Chapter Text
BUCKY
"One of the third-floor R&D proximity alerts has been triggered," Steve's voice says coolly over the comms, and Bucky immediately glares across at the building in question like he can see through the goddamned wall.
"Copy that," Bucky says and starts to run.
"Uh, you wanna explain to me how someone can trigger a third-floor alert without tripping any of the fourteen ones before it that should have been already triggered to get that far into the facility?" Sam hisses. There's a faint hiss of metal sliding against metal that comes down the comms and Bucky can catch a glimpse of silver above him as Sam takes to the skies.
"Stop whining and send your dumb bird out, Falcon, we need more intel," Bucky snaps. "Nomad, location?"
"Top of plastics," Steve answers, as Sam splutters about Redwing not being a bird. Or dumb. "I'm coming to you, Winter."
Bucky thinks about where the plastics department of Stark Industries is in comparison to his position because he's just passed the internal administration block and isn't plastics just past that? His brain figures out the layout just in time to see Steve gracefully land in a crouch right in front of him. After jumping down from the plastics building. Which is at least five stories tall. Bucky doesn't even have to glance at the building or his friend to know the idiot hasn't used rigging or a parachute.
"Commencing heat scan," Sam says. "I'm detecting two life signs on the third floor. Headed to—shit, they're headed to the back-up server bay."
"Acknowledged, we're en route," Steve says, and heads off at a run. "Expand your heatscan, if there's two there might be a third."
"Wilco, Nomad," Sam says.
"Three's rather specific," Bucky breathes as they run, matching Steve's pace as they pelt towards the R&D block. "You think it's the Widow, don't you?"
"Third floor and that's the first alarm they hit? And it's one of the new ones we put in three days ago on a whim?" Steve's wearing his favorite mission black balaclava and Bucky can only see his eyes, but that's enough for Bucky to see resigned frustration. "It's the Widow all right."
Bucky swears in Russian because it feels appropriate. "That stab wound in my gut only just healed."
"Well," Steve says, his voice annoyingly equable, "try not to get stabbed this time. Okay, we're coming in close. Comms only when necessary."
Steve gestures swiftly and Bucky understands. If he takes the front door, the Widow has to know someone's coming, and from where, and it should send her out to the back entrance—which is where Steve's headed. Steve moves both wrists in unison, his pair of defensive shields expanding smoothly to cover his forearms, and disappears behind the building.
Bucky unholsters his favorite weapon, a stun gun especially built for him by Howard Stark himself that looks just like a Beretta 418, and heads for the front door at a clip.
He catches a glimpse of the small round device the Widow has placed above the door as an early warning system, and he fries it as he runs, more for the satisfaction she can't retrieve the tech later than it doing any good, and he heads for the stairs, taking them three at a time.
"Break, Break, the Wasp is on top of R&D," Sam says through the comms. "Engaging now!"
Bucky speeds up, especially when the next sound through the comms is of a faint flash bang and a noise that sounds distinctly similar to the day Steve stepped on his phone charger.
"Still in the server room, need some assistance," Steve yells, before there's a high-pitched noise and a loud crackle. Like someone's yanked out his comm piece and smashed it.
They're definitely fighting the Black Widow then. Goddammit. Bucky won't be surprised if the entire cadre of security guards who are supposed to keep Stark Industries safe are probably unconscious, tied-up and drooling somewhere in the facility. Then again, that's why Howard Stark hired Bucky and his team.
"Falcon, any chance of a scan so I know what I'm headed into?" Bucky tries.
"Kind of busy, Winter," Sam yelps. "Shit, woman, that was my ass—" Sam's channel squeaks and then the line sounds dead and Bucky sighs. Guess he's doing this the hard way.
Bucky emerges into the hallway that holds all the server bays. The back-up server is in the largest room. The flash bang noise means Steve deployed one of his canisters, a wicked mix of chemicals that causes smoke and copious eye-watering and a distinct difficulty to breathe, and, because Steve's a special kind of stupid, he'll have hit himself with it in an attempt to take out the Black Widow and—most likely—Agent 13 too, if the Wasp is on the roof. Steve is an idiot, and Bucky means that lovingly, because he's the only one allowed to call his best friend an asshole, so he makes sure to do it regularly.
Steve's particular brand of stupidity means that Bucky's just in time to see the server bay door open and a familiar black-clad figure tumbles out, clutching a large case in her hand. The Black Widow. She cuts an imposing silhouette, clad from head-to-toe in black, a matching black cowl and mask completely obscuring her face, but she can't hide her distinctive hourglass figure, and she can't hide how freaking deadly she can be. Every single movement she makes is precise, potentially very lethal, and Bucky probably shouldn't also describe it as beautiful but he can't help himself; he's in the corporate espionage business himself, after all, and it's difficult not to admire a master of their craft.
Through the smoke, Bucky can catch a glimpse of Steve trying to elbow a struggling Agent 13 in the face, so he narrows his focus to the Black Widow. This is the fourth time he's faced her in the last three months. He's beginning to wonder if he should consider her his official rival.
He also knows one thing: when he fights her, it's never a battle. It's always more of a ballet.
She's moving towards him from the moment she sees him, obviously trying to unsettle him, and she launches the case in her hand at him, hoping to slide it down the corridor and past him, but Bucky's fallen for that one before, so he throws himself forwards and uses his left arm to scoop up the case and propel it firmly into the wall to his left. It embeds in there solidly, sending long jagged cracks up the wall that Stark is probably going to chew him out for, but Bucky can't admire his handiwork because he's already having to block the Black Widow's furious onslaught of blows.
Honestly, the only reason he hasn't been stabbed yet in this fight is probably because of Steve's gas, because Bucky can see glassiness when he catches her eyes, the only part of her face he can see through her mask. Normally he's the one crying when they meet, although it tends to be afterwards, when he's nursing another wicked wound. She does manage to hit the gun out of his hand and it goes skidding down the hallway, the momentum too fast for him to have a chance of retrieving it.
"Why are you always such a pain in the ass?" Black Widow hisses, her thick Russian accent turning the ass into more of a hiss.
"Natural talent," Bucky gasps back. One or two words is all he can usually manage in their confrontations, because she takes up all his energy just so he can stay alive, really. If it wasn't for his arm, Bucky probably wouldn't be able to go toe-to-toe with her at all. It really freaking helps having a metal Stark arm to bring to a fight against such a consummate professional.
This is about the time in the their last fight that Bucky got stabbed, so he shifts his weight, presenting his left side so he can use his arm as a shield (Steve may have a point about the retractable shields being excellent tech for this sort of work, but Steve is weird about shields in general, so that advice has sailed way over Bucky's head) and he grins behind his mask as he manages to block a knife that comes seemingly out of nowhere. Seriously. Her suit is skintight. He doesn't know where she keeps it.
And then his grin falls, because she's just used that knife slash with her left hand to distract him from where her right hand is: directly on the handle of the case. Bucky narrows his eyes and punches in the direction of her hand, and she kicks him in his right thigh hard enough that Bucky knows he's going to be carrying the bruise as a souvenir for a good couple of weeks. The kick sends him backward, and she hisses in happiness; but, Bucky knows something she doesn't.
He wasn't aiming to break her hand.
He was aiming for the case.
The knock backward means his metal fist has pummeled straight into the corner of it, smashing it open, causing some of the contents to spill onto the floor.
The Black Widow curses in Russian, and Bucky beams, because that means he's got to her, and that dismay—for the Widow—is definitely on a par with the wound she gave him during their last encounter.
Then a sudden bright light fills the hallway. Bucky has to lash out, relying on his other senses, and he grabs something from the case while something hard hits him, before a feeling that he sadly knows as his own freaking stun gun passes over him. He jerks and twitches, his movements causing his forehead to slam into the wall, but at least he's remembered to lock his grip around what he's managed to hold onto. He feels someone grab him, but by the time Bucky's head has stopped whining at him and his eyes have readjusted and he's able to sit up, Steve is kneeling over him, and shouting something at him that Bucky can't hear.
Shit, whatever the Widow or Agent 13 used on him to escape has wrecked his hearing. Steve's still trying to talk, so Bucky shakes his head and uses his right hand to point at his ears. Steve stops talking abruptly, realizing Bucky can't hear him.
"She took something," Bucky says, and from Steve's wince maybe he's yelling. "The Widow got something. Not all of it."
Steve looks up and away, and makes the gesture to tell Bucky to stay down, then the swipe of his fingers to indicate he's giving chase, and Bucky struggles to get up, but Steve pushes him down, shoving Bucky's stun gun into his right hand before straightening up and running off.
By the time Bucky's able to stagger to his feet, his hearing has semi-returned and he can hear Sam making noises through his still-open comm line. Bucky looks down to see what looks like a small external hard drive half-crushed under his metal fingers. He sincerely hopes that it's not the sole copy and, feeling wobbly, struggles to his feet. Hearing a faint explosion through his earpiece, Bucky mentally runs through the Stark Industries layout again, and starts to move as fast as he can to the nearest staircase. He has to ascend two flights of stairs to get to the roof and by the time he emerges out through a fire door, it's just in time to see a light aircraft disappearing off in one direction. Bucky runs to the edge of the roof to see Sam's wings are lying in pieces across the main quad and Sam has landed awkwardly upside down in one of the trees.
Steve's already trying to get Sam down. Bucky just sags against the railing, his head pounding awkwardly, and he looks down at the crushed hard drive he's managed to salvage from the case.
Howard Stark's not going to be pleased about this.
#
It turns out Bucky's prediction is an understatement.
"You three are supposed to be professionals. What did you do while they were infiltrating my compound, sit in your corners with your thumbs up your asses?" Howard thumps his glass down hard on his desk, sending whiskey everywhere. "You three are supposed to be the best. The best. And this is what the best gets me?" He throws down the shattered hard drive. "I'd have had better protection from a herd of rhinos."
"Actually they're called a crash," Bucky offers.
Howard freezes and his eyes narrow. "What?"
"A group of rhinos," Bucky clarifies, even though Steve's shaking his head and mouthing Bucky, no. "They're not called a herd, they're called a crash."
Howard pinches the bridge of his nose and mutters something under his breath that Bucky can't hear, but Steve apparently can because he winces.
"I have no choice," Howard sighs. "There was too much collateral damage. I can't have you working here any longer."
Sam's been nursing his head since they got ushered into Howard Stark's office and he lurches up at that with a look of dismay. He glares at Bucky like it's somehow his fault.
"Our contract—" Bucky starts, awkwardly. "It's, uh—you said it was—uh, unbreakable." That's the only reason they accepted the Stark contract in the first place, the stability. Sam had wanted to work for HammerTech, but something about Justin Hammer set Bucky's teeth on edge.
"You're right," Howard says and he straightens to face Bucky with a cool glare. "I can't fire you. I asked my legal department and your contract is a nightmare. But I did discover one thing." He smirks at them widely, giving Bucky the sudden impression that they've been cornered by a shark. "I can't fire you. But I can re-assign you."
Bucky's bank account is happy for a brief second, but Bucky feels an ache in his recently-healed stab scar courtesy of the Widow. Because why is the genius billionaire inventor saying re-assign like the Black Widow hisses I'm going to hurt you so badly?
"Where are you re-assigning us?" Steve asks, realizing Bucky's not quite in a state to ask.
"Not where," Howard says, "who." He leans against his desk, still smirking, and he looks much too relaxed for a CEO simply re-assigning a team of external contractors. "My son, Anthony. He's quite the handful, I assure you. Even though he's only twenty years old, he's completed two phDs at MIT in Physics and Electrical Engineering. I wanted him to work here, get some more business experience, but his mother is too soft, she indulges him, and last summer she insisted he get some cultural education too. Somehow the wretched child has interpreted that to mean getting a third phD at Cambridge. Mechanical Engineering, or so I'm told. I need an extra eye on him, and a team nearby who can step in if something does go wrong."
