading off my resume now?”
“In a way, I guess I am.” Steve smiles at you, shutting the folder now. You’re thankful that it seems he won’t be reciting any more pieces of your past for today. “I’m telling you why I need you on this assignment—why I think you can find him.”
“You think he’s somewhere in Eastern Europe?” You ask.
Steve nods, adding, “It’s where he’d feel the most comfortable, I think, having been kept there for the better part of the last seventy years.”
You can see the swimming waves of pain—and now something like guilt—return to the blue of his eyes once more. Seventy years was a long time to be Hydra’s play-thing. You glanced back down at the enlistment photo of Barnes and then again at the surveillance images. Hydra had taken that sparkle—the life—from his eyes. What else had they taken?
“Why not send Nat?” You ask, perplexed. “Sure, I can get by in Polish and Romanian, and my Czech is okay, but I’m no super spy.”
“Exactly,” Steve smiles. “You’re an academic. You’re—,”
“Plain? Mousy?” You clarify for him, taking a jab at yourself. Anyone who took a look at you could see you were certainly no Natasha Romanoff. Even if you’d become more lean and muscular with the constant training at the compound, you wouldn’t be rocking any skin-tight black suits anytime soon.
“That’s not what I meant,” Steve explained gently. “You won’t spook him. Plus, he knows Nat. He’d never let her get close enough.”
“Steve, I know this is important to you, and I don’t want to mess this up—,”
“You won’t,” he says seriously now. “I trust you. I’m asking you to do this because I know that you can, Y/N. You’re a good kid, and you’ve become a damn good friend.”
It’s clear from the look on his face that he means it. He has that steely resolve on his face that you’ve seen him mostly reserve for missions or disagreements with Tony.
“Plus,” he adds, that tone of amusement from earlier spilling back into his voice with a smile, “You’re damn good at sneaking up on people.”
You smile back easily, leaning into the back of your chair. You bring the pencil in your hand up to your mouth and chew on the eraser—a bad habit you’d carried on since elementary school—while stuck in thought for a moment.
Obviously, you trusted Steve. You trusted his judgement—after all, you’d learned that you pretty much had to in this new gig. The Captain had never once led you astray on a mission yet. If he thought you couldn’t do this, he wouldn’t have asked.
Your eyes again returned to the photograph of Bucky Barnes, all those many years ago, a young man with the world before him. If he was still out there, if he could possibly be reunited with the one remaining person from his previous life after years of torture, shouldn’t you at least try?
Again, you looked over at the man sitting beside you, the man you had admired as a child and now considered a friend and mentor. You remembered the change in his eyes as he spoke of his best friend. Didn’t you owe this to him, too?
Removing the eraser tip from your mouth, you plastered a look of resolve across your own face.
“Alright, I’ll do it. Just tell me what comes next.”
Your phone had dinged, rousing you from your sleep. Eyes still heavy with the remnants of sleep, you reached for the phone on your nightstand.
3:47 AM.
Two texts from mom, one minute ago.
One read: “Congratulations, sweetheart!! So proud of you, my avenger!!!”
Followed by, “Come home soon? Love and miss you.”
Placing your phone back on its charger on the nightstand, you rolled over feeling a bit guilty. You hadn’t been home in ages—not since months before Stark had recruited you.
God, had it really been over a year since you’d seen your mom?
And now it would have to wait even longer—you would be leaving for Krakow first thing Friday morning. Well, tomorrow morning now, you thought, remembering it was now 3:47 AM on Thursday.
It wasn’t like your mom could come up for a visit at the compound, either. The place wasn’t exactly open to the public.
You missed her. You missed her a lot, you suddenly realized. You missed you brother, too. God, he’s graduating in May this year, you remembered. You’d have to take time off for the commencement ceremony.
Awake now and unable to return to sleep with the weight of missing your family overwhelming you now, you tumble out of bed and sit at your desk for a moment, pulling out your small agenda book.
You hadn’t really needed to use it since being recruited for the Avengers program, and placing it on your desk reminds you of a time when it had once been filled with test dates and due dates for various papers and projects. Flipping to last March, you see evidence of who you once were and what your life used to be.
The dates and reminders marked in red ink abruptly end in the middle of the month—a life interrupted.
You shake the thoughts of it from your mind, instead flipping to May of this year and jotting down a reminder of your brother’s graduation date. Tearing the page from the agenda, you tack it onto the bulletin board above your desk, next to some photographs you’ve placed there.
You check the time on your phone again. 4:05 AM. Now’s as good a time as any for Frosted Flakes, you supposed.
