Chapter Text
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Everything I Wanted
Billie Eilish
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UNKOWN HYDRA FACILITY
DECEMBER 1991
“Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на родину. Один. Грузовой вагон.”
Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace. Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car.
The Winter Soldier screamed and struggled inside the restraints the metal chair underneath him had him held in. Each word was more painful than the last, each one cutting deep into his brain as they were uttered calmly from Vasily Karpov. He searched frantically with his eyes flitting from side to side for those familiar honey eyes to soothe his pain but found none, no flashes of the blue of her hair anywhere in sight. When he said the last word, he felt as if a thousand strings pulled on his body tighter than he could stand. Heaving breaths were the only sound in the room as he struggled to sit up, no longer fighting whatever had just happened. Karpov stood in front of him, holding a little red book in his hands. It was familiar, he’d seen it before.
“Доброе утро, Солдат.” Good morning, soldat, he cooed, flipping the pages nonchalantly in the soldier’s face. The soldier saw the familiar handwriting of his birdie, swooping letters in blue ink.
Eyes shifting upwards toward him with a grimace and gritted teeth, he responded. “Я готов отвечать.”
Ready to comply.
Only he wasn’t ready. He never was ready. And seeing Karpov holding the notebook he knew for sure belonged to Lucia brought him closer to the edge of uncertainty.
Karpov saw his hesitancy and chuckled, closing the book in his hand and crossing his arms in front of his chest to look down at the Winter Soldier.
“У меня есть для тебя миссия. Санкционируй и Извлекай. Без свидетелей.” I have a mission for you, Karpov said after a moment. He looked over to the sound of an opening cryofreeze chamber and 01’s head turned slightly to see the small girl he’d been searching for being extracted from the chamber. Sanction and extract. No witnesses.
“Позаботься о моей маленькой птичке и проследи,” Take care of my little bird, Karpov said sardonically, tossing the red book onto the Asset’s lap carelessly, “чтобы она получила то, что нам нужно.” And make sure she gets what we need.
02’s amber irises shot open in a panic as she was awoken from her deep sleep, immediately searching for the tall brunette soldier, just as he had done for her when he woke.
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THE FIRST SAFE HOUSE
CAPE CHARLES, VIRGINIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
FEBRUARY 2015
The tap, tap of her toes on the sand underneath her was both a comfort and an annoyance. It was easy to sneak up on someone in this terrain and if she thought about it too much she realized that there was not enough space between her and the nearest person to find this place, this area, and there were more than plenty of people who wanted to catch her with her guard down —
“Stop doing that, please.”
Her absent tapping to the beat of the song on the small radio they’d brought out to the shore was interrupted by the husky voice beside her. Lucia looked down beside her, her fingers clutching on to the matted towel they’d thrown on the ground as a barrier to the sand, her teeth clenched.
Laying lazily on the towel, stomach up and forearm over his eyes to cover them from the sun, was her partner Bucky.
She marveled quietly at the small bit of skin showing under his long sleeve shirt as it rode up with the side covering his eyes, exposing his toned stomach. Gulping, the beat of the hip hop song quietly bopping in the background was suddenly a drum beat ringing in her ears.
“Doing what?” Lucia choked out, trying to blink away her obvious staring.
Bucky was oblivious, eyes closed under his arm and unaware she was flustered beside him.
“The thought association game, birdie.”
She sighed, looking down at the sand that had blown onto the towel they both were on.
“Sorry. I am just —“
“I know.”
Bucky lifted his arm slightly to peek over to the girl beside him, taking in a breath as he saw her lashes over the henna freckles he’d helped draw on her. Dusty blonde hair, dark in shade, was braided over her shoulder — braided by him — and her scars were peeking out from the long sleeve of the shirt that was once his and now mysteriously belonged to her. He smiled, lips tugging slyly up on the left side of his face, and with his left, glove covered hand, he reached over to envelop her small fingers in his.
Feeling his hand on hers she shivered, and shyly met his eyes. She dared not hold onto it for dear life as she craved, wanting more than just a touch of his hand but forcing herself to stay put. With a small grin, she looked away from his intense blue eyes.
“Why do you call it that…?” She asked quietly, her knees coming up to her chest and her cheek resting gently on it as she faced him. He gave her a cheeky grin now.
“Because you spiral, birdie.” His eyes winced with the sun streaming down, laughing at her blush. His hand let go of hers and made a tornado gesture with his finger, blowing a raspberry.
“I know I am crazy, but I do not spiral,” She grumbled as she tried to keep in her laughter, looking away from him. He sat up, laughing a little more as she grew more flustered. He neared her face playfully.
“Down and down the rabbit hole…” He whispered in her ear, earning another shiver from her. She shut her eyes and winced.
Bucky stopped laughing and pressed his forehead onto her shoulder, sighing.
“Birdie? Look at me.” His forehead left her soft material shoulder and he waited for her eyes to meet his.