Bucky's not entirely sure if Howard is bragging or actually complaining. It feels like a weird mix of both.
"Wait, Cambridge," Sam says, looking startled. "You mean Massachusetts, right? Harvard?"
Howard Stark's smirk widens. "Cambridge, England."
NATASHA
"Well, ladies, I can't exactly compliment you on a job well done," Giorgio Gillespie says. Natasha has to literally bite her tongue in order to hold back the eyeroll, because Gillespie is a condescending jerk and one day she'll get to dropkick him into the ocean like he deserves. Preferably a part of the ocean filled with man-eating sharks. The sharp pain of the bite helps keep her face impassive.
"We got you the prototype," Natasha says. "Just as you requested. We should be the ones complaining to you. There was additional security on the third floor that wasn't in your intel."
Gillespie's face purples. Natasha surreptitiously pinches her own thigh to stop the threatening smirk at his displeasure. "I gave you the intel I had," he sniffs. "It's not my fault you couldn't predict the nature of this—Summer Soldier."
"Winter Soldier," Natasha corrects. "I gave you the dossiers on the Winter Soldier's team weeks ago. The Winter Soldier, Falcon, and Nomad. Howard Stark has been employing them for the last five months. We still don't have any further intel on their identities but we know they're resourceful. Strong. Their tech is topnotch."
"Nomad's gas bombs nearly blinded me," Sharon pipes up, still holding an ice pack to her face.
"The Falcon took a chunk out of my trijet," Jan adds, scowling and folding her arms. "He's lucky all I did was leave him up a tree."
"Needless to say, I will be re-negotiating our hazard pay agreement for any future assignments." Natasha grins, unable to hold that back. If she tries her best to resemble the shark she hopes will one day chow down on Giorgio Gillespie's face, well. Her words can only go into God's ears if she speaks them out loud.
Gillespie sniffs, audibly disgruntled. "Well. I suppose it's reasonable," he admits. "I already have another assignment for you and your team, if you want it."
"It depends on the terms," Natasha says.
"My daughter, Cassandra," Gillespie says. "She is a young woman, strong mind, but she is loyal to me, our company. She currently attends Newnham College at Cambridge University. At first, I was pleased, an all-girls college, no boys. But she parties, it's tough on her poor father to think about. I think… she is better suited to a boy like her. One from a good, strong business family."
"And you have such a boy in mind."
"It so happens that a...familiar face to us has a son at the same educational establishment. A different college, but, eh, close enough for us. I wish for Cassandra to…become close to this boy. I have a...shall we say...a twist in the tale for him."
"I don't kill children," Natasha says, flatly. She feels Sharon and Jan both straightening beside her in support. They're spies, not assassins.
Gillespie's eyes widen. "I would never request that. Even if the boy I speak of is twenty years old—no, no, death is not what I have in mind. I wish for an...alliance. For my daughter to sweet-talk to this boy, to wheedle out his secrets. If she insists on bedding young men, then let it be one where his pillow talk can bring good fortune to my business."
Natasha stares, comprehension dawning. Gillespie wants his own daughter to be a honey-pot, presumably to lure in the son of a rival businessman. "Does she need bodyguards?"
Gillespie makes an unpleasant sort of noise. "No, no, my daughter doesn't go anywhere without them. What she needs is advice. I think the three of you have used your feminine wiles on more than one target. Her mother is no help; during our romance I was the one who had to chase her. No, I need you to mentor my Cassandra. Groom her. Give her back-up. I need Cassandra to invite the boy on a date and, while on that date, I will manufacture...an event. Where the boy can be a hero. Where his little heart will flutter that he has been brave, and my daughter can play the grateful damsel. I'm positive he will declare his love for her after such an event."
The manipulation is stomach-curdling, but Natasha nods slowly. "You know our usual fees for overseas jobs. Usual fares. Double the hazard rate, though, and you cover all expenses. SHIELD has been more active in Europe since a rise in Hydra attacks. England's a risk zone, I want to be sure my women are amply rewarded."
"They will be," Gillespie promises.
Natasha nods. "All right. What's the target's name?"
"Oh, I didn't tell you?" Gillespie grins. "I always manage to bury the lede. I'd be a terrible journalist. The boy's name is Anthony." His grin widens. "Anthony Stark."
"What an asshole," Jan sighs, after Natasha's disconnected the call.
"No arguments here," Sharon says, getting to her feet and tying her long blond hair back into a functional ponytail.
"I'll book the flights and a nice hotel," Jan says. "If we're going to Europe on Gillespie's corrupt dime, I don't want to hole up in another crummy motel room." She eyeballs Sharon, who's already pulling down cases, packing up the gear for an overseas mission away from their base. "Especially when someone kicks in their sleep."
"I told you the bed was too small," Sharon says, sing-song.
Jan eyeballs Natasha darkly. "I'm getting us separate rooms."
"Connecting doors," Natasha says, but nods to approve the expense. They'll get the money back from Gillespie. "But book the flight in coach."
Jan's face falls. "But—"
"You can fake a receipt for first class," Natasha says. "I want to squeeze as much money out of this asshole as we can." She stares into space. She hopes they can afford to ditch Gillespie soon because he's a real piece of work. Who uses their own daughter like that? It is weirdly nice to know there's a guy out there she hates more than the Winter Soldier.
Natasha reluctantly gets up to help with the packing and to make sure they have good enough cover identities so that they can get through security without pinging any alerts. At least that's one good thing about a mission away from home: no chance of running into the Winter Soldier and his goons.
BUCKY
"Babysitting," Bucky sighs as they trudge dejectedly along the underground tunnel that leads to their headquarters "You do realize we've been assigned to babysit his son. His grown-up son."
"It could be worse," Steve says, still irritatingly imperturbable. "I like Europe. We went there once, remember? It was England too back then if I'm right."
Bucky glowers, because a) Steve is always right, and b) Steve's mocked him ever since that experience because there was an extremely beautiful air stewardess and Bucky's never quite exactly the suavest person around people he's attracted to. Long story short, he tripped over the doorway and fell out of the plane, completely missing the stairs. Okay, so maybe Bucky slightly deserves the mocking.
"I've never been to Europe," Sam says. "At least they speak the same language where we're going."
"You'd think so," Bucky grumps. "But wait until you try and ask for some chips." He side glances at Steve. "Why are you so unruffled by this?"
"I just feel like it could be worse." Steve shrugs. "The flight is free. The hotel room's already paid for. Babysitting's a two-man job, which means whoever's not on the clock can get a free vacation, in a foreign country, on someone else's dollar. Stark pays us well. What's to hate?"
"The plane," Sam sighs. "I hate flying." Steve and Bucky stop walking to stare at him in unison. "I love it when I'm in my wings. But cooped up in a tiny tin can? On those rigid-ass wings that might as well be a couple of planks strapped onto the sides? Nah, man, I'm out, that shit's uncool."
"Sadly, the contract's binding," Steve reminds him as they start walking again. "As much as Stark can't fire us without some legal problems, we can't quit. At least without 30 days notice in writing in triplicate."
Sam reaches the stairs first and uses the retinal scanner to open the main door, and Bucky and Steve trail in afterwards. Bucky nearly trips over a large cardboard box near the entrance and it makes the weirdest noise.
"I told you to move that yesterday," Steve says.
Bucky glares at him. "What the heck even is in there?"
"Rubber chickens," Sam says. "Rick says the old ones keep selling out."
"I can't believe our front is doing better revenue-wise than we are," Bucky grouches, shoving the box over a bit and glaring at it suspiciously.
"Let's get changed and pack up, flight's in three hours," Steve says.
"At least I managed to rescue the patent data," Bucky says mulishly, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand as they shuffle off in different directions.
"But the Widow still got the prototype," Steve sighs. "He's right to have been angry with us. We should have done better."
"You always think we should do better," Bucky says.
"I guess if he was really angry, he wouldn't have bought us seats in business class," Sam says. That does cheer Bucky up a little.
Bucky heads to his bedroom to pack the clothes he needs for a mission like this one. For a bodyguard assignment, it means civilian clothes. While his entire life is his job, Steve and Sam do try and drag him out on their days off, and it's not like Bucky can stomp around New York in his Winter Soldier gear. He packs quickly, folding his favorite tactical suits to the bottom of the case, and then covering it with the things he thinks someone would pack for an extended business trip. He has several suits for fancy occasions, because you can steal a lot of company secrets from posh galas, and—after remembering Anthony Stark is a billionaire's son—he packs them all, in case Anthony's apple hasn't fallen far from Howard's tree and they have to attend a soiree or the opera or whatever the fuck it is rich people do.
Bucky's done much too quickly, and he stares around his little room, wondering if he's missing something, but there's nothing much in his room left to pack. He lives a minimal existence. His room is bland. God, his life is bland. How has he not noticed that until now? He sits on the edge of his bed and stares at the blank, empty wall.
He needs a life. Maybe Europe's a good chance to shock him out of this dull routine. He needs a plan. Honestly, he never thought he'd survive the war. He never thought his life would be like this at all. But then, Afghanistan changed all of them. Sam's grief over losing Riley still routinely gives him screaming nightmares. Bucky and Steve met Sam on their first tour, on a combined Air Force and Army mission, and they stayed in touch, mostly exchanging messages every couple of months that consisted of oh my gosh how are we all still fucking alive in a variety of combinations.
Steve was accepted to the army at the same time as Bucky. Even though he used to look like a sandwich away from death at any given point when they were growing up, Steve out-stubborn-ed everyone and managed to meet basic admission requirements. He was initially assigned to on-base support after having a tough time during training but he disappeared for a couple of years and when he came back he was different. Physically stronger, yes, but whatever secret mission the army had him on, it erased all the doubt and hesitance from Steve's personality. Bucky knows Steve is still his best friend, but sometimes Bucky will catch Steve staring out the window at an imaginary horizon, and Bucky will see the barest glimpse of his tense profile and is struck dumb by the thought that maybe he doesn't really know Steve as well as he thinks he does. Steve returned to Bucky's side just in time to see Bucky lose his arm in combat, which is just about typical for their luck. Bucky had to go home while he knew Sam and Steve were still out there.
Bucky stayed in New York recuperating for years while Sam and Steve did who knew what in Afghanistan. When they both retired after two tours, the three of them met up and realized none of them knew what to do in a world without war. Still wondering oh my gosh how are we all still fucking alive. Corporate espionage seemed like a good fit for the three of them. It slots neatly in the gap between war and civilian life. It's been a good five months, Bucky thinks. But maybe it's time for change. Something small. Bucky eyeballs his empty nightstand. Maybe he can buy a plant when they get back.
It doesn't take any of them long to pack for the flight and they congregate in the office to make sure their paperwork is in order. It's when Steve pulls out the large black Stark-case that Bucky sighs. "Really?"
Steve eyeballs him. "You want to explain to airport security about your metal arm?"
Bucky makes a loud, angry noise, but detaches it, slapping Steve in the chest with the disconnected arm as he stalks off to his bedroom to find his public prosthetic that he keeps under the bed so he can forget it exists as much as possible. He hates the damn thing. It chafes, and is bent at a permanent awkward angle, and he's never so aware he doesn't have a left arm than when he's got it in the stupid sling and attached to his body. But not using it at all makes him stand out too much. Sometimes people notice a man wearing a bad prosthetic arm, but way more people notice someone without an arm at all. People see what they expect to see, really.
Steve packs the arm away into the case, along with his retractable shields and some of their basic additional arsenal—knives, tranq darts, and other such fun things. Then he adds Bucky's favorite metal mask, Sam's back-up wings, and—after an angry glare—Redwing and Bucky's stun gun go into the case too. Steve snaps the case shut and presses in the combination that locks it tight and ensures it will just appear as ordinary luggage on an x-ray machine. Say what you like about Howard Stark's ego and his gregarious manner and short temper, his inventions are brilliant. Especially the stuff Stark Industries has been churning out over the last five years. Bucky thinks some of the inventions—like the stealth tech that Howard Stark announced as under development just last month—will probably change the direction of the entire future. Everything's going to change. Technology, espionage, everyday life. Howard's getting older, but his mind must be just as sharp as ever.