Wrapping a robe around yourself, you relax your body for a moment while picturing the compound kitchen in your mind. In your mind, you see yourself standing there, at the kitchen sink. The image in your mind seemingly melds with reality, and you are suddenly standing in front of the sleek, stainless steel sink you had just seen in your mind’s eye.
“Never gonna get used to that,” Sam says suddenly from behind you.
You jump and turn around to see him grinning at you over a plate of fries.
“Somebody else scared your ass for once, huh?” He jokes. “About damn time.”
Rolling your eyes at him and nodding towards the plate of food in front of him, you ask, “Long night?”
“Yeah,” he says, not offering anything else but a fry he hands out to you. You walk over and take it, popping it into your mouth as you sit across from him at the table.
You can tell he doesn’t want to talk about whatever’s bothering him, and you won’t push him.
He eyes you, reading your face. He’s good at that.
“Long night for you too, huh?”
“Yeah,” you admit. “Can I have another fry?”
“Wanna talk about it?” He asks while offering you another from his plate.
You shrug feebly, but you find the words spilling out of you all the same.
“I guess I just miss my family,” you tell him. “Haven’t seen them in over a year. We used to be so close, and now I communicate with my mom maybe once a week when she responds to my texts at three in the morning.”
“Hey, this might be a dumb question,” Sam begins, a smile creeping on his face. “But couldn’t you just… ya know… teleport home? Pop in for a bit and then teleport right on back here?”
“That’d be nice,” you huff. “I’d never have to buy plane tickets again.”
“Still might not have to,” Sam reminds you jokingly. “It’s pretty damn nice having access to Stark’s quinjets.”
“I guess that’s true,” you muse. “I’ve been working on… stretching… my ability, but the furthest I’ve been able to teleport so far has only been two states over. Part of the problem is that I’ve got to be able to see the place in my mind, really imagine myself in that space, you know?”
Sam nods, understanding what you’re explaining to him.
“I can close my eyes and imagine myself in front of the Eiffel Tower all day long, but I’m still not in Paris.”
“Sucks,” he acknowledges, offering you another fry.
“Yeah,” you admit dryly as you swallow the French fry down. “Maybe by next year, I’ll be able to teleport three whole states over.”
“Hey, don’t beat yourself up. You’ve come a long way—you’re teleporting up and down this compound all day long. I remember how you were when you first came here.”
You grimaced. You remembered too.
“Couldn’t control it,” Sam reminds you.
A flush of red spreads to your cheeks as memories of those first few weeks at the compound return to you.
Sam notices and smoothly adds, “Still haven’t bested me yet, but you’re getting stronger every day. You’ve even managed to sneak up on Natasha a few times now, and that’s not an easy feat. When you’ve got a little more hand-to-hand training… yeah, now that’s a girl-fight I’d like to see.”
He’s got that goofy, flirty grin on his face now—the one that’s typically glued there when Nat’s in the room.
“Shut up,” you laugh, throwing the fry in your hand at him.
“Hey, I’m just sayin’,” he jokes again as you both laugh. The thought of him eagerly sitting courtside to a matchup between you and Nat was easy to imagine.
You’re feeling lighter already, and there’s been a noticeable shift in Sam’s mood too. Laughter’s the best medicine, as they say.
An easy, comfortable silence overtakes the two of you as Sam continues to pick over his plate and you shuffle over to the counter to pour yourself a bowl of cereal.
Your back is turned to Sam still when he asks, “So, how are you feelin’ about leaving tomorrow?”
“Nervous, I guess,” you admit. “Mostly because I don’t want to come back empty-handed.”
“Tell me about it,” Sam sighs. “I was chasing every lead, using every connection, and I’ve got nothing after nearly a year.”
“I just don’t want to disappoint Steve.”
Carrying your bowl over to the table again, you see Sam giving you a knowing look.
“It’s not just that, though,” you add, and Sam arches an eyebrow, imploring you to go on. “It’s Bucky, too.”
He seems a bit surprised by this admission, but waits for you to finish chewing the spoonful of cereal you’d just shoved into your mouth to continue.
“I just think he deserves a shot at life, at redemption, you know? The war, Hydra… he and Steve had so much take from them.”
Sam nods, understanding.
He stands up, bringing his plate to the sink to wash it. When he’s finished, he comes over to pat you on the shoulder.
“I’m headed to bed—gonna try to catch a few Z’s before we have to hit the mat in a few hours. You should get some rest, too.”
You nod, assuring him you’ll at least try.
Just as he’s heading out the door, he hangs back for a moment.
“Hey,” he calls out softly, meeting your eyes. “I hope you find him.”
“Yeah,” you say, “Me too.”