Slowly but surely, Lucia peered over the arm she had hidden her face into, amber irises bright in the sunlight around her. Little blue baby hairs framed her face and her gentle smile melted him instantly.
“да?” Yeah?
Her little accent made his stomach flip. He blushed slightly, giving her a small grin as he neared her face once more.
“We’re going to be okay, doll,” He whispered, “You and me? We’re a team.”
“But they are looking for us, James,” She replied, a hint a fear flashing in her eyes.
He sighed again, a little flutter in his chest. “We’re safe here—“
“For now,” She interrupted. He took a deep breath and scooted closer, his left arm resting behind her as he leaned into her.
“We’ve done a good job of it so far, birdie.”
And he was right. They both knew that the first rule of running was to walk, and they were sure to cover their tracks as they slowly evaded the people looking for them. She remembered sitting on the floor of the rest stop bathroom in the dead of night somewhere in Delaware, her back against Bucky’s knees as he applied another box of brown hair dye in silence to cover her pesky blue. Outside was a stolen motorcycle and a backpack of clothing they shared — minus the skirt and dress he’d grabbed out of a donation box in the parking lot of a grocery story they’d passed for Lucia — and a sleek laptop they’d found in a trash can somewhere along the way, easily fixed by his birdie.
Lucia was incredible, and Bucky could never tell her how incredible he thought she was because even he didn’t understand how she did it, and he probably never would. Not only had she fixed that computer for their use and hot-wired the abandoned motorcycle in the junkyard they sought a vehicle in — she had also redirected the search of them completely west. They posed for security cameras and rerouted the footage to California security systems, Arizona, New Mexico, even Texas. She inputed missing cars and tied them to the locations they’d supposedly been in. She even made a phone call to Bucky on a payphone — a dupe call, rerouting the tower’s signal from the call being made in Maryland to a tower near a mall in Nevada.
She was brilliant.
Their safe houses, however, were all Bucky. Jumping around the immediate area, they stayed in places he’d find for small periods of time. Sometimes they’d just sleep at rest stops around the states themselves. They’d made it south of Delaware before finding Cape Charles, a small beach town with nothing but a factory and a few unfinished houses from a vacation rental company that were never completed. They were isolated, no one nearby, and the town had no police patrolling anywhere. There wasn’t even cellular service.
So with two sleeping bags and the provisions they’d been smart to start hoarding, they found themselves hiding in an unfinished beach house. At first, Lucia was afraid and kept asking him to move quickly — they were getting complacent. However, months passed and the little beach house had become home and their first official safe house.
“So far,” She reiterated, looking at him again. “I do not know how long I can keep redirecting them until they notice I am sending them on a goose hunt.”
There was a pause from both of them as they watched the water level getting closer to them, the tide rising quickly. A little rumble in Lucia’s stomach snapped them out of their silence. He gave her a lopsided grin as she blushed. “Then we start planning our exit plan, don’t ya think?”
“We do not have plan, James,” She whispered yelled in frustration, gathering her things into the small canvas bag on her far right. Lucia’s accent grew heavier the longer she’d been out of cryofreeze, and the more upset she got.
He frowned as he watched her come to stand, reaching over for the little radio as another pop song filled the airwave. Slightly annoyed at her music choice, he shut it off as he beat her to the radio, then handed it up to her.
“Birdie, the plan has been help me find out who I am,” He replied quietly as she took the radio, leaning over towards him. Bucky looked up at her as her eyes closed to avoid his gaze, reaching for her cheek. “And we’ve been doing it.”
Lucia’s eyes opened and a shard in her chest ached at his words. But what about me? She wanted to ask, so badly she wanted to know. But she promised him this and even now as just Lucia and Bucky, she had sworn to protect him and help him. So, shutting down any feeling of disappointment and hurt in her eyes and face, she offered him a small smile and a pat at the flesh hand on her cheek as she straightened and walked backwards from him.
Bucky’s face fell. Something was bothering his birdie, and she wasn’t letting on. He scrambled upwards to stand and grabbed her elbow before she walked back to the safe house.
She paused, not looking back.
“What if we go to Colombia?”
A moment passed, the wind loud in their ears and the smell of salt filling their senses. Lucia looked back up at her soldier, eyes wide in fear, unsure what to respond.
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MIAMI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
MIAMI, FLORIDA
APRIL 2015
“She had tripped security, but all we found was her belt to be the factor.”
A young man, no older than twenty-three, sat in front of his superiors and two Avengers, shaking in his chair. His TSA uniform was wrinkled and sweat stains were starting to protrude from his armpits.
The superior officer sighed and stepped away from the table he sat at, walking towards the two superheroes in plain clothing with a tablet in his hands. On it, a recording of the security camera the day the man spoke of, a small girl tipping off the metal detector and the same man in the chair motioning her over. He sighed as an electrical current from her hand flashed, and the camera shut off, ending the video.
“She didn’t fit the description, Captain,” The older man, salt and pepper hair with wrinkles on his face, grumbled, “And we didn’t see them clearly. I’m sorry.”