Bucky crosses to the window as Sam sets up the routines to make sure their bills are still paid on time while they're away for such an indefinite period, and stares out down Flatbush Avenue. It's a relatively quiet part of Brooklyn, but their cover business—a costume and props store called Rokatanski & Co.—makes enough revenue to cover the whole commercial loft space of their headquarters on its own. Bucky is sad about the failure of their first front, which was a coffee shop called Samstuck, but the Widow blew that one in its first week of operation. Literally. Sam still has a little piece of the shrapnel from the injury stuck in his right shoulder.
That's one benefit of shipping out to Europe. No Black Widow. No Agent 13. No Wasp. Just...possibly a lot of Hydra, if the news is right, but punching Hydra agents is Steve's number one favorite hobby, and Bucky really does like providing his friends with their favorite things.
#
Bucky has to use that as a mental chant when they get to the airport, (No Black Widow, No Black Widow, No Black Widow) because there are no words for how much he hates commercial airports. They get there with plenty of time, but, of course, after they check-in, they find out their flight is delayed by six hours. Of course.
Then Sam suddenly remembers it's the first time he's flown commercially since the Black Widow blew up Samstuck and pitches a fit in the lobby, because the shrapnel in his shoulder is still there and he doesn't want to set off the metal detectors. Steve sighs, disappears into the airport drugstore, and Bucky doesn't quite see what's in the bag, but Sam's face sort of wobbles and then goes very tense, and he lets Steve drag him off to the bathroom.
"Get some breakfast," Steve tells Bucky as he hauls Sam off. "I refuse to be in a compressed metal tin can anywhere near you when you're hangry."
Bucky glares at him but can't protest because Steve's probably right. He trudges off to the food court but a lot of flights must have been delayed because there aren't any free small tables. He awkwardly manages to buy a breakfast bagel from one vendor, and slumps onto a longer, communal table, glowering into space. Next time he's going to try and persuade Howard Stark to let them use his private jet. Much fewer logistical issues. And fewer people.
He's so busy staring off into space that he nearly misses the most beautiful sight in the entire universe. Or he would have, except for the fucking unwieldy fake arm that he was given on his return home, before Howard Stark took pity on him. Bucky's never really been as grateful for the lump of plastic as he probably should be, but from now on he's going to be really thankful for it.
Because it's come a little loose, probably because Bucky's neglected his maintenance of it, and his entire left plastic hand is currently sitting in someone's bowl of oatmeal.
And when Bucky looks up in horror, the apology already in his mouth and ready to blurt out, his cheeks already hot with real embarrassment, he loses all ability to speak.
She's beautiful. She's just—so beautiful. Forget speaking, Bucky completely forgets how to breathe for a minute. If someone had told Bucky to put together an image of his perfect woman, he couldn't have even imagined her. He thinks she's the sky, somehow made real. Her eyes are the blue of perfect summer days, her hair the same red as the sky on the day when Sam and Steve came home from Afghanistan safe, and her mouth is a wicked curve of lightning.
"Doesn't that hurt?" Bucky's perfect woman says, and Bucky starts, and looks at his hand, and promptly wants the ground to let him sink twenty feet underneath it, because it's her breakfast and his entire hand is resting in it. He jerks backwards, spraying oatmeal over the table, and he frowns at it in horror and then starts fumbling in his pocket, pulling out a ten dollar bill.
"I'm so sorry," Bucky says, "it just—I can't control where my hand goes sometimes—" He casts around helplessly for a napkin, and there's one wrapped around his bagel, so he tugs at that, and uselessly dabs at the oatmeal on his plastic hand, and then gives up and eats it, rather than let it drip over the table.
"You are not the first man I've met that has said that about his hand." The woman stares at Bucky's odd behavior, and then Bucky can recognize the instant she understands the situation. The inevitable wash of pity over her face stings as much as it usually does, even though Bucky's already overwhelmed with his other feelings: dire embarrassment, warring uncomfortably with a little voice in the back of his head that sounds a lot like a choir of angels. "I'm so sorry, I didn't notice—I'm so sorry—"
"I'm the one that's made a mess of your breakfast, I should be the only one apologizing," Bucky says. "I'm really sorry, I'm just not used to the prosthetic yet, I don't normally wear this one. Mostly because it has a mind of its own, maybe. Oh, no, that would be terrifying."
He can't even shut up, what the heck. Bucky wishes the floor would hurry up and do that swallowing him down into hell thing he's been praying for.
"Here, let me help," the woman says, and digs into the satchel at her side, pulling out wet wipes.
"You're very prepared," Bucky says. God, he's even finding her apparent organizational skills attractive. Thank goodness Sam and Steve aren't here right now to watch him trip all over himself.
The woman grins, already carefully cleaning his hand. "I try to be. Even if my observational skills aren't as good as I thought they were."
Bucky stares as she curls her fingers around his hand and he swallows, hard, and is very glad he's sat at the table. Oh god. This is so unfamiliar. He's used to navigating dangerous circumstances and narrow escapes. Defending against mercenaries and working out security systems and working out in general because corporate espionage keeps you on your feet.
Suddenly being confronted by such beauty in one person is unsettling. Bucky feels a little, almost, like when he fought the Black Widow for the first time. Like he finally had proof that perfection actually did exist.
"What's your name?" he asks, because he can't help himself. He looks apologetic when she glances at him, realizing it's probably a little rude, there has to have been a smoother way to ask.
But she laughs, a sound like long summers, like a warm blanket on a cold day. "Natasha," she says. "And you?"
"James. James Buchanan Barnes." It's safe to use his real name. It's not connected to anything but a small file, to the briefest of details. A juvenile police warning, from the day he and Steve wondered what would happen if you dropped a pineapple from a fourth floor window. A speeding ticket from when he was eighteen. A signature on the lease to Rokatanski & Co. And his medical separation from the armed forces, of course. "My friends call me Bucky."
"I like James," Natasha says, and even her voice is like liquid honey. Oh man, Bucky's never believed in love at first sight before, but from the way his chest feels jittery, he's starting to feel like maybe he could ascribe to that belief system.
"I owe you a new breakfast," Bucky blurts. "Uh. Do you want mine? Or, wait, I have money—probably. In my pocket. Wait, no. Still in my hand. Oh my god. Here."
"Oh, please don't, I insist. I shouldn't have put the bowl where I did. And there's enough oatmeal left, don't worry." Natasha finally lets Bucky's fake hand go and she actually helps tuck it back at his side, and she smiles at him. "Actually, I think I see my friends over there. I should go and join them. It was nice to meet you, James."
Bucky's stomach swoops and his eyes sting a little, just from the idea of never seeing her again. Or just from the way she says James and not Bucky. Well, his real first name has never sounded so nice, anyway. He swallows back the disappointment. "It was nice to meet you too, Natasha."
Natasha flashes him the most beautiful smile that he's ever seen in his life. "Just watch where you put that hand in the future, Bucky," she says before turning and walking away.
Bucky stares after her, until she disappears from his view, and his body feels tense and heavy and miserable, because she's gone, and Bucky's hit by the strongest sensation that he'd take the Black Widow's knife in his abdomen twenty more times rather than feel this way again. His throat feels thick and uncomfortable and his eyes sting a little. He's been hit by a car, shot in the ass twice (goddammit Sam), and had an IED blow his entire arm from his body, but he's never felt so much at once in his life ever before.
"Dude, is that oatmeal on your sleeve?" Sam says. "You had oatmeal and you're still trying to eat a bagel?"
Bucky startles out of his thoughts at the sound of Sam's voice to find Sam and Steve have found him. He stares at them wordlessly, feeling oddly disconnected from everything. Sam's t-shirt has an odd lump under his shoulder, the shrapnel presumably having been...removed, and he and Steve sit down opposite Bucky, with breakfast bagels of their own because the three of them still eat like students way too often.
"I couldn't decide," Bucky manages, after too long of a pause. He'd rather they think him greedy than the truth. He doesn't even know how to describe what happened. How do you explain being metaphorically struck by lightning? How could he find the words to explain that he feels like he was so close to everything he's ever wanted, only for it to suddenly disappear?
"I hate airports," Sam sighs and tries to scratch at his shoulder. Steve dutifully smacks his hand away. The three of them eat in relative silence for a while, and when Bucky looks up after he's finished, he notices Steve's moved to sit next to him. Shit, Bucky's observational skills have taken a massive leave of absence which he doesn't think he approved beforehand. Well, that's probably why he has Steve. You can't watch your own back 24/7.
"You okay, Buck?" Steve asks, keeping his voice quiet.
Bucky thinks about lying, but Steve wouldn't buy it. He just shrugs and Steve's eyes soften.
"You always take failure so damn hard," Steve sighs, and Bucky twinges guiltily because Steve thinks he's sulking about somewhat failing the protection mission at Stark Industries. "C'mon. England might be better this time."
"From what you told me of your first time there, couldn't be any worse," Sam mutters.
Bucky sighs. "Why do I keep you around again?"
"Please, I keep this entire operation together." Sam beams. "And I keep you two around because I'm cool, but you two make me look awesome in comparison."
Steve and Bucky exchange a long glance. "Air force," they sigh in unison, and Sam starts spluttering, which he always does when they gang up on him.
Chapter Text
NATASHA
Cassandra Gillespie must have gotten her looks from her mother, which is infinitely reassuring because it's a disappointing truth that good looks make a honey-pot assignment immeasurably easier.
Natasha's spent a couple of days just watching this Anthony Stark at a distance. The young man spends hours in a university-provided private lab, and Natasha watches him flitting around his personal workspace on a monitor because Sharon hacked the pitiful security within minutes. There's some other sort of security on the young Stark's inventions, because they're pixelated no matter which camera Natasha watches him on. That doesn't concern her much—she's not interested in the technology, she's interested in the person creating them. Only a fool ignores the goose in favor of the golden eggs, and Natasha is no fool.
With Stark's tunnel-vision on his work, Natasha's worried about how difficult it will be for Cassandra to seduce him, until Stark emerges from his workspace and immediately shifts, chameleon-quick, into a charming and engaging persona that he slips on as easily as Natasha can slip on her mask for when she's the Black Widow. Stark becomes Anthony, charming and well-spoken and utterly fake. Anthony's trained in navigating social situations with people older than him, with people in high positions of authority, but as Natasha observes him from afar, she watches him fail rather spectacularly to talk to a couple of students his own age.
That makes sense. Son of a wealthy industrialist, Anthony will have been raised in a life of glitz and glamour, where people schmoozed across cocktails as easily as regular people sat at a shared table in a food court to eat their breakfast. Natasha blinks that thought away rapidly. She can't waste time thinking about a guy who's got nothing to do with her current mission, no matter how cute he was.
Natasha knows she shouldn't waste time, but she also can't help replaying the moment again in her mind. James was cute. She only sat next to him in hopes of maybe convincing him to spend an hour of the interminable flight delay with her, maybe find a bathroom with a lock, and she even went to the bother of buying breakfast so she had an easy "in" to casual conversation. Then the cute idiot went and dropped his hand directly in her food, and the whole encounter turned weirdly adorable and—shit. No. There's no point lingering over a chance brief encounter with someone she's never going to see again.
Her mind's sticking on it for a reason. Natasha takes a deep breath. Yeah, food. That's a good lesson. If Cassandra can manage to also "accidentally" sit by the cute guy in a public area, it's a good opening.
"I've been looking online to see who he's dated before," Jan says, beckoning Cassandra over. "Anthony himself keeps a pretty tight lock on his online thumbprint—"
"Good boy," Sharon murmurs, approvingly.
"—but the facial recognition software Mr. Gillespie provided has found several selfies from Anthony's time here," Jan continues, like Sharon didn't interrupt. "He doesn't seem to have a particular type. And I found a couple of blog entries from a Sunset Bain, she dated him...five years ago."
"Oh my god, of Baintronics Incorporated?" Cassandra leans in closer, her hair falling over her face as she stares at the screen. "I know Sunset, she's old." Her face does something complex. "What a hobag. She's like, a decade older than him. And Tony would have been fifteen at the time." Cassandra's jaw juts mulishly. "I mean, at least I'm his age, y'know?"
Natasha frowns, uncertain whether it's good or not that Cassandra's already a little protective of the mark. It doesn't bode particularly well. She also makes a mental note to do even more damage to Stark Industries when she's there next. There's nothing that pisses her off more than terrible fathers, and Howard Stark and Giorgio Gillespie are rapidly progressing to the top of her shitlist.
The Winter Soldier is at the top of that list, obviously.
"Well, dubious consent issues aside," Sharon says, "she looks a lot like you, so he's at least been attracted to that type before. There's no way we can hide your past from Anthony Stark, but it seems the industrial background might not be a turn-off."
"Unless Sunset ruined him for life," Cassandra mutters, chewing at her nails as she stares at the picture of Sunset Bain Jan's brought up on the screen. Natasha raps at Cassandra's knuckles and Cassandra lowers her hands.
"We can play it by ear," Natasha says, "but one thing's for sure. He's from your world, Cassandra. He doesn't know how to talk to his peers. But he does understand what it's like to be the kid of an industrialist big-name. You can use that."
Cassandra nods, looking wide-eyed. "Do you think he'll like me?"
"Honestly from the footage I've watched of him, you might have more chance if you were an engine to tinker with," Natasha says, but she puts a hand on Cassandra's shoulder and meets her gaze. "I've read his file. His parents are distant, he has no friends. Just show him kindness, give him attention, and he'll be eating out of your hand."
Cassandra's pretty mouth wrinkles. "That's it?"
"He's heading to the library," Sharon says. "His usual routine and assignments imply he'll be there for a good couple of hours."
Natasha runs that fact through her head. She nods. "Jan, I want to take advantage of your baby face, if you don't mind."
"I don't know if I should feel offended or flattered," Jan says, but she's already up and headed to her suitcase, pulling out a dress that's somewhat similar to the one Cassandra's wearing. Jan's wardrobe is always a spy's dream.
"Sharon, make Jan a pass in case she's stopped by any of the proctors," Natasha says.
"My pass doesn't work for the engineering library," Cassandra pipes up.
"I'll fix that too," Sharon says, holding out her hand. Cassandra digs into her purse and hands it over.
"I don't suppose you could wipe out my library fine while you're doing that?" Cassandra asks, looking hopeful.
"She'll be too busy," Natasha says. Sharon shoots her a look from where she's already manipulating Jan's face onto an ID card template. "I'll be talking Cassandra through it. Sharon, I'll need your help to watch the security cams if I'm distracted."
Sharon nods tersely. "You're anticipating trouble?"
Natasha laughs briefly. "Always."
BUCKY
"There's already someone else in this system," Sam says, from where he's hunched over his laptop.
Steve looks up sharply from his tablet, where he's busy memorizing the Stark boy's schedule and routes. "Can you tell who?"
"Nope," Sam says. "They're just piggybacking into the security already in place."
"Isn't that what we're trying to do?" Bucky tilts his head. "Do you know who it is?"
"It's embedded really well. Same protocol I was going to use, actually. I can piggyback off their piggyback and they won't notice we're there."
Bucky frowns. "Can't you knock them out?"
"Not without letting them know we're onto them," Sam says.
"Best we don't," Steve says. "If we're watching what they're watching, then we know what they know."
"So what's the strategy?" Bucky asks.
"Well, we don't have to go in covertly," Steve says. "Mr. Stark has already got us clearance to be in any necessary building in order to ensure his son has adequate protection. He's not the only student with need of additional security. Obviously the administration has requested if we're to be very visible that we don't go in full tactical gear as it would unnecessarily frighten the other students. So if we need to go on campus, a regular suit and tie would suit it. However..." Steve shakes his head. "It seems like Anthony Stark has refused to have bodyguards before."
"So you think we should just...not tell him we're here?" Sam asks, raising an eyebrow. "Howard Stark was pretty clear, our assignment isn't constant surveillance. Does he need to know we're here?"
Bucky frowns, the idea not sitting quite right with him.
"I think one of us should talk to him," Steve says. "Give him the full risk assessment we worked up. Let him know his father's concerned, that we're going to give him space, maintain a perimeter, but that there is a notable risk right now. I want him to know where to find us, and where to lay low if he needs to."
"He might rabbit if we're that candid," Sam says.
"You heard Howard," Steve says, shrugging. "Two phDs? Onto his third? The guy's a genius. We shouldn't underestimate him."
"You were a clever kid," Bucky points out. "Didn't stop us from doing stupid shit at that age. I mean, we signed up to go to war. Voluntarily."
Steve does grin at that. "I have possession of our single shared brain cell today, Buck. I think this is the right call."
Bucky nods, tersely. "Okay. But if he makes a run for it, I'm telling Stark it was your fault we lost his kid."
Steve laughs wryly. "Sure. I figure we tell the kid we're here, then take it in turns. Usual soft observation rotation. One person on remote surveillance, one person near the mark—in line of sight if possible—and one person off duty. Just while we get used to the routine and patterns."
"Can I take that first off shift?" Sam asks. "I saw a spa downstairs, and one of the receptionists gave me elevator eyes when we checked in."
Bucky squints. "Are you sure she wasn't just trying to figure out how Frankenstein's monster learned to walk?"
Steve smirks. "Buck and I will go see the kid. Keep your comms in while you're out."
"But mute it if the receptionist has lost her mind and somehow actually thinks you're hot," Bucky advises. "There are some things in life you can't un-hear."
"Like Steve's singing in the shower," Sam says, and Bucky nods dolefully.
"You guys are hilarious," Steve deadpans.
Maybe Bucky's doing something with his own face that he doesn't realize he's doing, because while they walk to the engineering library where the Stark boy is studying, Steve's expression is somber. He's obviously working up the nerve to say something, and Bucky leaves him to it. It's only as they get close when Steve manages to speak.
"I'm gonna take this one, if you don't mind," Steve says.
Bucky blinks. He's not quite sure what he expected Steve to say, but he still knows that's not it. "I don't mind. You just don't normally like to take point."
Steve looks over at the library like he can see through the wall. He could, if he looked at the tablet in Bucky's pocket; Sam already has it programmed to follow Anthony Stark wherever he goes. "There's something about this case that has me bothered," Steve says, after a small pause.
Bucky gets it. Hydra always gets Steve on edge. Agents of that insidious regime are constantly trying to steal Stark tech, and whenever those octopus-heads turn up, Steve gets a little hyper-fixated. Something happened to Steve in the war, in those years where Bucky was frozen out. Bucky's pretty sure Hydra must have been involved, but Steve doesn't like to talk about it, and Bucky saw enough of war that he knows not to push. Steve will tell him about it when he's ready to.
"If you think you can handle it, have at it," Bucky says. "I'll deploy some of our back-up devices and then keep point at surveillance point B."
"Got it," Steve says. "I'll try and extract him to a safer environment for the debrief but I may have to go comm silent."
"Usual protocol. You go silent any longer than twenty minutes, I'm coming in."
Steve nods and heads off at a brisk walk towards the library. Bucky watches him go thoughtfully and then moves quickly to start setting up the network of security devices. Steve is ridiculously persuasive.
"Buck?" Steve's voice comes in on the comms much more quickly than Bucky's expecting.
"You okay?" Bucky asks, suddenly alert and ready to start running. He's not in his usual gear, mostly because the full tactical black and mask combo would probably not let him fit it on Cambridge's gray streets, but he does have his correct arm on now, hidden under a glove, and he's ready to punch if necessary. He surreptitiously slides out the tablet and watches the footage and it seems okay—Steve's walking alongside Anthony Stark and he doesn't look distressed.
"Yeah," Steve says. "I'm just going to Anthony's—Tony, okay, Tony's—lab and I think we're going to be a few hours. He has a security system of his own and I need to take a look at it."
Bucky frowns. "You need help?"
Steve looks up at the next camera, like he knows for sure Bucky is watching, and he smiles. "Only as much help as sorbet needs in the sun."
Bucky relaxes. Sorbet means everything is as it looks like. It's if someone mentions ice cream that it's time to panic. And if someone says gelato, it's time to run for your life. They should probably figure out some less weird safewords. "Ten four, Nomad."
"I'll meet you at the hotel," Steve says. "Relax. Anthony—Tony—gets it. I told you he would. I just want to work up an action plan with him that works for all of us."
"Copy that," Bucky says. "Twenty minute rule still applies. Even if it's just a Code Blue."
"Go have some fun, Buck," Steve says. "If anything happens you'll be the first to know."
Bucky stays and watches the security footage for a while, because there's something off about the situation, but watching soothes his nerves. Steve can be incredibly persuasive. Bucky's going to quiz him like hell though when he does get back to the hotel because he needs to learn how to charm a client that quickly. They'll probably need it, based on their last encounter with Howard Stark.
NATASHA
Jan and Cassandra get to the library too late; according to Jan's whispered update, they arrived in time to see him go off in the direction of the engineering labs with what looked like a lecturer. Natasha sighs audibly and she's glad Sharon is there to take the headset away from her before she swears at Jan for something that's not really her fault.
"You need to take a break, Tash," Sharon says, gently and firmly. "We're in a foreign country. Go downstairs and get some culture."
"Jan and Cassandra—" Natasha starts.
"—are on their way back here, after Cassandra gives Jan a brief campus tour," Sharon interrupts. "And I'll be here when they do get back to talk her through the next step in the plans. You haven't stopped since we—hell, the fact I can't even recall the date at first thought speaks volumes. When was the last time you had fun?"
"I tried to have some fun at the airport," Natasha grumbles.
Sharon winces. "Was it...not good?"
"Didn't even happen." Natasha frowns. "I found the perfect target."
"What happened?"
"I bought some oatmeal, sat down next to him, ready to try and sweet talk him into somewhere sexy but intimate—"
"I'm not sure an airport bathroom counts as sexy, but carry on."
"And I'm sitting there, trying to get his attention—" Natasha says, because Bucky's blush is stuck in her mind, and she almost smiles fondly at the memory. Even her almost expression is apparently too obvious, because Sharon smirks at her. "But—he put his hand in my oatmeal, so that...dampened my ardor somewhat."
Sharon squints. "Okay, I'm starting to realize why you didn't tell us this story on the plane."
"Jan would have spent the whole flight graphically listing Hank's kinks, I know."
"I think that's a weirder kink than Henry Pym has ever had, though," Sharon says, although she sounds a little doubtful.
"Oh, it wasn't a kink," Natasha says, scowling as the memory replays in her mind. "Turns out he didn't even notice his hand was in my breakfast."
Sharon's expression is quite delightful, especially considering the superspy prides herself on her poker face. "How is that possible?"
"Amputee," Natasha says, and her shoulders slump as she shakes her head. "It was his prosthetic arm. I made such a fool of myself."
"It can't have been that bad," Sharon says. "Go on. We're in England. Take some petty cash, go and see the sights. What's the worst that can happen?"
"I could actually have fun," Natasha says, and grins at Sharon widely. Sharon winces, because she vividly remembers Budapest.
"Stay on comms," Sharon says. "Unless you find somewhere sexy and intimate here, in which case, feel free to turn up the volume."
"You're a dirty woman, Sharon Carter. A dirty, dirty woman."
Sharon beams. "That's what you like best about me, don't deny it."
Natasha doesn't, because she can't.
#
Natasha doesn't often get much downtime on missions. It's an odd feeling. She wanders down to the lobby in civilian gear, wondering what a real tourist would do, and she ends up browsing a leaflet rack. There are adverts for history tours, river tours, ghost tours; museums, a zoo, a zoology museum. She's erring towards an art gallery when the doors to the hotel open, and she automatically checks out the movement, wondering if it's Jan and Cassandra back already, and she freezes, surprised.