Handing off the tablet to Captain Rogers, his partner spoke for him as he replayed the video.
“Any idea where they were heading? Were they together? Separate? Any other defining features?”
Sam Wilson was the first to ask questions, leaning onto the table in front of the TSA agent. His voice was gentle, but firm — he was tired and frustrated. This little girl alone had not only busted up his equipment — using it was impressive, but his wings were gone beyond repair — but had been sending him and Cap all over the country on their tail. Something in Sam’s gut told him that she was sending them places they’d never even been, just to throw them off their scent. Hell, a piece of him even thought they might still be in D.C. somewhere, hiding in the shadows.
But Captain Rogers was a man with a plan. They were going to go through every tip — even if Sam knew it was a bit naive of him.
“Their ticket said Mexico City,” The superior TSA agent came around behind Sam, reading another tablet with specs on the passengers of that day Lucia and Bucky had made their way through the airport, “We didn’t see a connecting ticket. They were smart about that.”
Rogers stared down at the other tablet in his hands. He looked at the replay over and over and watched as the small girl squeezed his best friend’s hand and gave him a reassuring look before stepping forwards through the TSA scanner. He watched his best friend watch her in a trance, dopey and lovestruck. He’d never seen Buck look at anyone like that. He was possessed.
“You were right about the girl.” Steve said quietly after a beat of silence. They all looked up at Captain Rogers. Sam stepped towards Steve and sighed.
“Where she is, he’ll be,” Sam repeated, crossing his arms over his chest. “What do you wanna do now, Cap?”
There was another pause. Captain Rogers considered following their trail again, hopping on the Quinjet and getting his friend to safety. But now there was the girl, Bucky’s girl, he realized, that they had to account for. And she was dangerous. More dangerous than they could know at the moment.
Right now, his team had endured his absence for a couple of weeks now. Stark was working on new tech and was expecting him back at the Avengers tower by tonight and he’d put it off long enough.
“I think we should regroup.” He said quietly, replaying the video one last time, watching as his best friend let go of his girl, let her squeeze his hand, and watched her go through the checkpoint undetected.
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AEROPUERTO INTERNACIONAL DE MATECAÑA
PEREIRA, COLOMBIA
MARCH 2015
“Bienvenidos a Colombia.”
It was hot and humid, the color of the city golden toned and at a glance down at the smaller girl with short, dusty blonde hair and a tinge of blue peeking out of her roots, Bucky Barnes could see the tan in her skin glow under his black shades. She was holding on tight to her backpack, grinding her teeth, when a larger hand came and rested on the small of her back.
Lucia Cortez looked up at Bucky with anxious eyes as he took off his sunglasses, meeting his blue irises. He pressed a gentle kiss on her forehead, his lips so close to her skin when he gave her a reassuring sigh. “We can go somewhere else if you don’t want to do this.”
She relaxed at his touch, remembering that afternoon at the beach where he’d stopped her by the arm.
“What if we go to Colombia?”
Her eyes widened in fear. They’d done all their research together, they’d read all his files, watched all his videos and movies and documentaries, they’d listened to all the interviews they’d given on who James Buchanan Barnes was. But Bucky was aware that even though they were going deep into his background, they couldn’t find much on Lucia and it hurt her.
He thought about the empty searches, the dead ends — the light in Lucia’s honey eyes dimming quietly as she sighed and changed the subject. He felt as if it was time to go further for her. They’d done so much for his own search that he knew that they had to find something for her.
Bucky wanted Lucia to be happy.
This is what she wanted, right?
“I would not know where to start, James,” She had whispered quietly, looking down at her toes in the sand. His gloved hand reached for her chin and lifted it up to face him quickly.
She flinched a bit, startled by his closeness. A bright blush painted her sunburnt cheeks.
“Then we figure it out together. Like at the Smithsonian.”
After their kiss at The Smithsonian, there was a slight disconnect in their interactions. Lucia felt guilty for the manipulation she had a hand in regarding the trust that Bucky had in her, so she retreated immediately. There was hesitance in all of her touches and words spoken to him, and Bucky was aware of the shift. As for him, he was learning about his past and how he fit in this larger story of Steve Rogers and Lucia Cortez. He knew that they’d been partners due to circumstance and did unspeakable things together, but the history he had was long and extensive and a lot to take in at once, making their dynamic change. She learned, fully now, the extent of Bucky’s damage and control, how he came to be, and what he was leaving behind. She ached at the thought of the life he was deprived of. He was saddened at the loss of her touch and affection, but was hesitant to say anything at the fear of scaring her off. They were skirting around each other.
The kiss on her forehead made her chest ache but her body relax slightly. Her body screamed at the touch, missing his lips on her immediately and begging her to touch him in some way. She shook her head gently, readjusting her backpack, quickly shoving away the thought.
“No, I think I can do this.”
Bucky looked down at his birdie and offered his hand. Lucia hesitated, then softly placed it on his palm, letting his fingers intertwine with hers.