Natasha doesn't believe that luck has her on anything but its most permanent shitlist. She's okay with that. She's done terrible things in the past, things she can never amend for; it feels reasonable that random events never benefit her. Her foster father raised her to never have to depend on luck to save her. Preparation trumped random happenstance every time.
Therefore when the cute guy from the airport shows up in her hotel lobby, Natasha's first thought is this cannot be a good thing.
Her second thought is how cute his butt looks in those pants, because she's only human.
He's even more attractive than she remembers. Natasha's cheeks feel a little warm. Usually she's too busy and doesn't have time to feel her own feelings, but this mission is a desert of action, and apparently she doesn't take well to not being constantly occupied.
It's definitely the same guy, because as soon as he turns and sees Natasha, he promptly walks into a fake potted plant and then flails, and Natasha really shouldn't find that so freaking charming. She's smiling before she can't help it, and something tingles down her spine when she watches his face turn from instant embarrassment into a genuine smile.
"Natasha!"
Natasha can't help but smile back as he rights the plant with his arm. She couldn't decide when she first saw him whether he seemed like a James or a Bucky. James fit the first glimpse she had of him, but the endearing clumsiness is Bucky. That's where she's landed mentally before she even formally makes a decision.
Bucky ambles over to her, bright red flushes high on his cheeks, his eyes sparkling. There's nothing fake in his joy at seeing her. A knot in Natasha's stomach loosens. She needs to stop being paranoid. Being a spy makes her think everyone is a spy.
"Hi, Bucky," Natasha says, and she gestures at the bar stool next to hers. "I don't have any oatmeal lying around, but you're welcome to try and fit your elbow in my vodka."
"I don't think it'll fit," Bucky says, smiling wider when he hears his name. "I'll take a pass. But thanks for the offer." He sits down, and the bartender glowers at him. "Uh, same as her, please." He frowns a little. "Although I'm working later, I probably shouldn't," he mutters, but it's too late—the bartender's already pouring—and he doesn't look all that cut up about it.
"Oh, you're here for work?"
Bucky glances at her. "Sadly so." He wrinkles his mouth. "How about you? You here for business or pleasure?"
"I thought it was just business," Natasha says, and cocks an eyebrow at him suggestively; her original intentions on seeing him in the airport might be back on the table, only this time it wouldn't be an airport bathroom, it could be a hotel room. With a bed. Her toes involuntarily curl at the idea and her smile widens. "Starting to wonder whether it might be pleasure too."
"That's nice you might get some time to enjoy yourself. England seems pretty interesting so far," Bucky says, and then beams at the bartender who offers him a drink.
Natasha blinks. She's a spy. She's a very experienced spy. She's seduced a thousand diplomats and security guys and CEOs and leaders of small but powerful nations. That line has never failed her before. Has she actually lost her touch? "Maybe you could show me around."
Bucky's face falls. "I've never been here before. Not in this part of England. So I wouldn't be very good at it."
Natasha stares. She considers the situation. He's obviously disappointed that he can't show her around, which means he probably would want to if he could? Well, she can remain cool in all stressful situations and apparently that includes the sudden stress of finding herself attracted to a stranger with absolutely zero game.
"I was trying to get you to invite me to spend some time with you," she says, shooting him a look as loaded with promise as she can manage.
This time Bucky seems to get it, because his cheeks go bright red. "Oh. Oh. That's—that's nice." He winces. "I'm so sorry, I'm not very good at this. I don't—meet a lot of people in my line of work. And the ones I do aren't exactly...date material."
Natasha's still feeling a little bit snubbed that her obvious line was missed, so she arches an eyebrow at him. "Bold of you to assume it was for a date." Bucky looks sad and that's what crumples that part of Natasha that wanted to be a tiny bit mean. "It is. I mean, that's what I'd like. Do you have time now?"
Bucky's face falls. "Not really. I—there's a meeting going on right now that's pretty important. I mean. I'm not in the meeting, but the outcome could be shifty—"
"What is it that you do?" Natasha asks, because that's spycraft 101. Get them talking about themselves first.
"Oh, I work for Rokatanski & Co. It's a Brooklyn-based costume and prop company, we're looking to expand." Bucky's smile wobbles. "It's been a lot more popular than we expected."
"Super popular, or just...medium-level popular and you have time to take me on a date later?" Natasha asks, because she doesn't get lucky, but she is a spy. She has his name, she has his company, and if she gets his number too, there's no way Sharon won't be able to do a background check for her.
"Low-level popular," Bucky says, swiftly, and beams charmingly at her, like he knows he's an adorable little motherfucker. Natasha normally hates men who are overconfident in their physical charms, but Bucky's...probably not overconfident. There's something about the way his brown hair tumbles over his forehead which has her fingers itching to push it back. "Can I have your number?"
"It's your lucky day," Natasha purrs, and pulls out the burner phone Sharon gave her when they landed.
Bucky immediately pulls out an almost matching phone, and it's when he's studiously typing in her number into it that the doors to the hotel open, and Natasha's eyes widen, because it is Cassandra and Jan, only they're being followed by four men in suits. Cassandra's bodyguards, Natasha realizes, and sighs. Completely unnecessary when Cassandra's with any single one of her team.
Except Bucky realizes then that Natasha's attention is elsewhere, and he starts to turn to look at what's taken her attention away from him, and Natasha's stomach tenses. She hasn't done the background check yet, and she is not lucky; she doesn't want him to see her even slightly interested in Cassandra Gillespie, even if Natasha could pass it off as thinking the bodyguards are a spectacle.
As quick as lightning, Natasha puts a hand on Bucky's cheek and draws him into a kiss, meaning it to be light and gentle, a brief distraction, but as soon as their mouths touch she is lost. It's like lightning striking every single one of her nerves. Her toes curl and part of her body tenses involuntarily and her cheeks warm and his right hand slides into her hair like he's also moving automatically, his fingertips sparking static against her skull. Perhaps she's asleep, because Bucky kisses like a dream.
When she reluctantly pulls away, Bucky's eyes are wide, and he's panting pleasingly, like he's just as affected as she is. "What was that for?" he murmurs, and his voice sends more of those sparks shooting down her spine.
Natasha smiles at him brilliantly as she hops down from her stool, taking her phone back as she goes. "Just trying to ensure you call me later."
"Try and stop me," Bucky says. Natasha's smile widens and she flees, before she does something even stupider like drag him down to the carpet then and there. England probably has some very strict indecency laws and the last thing Natasha needs is to be thrown into another foreign prison. Escaping always puts such a big dent in her plans.
Sharon looks disappointed when Natasha turns up. "I thought I told you to get a life," she says, not looking up from her screen as she types.
Natasha leans against the sideboard, smiling coquettishly at her. "I got his number."
Sharon's head lurches up. "Whose number?" she demands, but holds her hand out, taking Natasha's phone when she throws it to him. "Bucky? Who the hell is Bucky?"
"Oatmeal guy," Natasha says. "Turns out he's staying in our hotel."
"Hmm," Sharon says, immediately picking up on Natasha's vibe, because it could be a coincidence but how many times does that really happen?
Natasha nods. Hmm covers it. It could be a coincidence—the hotel is probably common for American tourists to pick—but it could easily be something more sinister. "He said he works for Rokatanski & Co., a Brooklyn-based costume and prop company?"
Sharon's fingers dance across the keyboard, information spilling up on the monitor, and she nods. "Checks out. James Buchanan Barnes, born March 20th, 1975, in Shelbyville, Indiana. Joined the army, medically discharged ten years ago, lost his arm in an IED attack. After the war he drifted for a while. Then he...started a props company called Rokatanski & Co. with a friend, also ex-army."
"That all checks out so far," Natasha says, watching as Sharon brings up a slew of images—high school graduation, military identification photo, a couple of candid photos. Natasha's heartbeat quickens involuntarily at the sight of his frozen smile on the screen, dammit.
"He's cute," Sharon says, and Natasha's brain boils automatically, because she saw him first. She forces herself to calm down. She's pretty sure Sharon's seeing someone, actually, even though she's extensively secret about it—Natasha's caught glimpses of Sharon reading handwritten letters that magically seem to disappear.
"And the cellphone number?"
"Clean," Sharon says, shrugs. "Purchased from the airport with cash, same as we did, but that's not unusual for a tourist. There's a few messages in the cloud on his phone."
Feeling queasy, Natasha scowls. "Look at them but don't let me see." At Sharon's glance, Natasha deliberately turns her back.
"He has texts mostly from someone in his contacts listed as Sam," Sharon says. "And, um, most of them...seemed to be about fried food. Honestly, if you'd told me this was my text feed from Jan, I might have believed you."
"I still can't believe she ate the deep-fried haggis."
"It was the deep-fried kebab that got me tripping. You can turn around now." Sharon beams up at her. "Honestly, if this James Barnes is corrupt, it's a hell of a good cover. Either way, you should say Yes, 8pm, and I'll meet you in the lobby to the text he just sent you."
Natasha whirls around and grabs her phone from Sharon, and her cheeks warm at the sight: "Please say you're free tomorrow? This is Bucky btw."
"My ID comes up clean in a search," Natasha says, pushing her lips together.
"You can't go through life saying no to everything interesting that comes across your path, Nat," Sharon shrugs. "And if this hottie turns out to be something less-than-kosher, are you telling me that the Black Widow couldn't handle it?"
"Ooh, hottie, are you talking about me while I'm not around?" Jan squeals from the door.
Natasha and Sharon exchange an amused glance.
"Sorry we were so long," Jan says. Cassandra is hovering behind Jan, looking wide-eyed and nervous. "I had to convince her bodyguards to stay in my room just while we dropped in here. It took some convincing."
"They're very annoying," Cassandra agrees. "I'm sorry."
"You did a good job, Wasp," Sharon welcomes, and Jan beams at her.
"Sorry I couldn't even talk to him," Cassandra says, lowering her head sheepishly as Jan closes the door behind her.
"You weren't to know. Schedules change. That's why we learn to adapt to new situations," Natasha says.
"And that means adapting to dating too," Sharon mutters under her breath, sing-song. Jan shoots a very curious look that Sharon, bless her, ignores.
"We already have a plan," Jan gushes. "Show them."
"The Engineering department is throwing a party," Cassandra says, fumbling out her own phone and handing it over. "I checked the Facespace page, Anthony's already sent in an RSVP to say he's attending."
"A party," Natasha repeats, already trundling the idea over in her head. "That could be perfect. Plenty of people around. We can teach you how to ditch your bodyguards. Nothing would turn a boy's head more than the promise of sex and sneaking away from authority."
"Uh, I'm not sure I'm that kind of girl—" Cassandra starts, awkwardly twisting a piece of hair between her fingers and looking at Natasha with wide, Bambi eyes. Natasha makes a mental note to remind Cassandra to use that expression on Anthony Stark.
"You don't have to be. You just have to pretend you might be. We'll swoop in long before you have to even remove a single piece of clothing," Natasha comforts her. "You might have to kiss him. Would that be a problem?"
Cassandra's cheeks pink. "No. No, I don't think I would be opposed to that."
"You'll have Jan and me in your ear the whole time," Sharon says, comfortingly. "You probably won't even have to kiss him to get him into position. The party's not far from a really good location to send in the fake team to fake kidnap you."
"Wait, Jan and me?" Jan eyeballs Natasha and Sharon suspiciously. "What will Natasha be doing?"
"Oh, she'll be busy," Sharon says, and holds up something, and that's the exact moment Natasha realizes Sharon has stolen her phone and texted Bucky back: "free at 8pm! meet me in the lobby! can't wait!"
Natasha might have been mad about it, except then Bucky immediately texts her a happy-face emoji, like he's been waiting by his phone for a response, and she can't work up the energy to be angry.
"I feel like I always miss the most interesting things," Jan sighs.
Chapter Text
BUCKY
"This is the coolest fucking thing I've ever seen," Sam says. Bucky can't help but agree. "I'll tell you one thing. Howard Stark starts using his kid's security system, we are definitely out of a job."
Bucky nods. Anthony—he apparently prefers Tony—is smart as heck.
They have access to the college feed and Tony's own cameras that are all over Cambridge, so they've been watching him, getting the hang of his schedule and patterns, but whenever Tony is working on something—either a piece of machinery, or a computer screen—that part of the image automatically blurs. Even when he moves whatever it is. The three of them have been watching the footage in fascination for two hours this morning. Bucky thinks Sam even went to sleep watching it, which is kind of weird, but that's Sam for you.
Apparently the reason Tony doesn't already have bodyguards like several of the other rich kids on campus do is because they're completely unnecessary, especially when Tony's in the lab which is apparently most of the time.
Tony's lab turns into a hermetically sealed panic room in an emergency with shielding that could survive a full-on bomb, and he has a quadruple-layer of security that alerts him to anyone coming near. Steve says that's why Tony was so open with him on his approach to the library—Tony had seen Steve and Bucky approaching and knew about them from his father's files. Bucky makes a mental note to steal his own file when they get back to American soil, just to know how much information Howard Stark has on them.
According to Steve, Tony spends long 20 hour stretches in his lab at a time, which means they're going to have much more down-time than expected. Also according to Steve, Tony was so impressed with their honest approach to guarding him that he's promised them 100% transparency on his actions. Whatever Steve told him must have been incredibly persuasive.
"It's pretty damn cool, though," Bucky says, gesturing as Tony picks up something that might be glowing, but the feed from multiple cameras blurs it as he carries it from one table to another. "I mean, it's annoying that he's so young and this smart. But it's fucking cool. Is that real-time pixelation?"
"Seems so," Sam says.
"Well, we can stand around here admiring a kid ten years younger than us or we can go get in a work-out while we have some downtime," Steve says. "I've already checked out the gym and it seems adequate for our needs."
Sam eyeballs Bucky. "I believe it was your idea to hire Captain Serious?"
Steve eye-rolls at the nickname. "I'd rather be serious and have my teammates be prepared for everything."
"Alas, I find his anal addiction to routine self-betterment charming," Bucky sighs. "Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome."
"That's when you kidnap someone," Steve protests. "I just lived down the street from you, there was zero kidnapping."
"Uh, I distinctly remember you actively pulling me out of my window and dragging me to your house because your mom made cake and you couldn't eat it all by yourself."
Steve rolls his eyes. "Fine, I retract my statement, there was one kidnapping, for reasons of free baked goods. I am clearly a terrible friend and should apologize for my awful actions at least seven times a day." He claps his hands. "C'mon. Gym. Before all the battered food you've been consuming goes straight to your ass."
"They say arse here," Bucky mutters, but gets reluctantly to his feet. He changes into his gym clothes. He feels like he should be more on edge, but Steve's really relaxed, and Bucky's known Steve for long enough to know that if Steve thinks something is on the level, it's on the level. They have time to themselves on this assignment, more than any of them were expecting, and that means Bucky can probably call Natasha. He smiles dreamily as he gets dressed in his sweatpants and a long-shirt that lets him tie up his left arm sleeve, because he can't be assed—arsed?—attaching either arm. He doesn't feel any less deadly without it.
He'd muted his comms when talking to Natasha in the lobby yesterday, feeling incredibly awkward, like a baby colt learning how to walk for the first time. She was just as beautiful as he remembered. He resolves to get Sam to run the cell number Natasha gave him after they've finished in the gym because someone who kisses like that can't be real, can they? Maybe Bucky dreamed her. That would be just his luck.
Sam ends up leading them down to the gym, grumbling audibly the whole way as he puts in his earphones so he can listen to the security feed as they work out, because none of them can quite believe the assignment's been so easy so far. Maybe it is all a dream, except if Bucky concentrates he can still taste Natasha on his lips—vodka and lightning. If he closes his eyes he can picture her beautiful face, and the way her smile goes straight to her eyes, and he can hear her voice, and that little rumble that runs through it, like she knows everything in the universe and everything is infinitely amusing to her.
Steve runs them through weights first, and maybe Bucky's too zoned out because he's amenable to all of Steve's commands, and maybe that's out of character because Steve keeps shooting him odd little looks. Bucky just smiles back at him because he can't work up the energy to deal with Steve's paranoia, and hops onto a treadmill when told to without even protesting.
He doesn't mean to tell the others about Natasha, wanting to keep her in his head until the last minute he has to, and he probably would do fine, except for one thing. She kissed him in the hotel lobby. This hotel. Which means she's staying at this hotel, and fuck, Bucky's been too dizzy on that kiss to think that logic through because she's staying at the same hotel he is and that means he can run into her in any common area at any time. And because luck apparently has him on its most permanent shitlist, apparently that means the gym too.
In a moment that will never be listed among Bucky's most graceful moments, he promptly manages to fall off the treadmill.
"What the hell, man?" Sam says, stopping his own treadmill so he can come and help Bucky up.
Bucky glares at Sam, because he doesn't need his arm on to do a kip-up and get back to his feet himself, and he rocks back ready to do it, except Steve is already there at his right side, yanking him up. Bucky turns his glare to Steve, instead.
"None of that ninja stuff in front of civilians," Steve hisses and shoots a warning glance over to where Natasha has headed to a bank of stationary bikes with a couple of friends. Bucky, to his horror, can feel his face heating up a little, and he just nods, which is apparently louder than actual words because Steve looks intrigued and glances over at Natasha for a second. "This something we need to talk about?"
"Nope," Bucky says. "Absolutely not."
Steve looks skeptical. "All right," he says, after a second. "You want to go back to the room for now?"
"That is what I want," Bucky sighs, and then hurls himself back onto the treadmill, scowling at Steve as he starts it up again. Steve just shrugs back as if to say this was your choice like he has no idea what it's like to live with him after skipping a workout for any reason. Even if it's a super valid reason like a broken limb. There's something wrong with Steve Rogers but it's a couple of decades too late for Bucky to start pointing that out now.
He sneaks a glance over to where Natasha is cycling with her friends and then nearly falls off the treadmill again. Bucky clenches his jaw and steadfastly ignores looking at her for the duration of Steve's exhausting exercise program because he has a rapidly diminishing amount of dignity left and he's pretty sure if he's not careful, he'll fall again and Natasha will look at his body flat-out on the floor covered in a combination of blood and drool and decide to cancel their date immediately, and god, Bucky wouldn't blame her in the slightest.
They go back to their room for the shower there, because Steve has a thing about not leaving excessive amounts of genetic material in shared areas, and by mutual agreement they shove Sam in first, who gives them a dirty look, but he needs it more than they do.
Bucky glances at Steve. "You think you and Sam can handle covering that party tonight?"
Steve frowns from where he's unfolding a laundry bag to collect their dirty clothes; they've learned the hard way how to happily co-share a room. "Sure," he says, giving Bucky an odd look. "You okay?"
"Of course. I'm always okay." Bucky tries to smile waveringly.
Sadly, Steve's been his friend for decades, and fluently understands the deeply confusing language Bucky even when Bucky isn't saying anything. "What's her name?"
"Huh?"
"The girl in the gym," Steve clarifies.
Bucky flushes, goddammit. Steve's eyebrows quirk up. "Natasha," he says, almost miserably. "Her name's Natasha. I'm fairly sure she's the human personification of the sky. I mean. Don't quote me on it. But there's a strong possibility. I met her in the airport, and then again in the hotel lobby here, and—Steve, I don't know, I just—I can't concentrate when she's near." He looks up at Steve miserably, expecting Steve to be angry, or worried, but Steve's smiling?
"Shit," Steve says. "It's been a long time since I've seen you like this, Barnes. I almost forgot how dumb love looks on you."
"Hey," Bucky says, offended. Then he thinks about it. His stomach wobbles uncertainly. "Love?"
"Happens to the best of us," Steve says, crossing over the room to clap him on the back companionably. "You'll learn to deal with it."
Bucky nods as Steve gives him a brief smile.
"Wait," Bucky says, "that makes it sound like you're in love. Steve Rogers, what the absolute fuck? Why didn't you tell me? What's their name?"
Steve laughs. "You waited this long to tell me about Natasha. I guess that means you're okay with waiting in general."
"I'm fine. I don't need to know anything. Your life is your own and I'm perfectly good with not knowing," Bucky sniffs audibly.
"Which is why you're still glaring at me and grinding your teeth," Steve says, sing-song.
"God, I feel suddenly like I don't know you at all," Bucky says, mutinously glaring at him.
Steve just grins annoyingly and goes to use the shower next.
NATASHA
Natasha ends up climbing out of the room window when Jan makes noises about wanting a photo of Natasha before her date (a fact they couldn't hide from her for too long because Jan versus secrets is not a battle anyone can win.)
The exertion is just what she needs to clear her head. Casually abseiling down a building is probably not how most normal people prepare for a date, but the fresh air does Natasha good. She stashes the rope and harness behind a bin, smoothes her hair, makes sure her phone is in her bag, and walks around the hotel and through the front doors, almost calm.
Right until she sees Bucky in the lobby waiting for her, casually leaning against the bar. As soon as he sees her, he slips a little and rights himself, looking horribly embarrassed at the clumsiness. He looks different, and it takes her a moment to place why—he's not wearing his prosthetic. Her heart leaps as she imagines what it must be like to lose part of yourself like that. She smirks at the idea that it probably wouldn't slow her down all that much, once she got used to it.
His nervousness is more adorable than it should be. Natasha's pace quickens and she hurries up to him, wondering if she'll be able to stop smiling any time soon.
"Good evening," Natasha says, beaming at him.
Bucky grins back like he can't help himself either, which is unutterably charming. "Would you like to stay here for a drink first? Or would you rather mystery door B?"
Natasha doesn't even try to stop her smile. Sharon's right. Even if this dude somehow turned out to be evil, she can kick anyone's ass with her hands tied between her back. "Mystery door B, for sure," she says. Bucky holds out his right arm and she takes it, smiling wider at his chivalry, and she tries not to shiver. "Wait, what happened to mystery door A?"
"Ah, it's a long and tragic tale, I'm afraid," Bucky sighs. "Involving, I'm sad to say, a bereaved goat."
"A bereaved goat," Natasha repeats, and squints at him. "Who did the goat lose?"
"It wasn't a who, I'm sad to inform you, it was a what," Bucky says, and starts to lead her out of the hotel. "See, I have this friend Sam—and he's kind of an idiot."
"Ah, they say birds of a feather flock together."
Bucky's warm laugh runs right down Natasha's spine. "I wish I could dispute that but I think you have a point."
Natasha laughs. It's rare to find someone who would so quickly admit something like that. She keeps her hand curled around his elbow and smiles up at him. "Tell me this funny Sam story."
BUCKY
Bucky doesn't know how long they've been walking, but it's long enough that he's nearly at the end of the best funny story in his arsenal, and all the buildings around them have disappeared in favor of a park alongside a river. He steers her to the bridge, thinking a walk over a river seems pretty romantic.
"So this absolute bird brain," Bucky continues, thrilling that Natasha's so absorbed in his story she seems barely aware of their surroundings too, "he puts the banana—"
"—don't tell me," Natasha half-gasps into the cutest laugh Bucky's ever heard. "Right into the exhaust?"
Bucky's mouth presses into a line and he nods somberly. "It gets worse."
"How can it get worse?"
"So he's standing there, right, expecting the car not to run, and it just—starts off and breezes away. Sam's just standing there, his mouth hanging open, really confused why his banana hasn't worked like it does in the cartoons. But he hadn't properly blocked it, so the pressure just popped the banana right out again. So he's stuck there, right in the middle of the street, then he walks glumly over to it—"
"Do not tell me he ate it." Natasha lets out a laugh so powerful she has to let go of his arm, which makes Bucky sort of sad, but it is so she can hold onto her stomach because she's laughing so hard, and her laughter is possibly the actual noise angels make, so he can't be too upset.
Bucky nods solemnly. "Yep."
"The same banana."
"Yep."
"Wow, I thought my friend Janet was bad, and all she did was dip her fries in strawberry jelly thinking it was ketchup," Natasha says.
Bucky averts his eyes briefly to the water where a team of rowers are practicing. "We could go get something less...weird to eat, if you'd like," Bucky suggests. "I promise not to drop any limbs in your food this time."
"Well, I suppose you've already reduced that risk by 50%," Natasha says, nodding at where Bucky's sleeve is tucked into his pocket, empty of the prosthetic. It had been Steve's idea to leave his metal arm behind, but Bucky had felt too weird putting on the plastic prosthetic.
"Yeah, I—I should probably wear that prosthetic more to get used to it," Bucky sighs. "My physioterrorist told me I have to wear it for a couple of hours a day, but—I feel better without it."
Natasha shrugs. "Then you shouldn't wear it."
"Doesn't it freak you out? I mean. That I'm—unbalanced."
Natasha slows to a still and turns to face him with a soft smile. "Bucky, nearly every time you see me you walk into something. And that's with both functioning legs. I don't think the missing arm is your problem. As far as I know, maybe you were worse with two arms."
Bucky beams, helpless to stop his smile, because she is lovely and then a sudden idea hits him, that this could just be some sort of holiday romance, and it's awful. He doesn't know what to say, really.
"Besides," Natasha adds, "I love that you're not left-handed. I mean, I may sound left-hand-ist, but there's this guy at work who's very left-hand dominant and I just—he makes me crazy, I hate him so much." She turns and slides her arm around his right one, and gently puts her hand in his, and all of Bucky's skin lights up and thrills at that simple touch as she smiles at him. "So believe me, I love that you're—the anti-him."
Bucky quirks a warm grin at her. "Well, if you hate him, I'm very happy to be his exact opposite. Besides—" He thinks briefly of the Black Widow and how she could technically be termed ‘someone at his work' considering how many times he's faced her over the last five months, and his warm grin turns wry. "—I feel like I can relate to the colleague who makes you go GRRRRRRR inside thing."
Natasha laughs again, the sound thrilling down Bucky's spine. "That is the perfect way to put it." She glances up at him. "I'm pretty sure we passed an Italian restaurant about five minutes ago?"
"Sounds perfect," Bucky says and is about to start walking when his concealed earpiece buzzes twice and then Sam's voice says, quietly, "Code Red, alert." When Bucky doesn't acknowledge it immediately, Sam sighs, and then Bucky's phone starts ringing. He stops and reluctantly disentangles his hand from Natasha's. "I'm sorry, I have to take this call."
"No worries," Natasha says, and beams at him, unaware that her date is about to abruptly have to bail on her. Because Code Red, that means one thing: the shit's hit the fan.
"Barnes," Bucky says, quietly, as soon as he connects the call.
"Stark disappeared," Steve yells, and he's obviously running. "I'm real sorry, Buck. Just disappeared from the party, trying to impress some girl, we think. We've caught up with him, but there's—it's bad. At least ten hostiles. They're armed. Could do with some support."
Bucky perks up, because even if his love life has always been damned, Steve's always been there for him. He's always going to be more important than anything. And if Steve's asking for help, it means he really needs it. "Where are you?"
"Sam's sending you our co-ordinates. Come as soon as you can, I've got your arm with me."
"Got it," Bucky says, and when he disconnects, Natasha's on her phone too.
"Seriously? Here?" Natasha sighs. "You're kidding me. I'll be right there." She looks up at him, looking torn. "I'm really sorry, but—I have to go."
"Same," Bucky sighs. "Work emergency. Massive shipment's gone missing, or something—can I text you? Later?"
"Please do," Natasha says, and she presses forward and kisses him on the cheek like a beautiful promise. "I had a wonderful ten minutes with you!"
"That's a bigger number than girls usually tell me," Bucky says, startling a laugh out of Natasha. "Raincheck on the dinner?"
Natasha's already hurrying away, and she turns to him, backing up elegantly. "Definitely."
"Awesome," Bucky says, smiling at her as she runs. He almost forgets he should be running, until he looks down at the phone still gripped in his hand, and then he swears and pulls up the co-ordinates Sam's sent, before starting to run himself.
#
Even on a date, Bucky carries enough with him that he can change his appearance on the fly, so he pulls out the black balaclava in his coat pocket and puts it on, and nearer the co-ordinates he sheds his coat to retrieve later behind a large recycling bin that he climbs up onto so he can scale up to the rooftop to see the scene better.
He's glad for the view. Sam and Steve are hemmed down behind a car, sheltering Tony and a young woman as at least ten men with guns are bearing down on them. Steve doesn't usually carry a weapon beyond his smoke canisters but he has Bucky's favorite stun gun in one hand. Sam's wings are curled up and around them as extra protection. Redwing is crashed out on the road between them, broken into three separate pieces and sending sparks up into the air. Bucky feels a sympathetic wobble of agony for Sam's loss, because he loves that damned drone.
"I'm on scene," Bucky says. "Eagle eye, eight o' clock. Ten enemies, wide deployment. Can't say for sure but from here they look like Hydra."
"Managed to drop you a package before it got too hairy, Winter," Steve grunts through the comm. "Two rooftops over."
"Always three steps ahead, Nomad," Bucky compliments and starts moving. The men below haven't spotted him yet, so he keeps himself low and leaps across the two roofs, and finds the black bag that his arm is in. It's easy enough to rip his shirt sleeve and insert the arm, and he clenches the first with a smirk. The men below aren't going to know what hits them.
He takes out his frustration on the first two guys, as he drops down next to them and punches one straight into the other one. Bucky's arrival and surprise enables Steve to properly join the fight; he slides over the car he and Sam are hiding behind and stuns two of the other goons while Bucky has their attention.
It's pretty much a clean sweep after that.
"What are we going to do with them?" Bucky asks afterwards, staring down at the pile of unconscious goons as Sam carefully pulls apart their weapons and leaves them in a heap of pieces.
"I've got a local connection," Steve says. He looks over at Sam. "I'll give them a call."
"I'll get the girl sorted out," Sam replies.
Bucky glances up to where Tony's sitting on the edge of a rooftop, swinging his legs and looking distinctly unimpressed. It's one of Sam's favorite mid-skirmish coping strategies, using his wings to dump people up high so he can deal with them later. The girl that apparently inspired Tony's flight from the party is leaning against the nearest building, her arms wrapped around her body, her eyes darting warily between the unconscious bodies and to Sam, Bucky and Steve.
"Who is she?" Bucky asks.
"Already on it," Sam says, tapping on the small screen installed on his arm guard. "Cassandra Gillespie. Her dad's a mogul, employs bodyguards, they're on the approved visitors list, same as us. I've dropped a text to one of them. See, there they are." Sam smiles smugly as four men in suits run up to grab Cassandra, and Tony yells something down at them in French, but Cassandra flashes him a thumbs-up with her right hand and he relaxes. Bucky eyeballs her warily as her bodyguards escort her away.
"So what happened?" Bucky asks.
"That one happened," Sam sighs, gesturing up at Tony up on the roof.
Bucky glances up sourly. "I thought he promised to keep us informed of any deviations to routine?"
"I told you about the party," Tony calls down.
"Did Howard Stark make us promise specifically to keep him alive?" Bucky asks. Sam laughs as Tony rolls his eyes.
Whoever Steve calls gets there quickly, and they must have good connections, because even though Bucky's sure the locals will have called for the police, no one apart from a couple of dark vans turn up. A few men in nondescript black jumpsuits jump out and hurry directly to Steve's side, and Steve looks like he's expecting them, so Bucky relaxes.
"Well, I'm sure our Nomad will want us to take Stark Junior back to the hotel, give him a lecture or four," Bucky says. "You'd best get the brat down, Falcon."
Sam sighs. "It would be easier to look after him if we kept him up there. We'd only have to feed him every couple of days, I'm sure it would be fine."
Bucky squints up at Tony contemplatively and thinks about his ruined date. "Don't tempt me."
#
Steve, after retrieving Bucky's coat and buckling it over his uniform, takes Tony into the hotel through the front door, while Sam flies Bucky up to their hotel room so Bucky doesn't have to run into Natasha.
Bucky removes his balaclava and sinks down onto one of the beds and glares at the doorway until Steve firmly pushes a scowling Tony Stark through it. The youngster pouts as Steve directs him to one of the other beds and makes him sit down. Tony rolls his eyes when he realizes all three of them are glaring at him unhappily.
"All right, snotnose," Bucky says, pointing a finger at Tony. "Talk to us about how you said you would let us know where you were going, didn't, and then nearly got yourself kidnapped and-slash-or shot."
"I wasn't in danger," Tony says, looking mutinous.
"Uh, the Hydra agents we just took down, just a few meters away from where Steve and Sam found you, they say otherwise," Bucky says, glaring at him.
"Hydra," Tony repeats. "You're kidding."
Bucky resists the urge to pinch his nose, not wanting to let Tony know how much the youngster is getting under his skin. Ha. Youngster. Since when was a ten year age gap enough for Bucky to be mentally making plans to get his own walker, maybe learn how to play shuffleboard? "You don't know everything you think you do, kid."
"I know plenty," Tony sniffs. "I know Hydra is bullshit."
"I like this kid," Steve says.
"Kid," Tony shrieks, folding his arms and glaring dramatically.
Steve looks at Bucky in a clear were we this dramatic at his age? way.
Bucky looks back at Steve with a clear we were worse expression.
Steve shrugs, because, well, he can't argue with that.
"Well, Hydra may be bullshit, but bullshit nearly shot me," Bucky says, "so you're going to have to swallow your snark for the moment while we try and figure out why Hydra are after a little snotnose like you."
"That's easy," Tony says, and smirks in a way that makes Bucky want to punch him. Maybe with his right arm, because Steve said he likes Tony, so permanent mauling is probably not Bucky's best option for a calm evening. Surely Steve couldn't be too mad about him gifting Tony with a little bit of a black eye? "Or does everyone think my dad got magically, like, quadruple times as clever in the last ten years on his own?"
Bucky, Sam, and Steve exchange a look because the answer to that question is yes.
Tony sighs and pinches his nose. "Please, universe, let me be smarter than the Three Stooges here when I grow up."
Apparently Tony will be lucky if he gets to grow up at all because Steve actually has to hold Sam back, which is slightly hilarious. Bucky tries to smile innocently, like throwing Stark's son out of the window hasn't crossed his mind three times already, but Steve throws him an irritated expression because he's always been able to see right through him.
"So all the cool tech that Stark Industries has been churning out—" Bucky says, slowly, as Sam mulishly opens his laptop and begins typing.
"Most of it's mine," Tony says. "The stealth rigs, the real-time camera pixelation, the nano-transistors, the neat carbon tubing that tessellates by itself, your metal arm—"
Bucky glances at his arm automatically, then at Tony. "Huh."
Tony beams. "Working on a fix to the little finger drag ratio; you have an entirely metal hand, there's no reason you shouldn't get full independent articulation on each finger, y'know? You lose an arm, you might as well get an upgrade?" Bucky might slightly be starting to see why Steve likes the guy. Tony drags out a tablet from his pocket, turns it so Bucky can see and pulls up a schematic, which, yeah, that's Bucky's arm. "Are there any other upgrades you think would be helpful? I was wondering Taser, if I can get a reliable power source—I'm working on one at the moment for my stealth rig but, uh, it might give the wearer cancer after a minute, so I'm going to guess that wouldn't thrill you."
"Depending on the situation, I'd take a cancer risk over being beheaded," Bucky muses.
"Ah, logic," Tony sighs. "How about drill-bit attachments? Flick open the fingertips, diamond-edged drillbit inside. It might make the arm a little heavier to get the mechanism in, but the applications could be immense."
"I could have a Swiss army knife for an arm, you mean," Bucky says, dubiously eyeballing his arm again.
Tony's face lights up. "Oh my gosh, that's great, let me just get that down," he mutters, and immediately starts working on his small tablet, and it's almost bizarre to watch him just disappear into what he's doing, with a tunnel-focus that is somehow more intense than Steve gets working up his action plans for their personal development.
"Does that remind you of anyone?" Bucky murmurs to Sam. Sam laughs. Steve looks at them both in confusion, which just makes them both laugh harder. Steve's expression slides distinctly into I know you're mocking me but I don't know how yet.
Then Sam's laptop beeps and he reaches for it, all the laughter disappearing into something much more sober.
"The kid's right," Sam says. "Hydra is bullshit." He turns the screen around to show what he's looking at and Bucky whistles through his teeth.
Steve's jaw tenses as he looks at the screen. "This is correct?"
"Yeah," Sam says. "We got ID on the ringleader, and I remember this guy. I've punched him in enough places to know if he is Hydra, he's a recent convert. But considering who sent the information—"
"Who's Nick Fury?" Bucky looks between them, because Steve's nodding like Nick Fury means something to him.
"He's an old...acquaintance," Steve says, giving Sam a weird glance.
"Anyway, the guys we took down are most likely goons for hire," Sam says, in a heavy tone.
"So we need to figure out who hired them, and why, and also why they want us to think Hydra are behind it," Bucky glances at Sam. "Can you do it?"
Sam cocks one eyebrow and reaches for his keyboard again. "Can Steve do an inhuman number of one-armed push-ups?"
Steve pulls a face as both Bucky and Sam smirk at him.
Bucky nods in Tony's direction. "So how did he know they weren't Hydra?"
"He can hear you and has a name," Tony says, still idly tapping away on his device. "I'm the son of a weapon's manufacturer. I know a British gun when I see one, and that's what they were using. Those Nazi morons wouldn't touch British weapons with a barge pole." He smiles tightly, humorlessly. "Can I go back to my lab? I really want to get back to work, seeing as I'm not out there getting laid."
Bucky has to walk away very quickly before he does something he will regret later. He thinks about the money. They're there to ensure Tony Stark doesn't get hurt, not for them to be the ones to kill him. He feels bad for the thought a second later. He can't imagine a world where he'd be an assassin for money. He can't imagine what could make him do that.
Steve draws up alongside him, also staring out the window. Bucky folds his arms. If Steve thinks he can out-stubborn him into talking first, he's got another think coming.
Alas, Steve knows him too well, and does make the first vocal move. "You called Stark Junior snotnose earlier." Steve nudges him. "Isn't that what Ol' Jimbo used to call you during basic?"
Bucky makes a noncommittal noise.
"What crawled up your ass and died?" Steve's eyes narrow and then his mouth lifts upwards. "Ah, is it Natasha?"
"Oh god, Natasha," Bucky says, his chest feeling tight, and he immediately starts pawing at Steve. Steve looks alarmed, until Bucky finally manages to get into his coat pocket—which Steve is still wearing—to fish out his phone. He opens it to a text message that reads: I'm so sorry! Raincheck for Friday if you're still in town? and Bucky feels he can breathe again, even if he's disappointed he can't see her tomorrow. It does gives him a couple of days to sort this Stark brat out, which he appreciates.
"I am really sorry we interrupted your date," Steve says, the corners of his mouth turned down.
"It's okay, she had to go too," Bucky says vaguely, already typing out his reply. "She wants to try dinner on Friday."
"I guess she must like you then," Steve says. Then he frowns. "Except that's weird."
"What's weird? That someone might actually like me?" Bucky asks, squinting at his phone as he tries to decide what color heart is the best one to add to his message. Red is too much for one kiss and an interrupted date. Yellow is warm but maybe that just means friendship, and while Natasha would make an excellent friend, he has to be honest that he's looking for more than that from her.
"No, that's not weird. You're a catch."
"Damn skippy, I am," Bucky says, and ignores the way both Steve and Sam mouth damn skippy at each other.
"Don't you think it's a bit weird that she had to leave your date the same time you did?"
Bucky pauses, finger hovering over the orange heart. "What?"
"I'm sure it's just a coincidence," Steve says, doubtfully.
"It has to be," Bucky says, frowning as he gives up and pushes the red heart, because he's an adult, dammit. "Trust me, if I'd punched out any not-Hydra goons with her body, I'd have noticed." Steve waggles his eyebrows at him. "You're a child, Rogers."
Steve beams. "Takes one to know one."
Bucky ignores him and stares at his phone.
NATASHA
The three of them stare at the monitor and Natasha can't believe it.
The camera angles are bad, so Natasha can't quite tell how the third man joined the fight, but even though the video is fuzzy, the image is clear enough. She can't tell how he arrived but she can tell who it is, even from the blurred video.
It's the Winter Soldier, all right. She's so pissed off she can't even work up the energy to be angry that Bucky hasn't texted her back yet. Natasha glares into space. She's probably grinding her teeth.
"You weren't to know," Jan says, tentatively, but the way she suddenly backs up lets Natasha know she probably just growled too. Whoops.
It's the damned Winter Soldier. Always bringing out the absolute worst in her.
Sharon had wanted to jump in and get Falcon and Nomad out of the way, but Jan had insisted they wait for Natasha, and it's probably best they did. The whole operation was a bust. It had been such a perfect opportunity. Cassandra was going to "accidentally" find a gun (loaded with blanks, of course) and the goons they hired were going to run away after Stark shot two of them, leaving Cassandra free to swoon into Stark's arms.
It was all going so well. The plan was perfect. Natasha had heard enough on the comms to hear Cassandra easily wooing Tony out of the party. It should have been fine.
Of course a perfectly good plan had to be ruined by the Three Freaking Stooges.
"I should have known," Natasha sighs. "It's Stark's kid, of course Stark would send his supreme goon squad to protect him."
Sharon and Jan are staring at each other now, arguing silently over whose turn it is to try and get Natasha out of her perennially recurring Winter Soldier funk.
It's going to be Sharon. Natasha's a spy, and Jan and Sharon's personal passwords are hopeless, she really ought to berate them for that, actually. She's seen the shared calendar that highlights whose turn it is to wrangle her when she's in a bad mood.
"You need to do what Steve Tyler sings," Sharon says, and Natasha gives herself a point for correctly calling that.
Natasha eyeballs her. "If you want to stay awake just to hear me breathing that's your prerogative. What you do on your own time isn't up to me."
Sharon smiles ruefully. "Don't get mad, get even." Natasha's eyebrows crease. "You wanna ruin the Soldier's day, then we get the Stark kid from right under his nose."
"What are you suggesting?"
"Gillespie wanted us to ensure that Anthony Stark can foil a fake kidnapping, and woo the girl," Sharon says.
"That's what we tried. That's exactly just what went wrong."
"Due to an unforeseen complication." Sharon shrugs. "But the plan's good, and it's what we're being paid for. It just means we have to be a little more hands-on this time."
Natasha glares at the frozen image on the screen. The Winter Soldier isn't in his usual tactical gear, but it's him all right. She needs to stop grinding her teeth, it's probably what gives her a headache every time she thinks about him. "You know the definition of stupidity, right? Doing the same thing and expecting a different result."
"We didn't know everything this time. Now we do. Besides, Cassandra's got some fresh intel."
Natasha warily perks up. "She does?"
"Anthony's security system protects him while he's in his lab. It's intuitive and blanks out whatever he's working on from the feed."
"So—?"
"He's also the main provider now for most Starktech. All that tech we've been stealing, I looked at the patent info when they were filed. They're filed under Anthony Stark, not Howard Stark. So I did some digging." Sharon's mouth curls up. "Pretty much everything for the last six years has been submitted under Anthony's name."
"So Howard Stark has his kid doing all his work for him?" Natasha's mouth wrinkles. Her shitlist of terrible fathers grows every day. "How can we use this?"
She never says how does this help us, because Sharon wouldn't have brought it up if it was useless information.
"We already do," Sharon says, and she beams at him. "Which company do you think made our stealth rigs?"
Natasha stares. "You're telling me if I go in as the Black Widow into Anthony's lab, his cameras wouldn't see me?"
Sharon wriggles her eyebrows. "You kidnap him, hand him over to a second team who've already ‘kidnapped Cassandra', and then the fake kidnapping can proceed as planned."
Natasha blinks a few times and her mouth curls up to one side. "Sharon Carter, I knew there was a reason I liked you."
"And we can do it on Thursday so you can still have time to go on your dinner date," Sharon says. Natasha's about to protest, but then Sharon holds up Natasha's phone and dammit. There is precisely one person in the whole entire world that can steal from her without Natasha noticing.
"I'd love to!!" Bucky has texted back, and there's a little red heart after the words and Natasha has to bite her tongue so her friends can't see her actually goddamn swooning.
"Ooh, Natasha still has a date?" Jan perks up. "The same one you just ditched?"
"The same one I had to ditch because you two couldn't keep Cassandra away from the Winter Soldier and his friends," Natasha says, in a dangerous sing-song.
"Uh," Jan says, weakly, "well I'm glad he's still keen on you."
"It is a good sign," Sharon says, nodding. "Not many guys like it when a girl ups and runs away from them."
"He ran away from me first," Natasha defends, and then sighs. "But he did look like he'd been punched in the gut to have to do it."
"He must be cute," Jan says.
Natasha huffs and quietly plans for Jan never, ever to meet him.
Chapter Text
BUCKY
It's only because they're diligent at their work, probably due to Steve's influence, that they catch it happening so quickly.
Well, it's mostly because Bucky's already staring intently at the security feed at the exact moment it happens. And he's not staring because he's meticulous about his work, he's staring out of sheer frustration because his first attempt at a date in who-knows-how-long-he-doesn't-want-to-think-about-it got interrupted by a snot-nose brat who thinks he can handle himself when he can't. He has a day to get over the rage. Stark's lucky Natasha agreed to a do-over.
Bucky's pretty good at channeling his frustration into work—because if this little brat is going to ruin his life, he's damn well going to live long enough for Bucky to thoroughly roast him for it—and that manifests in him glaring as Stark works on his little pixelated projects.
The blur of black that he catches, suddenly clouding outwards towards the Stark brat, seems almost like one of the inventions expanding, so Bucky doesn't really think too much of it—until the fight starts.
For a tiny snot-nosed billionaire's brat, Tony Stark can fight. The black blur trying to get hold of him doesn't manage for a few frantic seconds, as Tony immediately starts flinging other blurs of movement at the mass of black blocks and something catches on fire, but even as Bucky starts yelling for Sam to get Steve, he recognizes the fighting style of the blur.
His entire body goes cold. "Code red," he yells down the comm line, reaching for his gear immediately. "The Widow's taking our suspect."
Steve's voice comes on the commline immediately, even though he was out, purportedly taking some time to explore the city. "Are you sure?"
"Positive. She's in Stark's lab."
"I'm three minutes out."
"Copy that," Bucky yells. Sam's already in his wings and at the window, launching Redwing out, and, as soon as the bird's up in the air, both of them jump out the window and start running.
The only good thing about this sudden shitstorm of events is that Bucky does enjoy working out his frustration with some good old-fashioned smackdown.
The bad thing is that when they catch up to where Tony Stark is still putting up a hell of a fight, just outside the building containing the engineering labs, for some reason the Black Widow isn't on-scene. It's not often that Bucky is disappointed that she's not there, so that's a little disconcerting. There are plenty of actual goons to fight, and Steve hurtles into the fight almost as soon as it starts, and Bucky always enjoys fighting alongside his friends. Sam picks up the unconscious ones and plops them straight up on the top of a tall, isolated building so they can't easily escape; it's much more of an effective strategy here where the buildings aren't designed to maximize their roof-space like they are in New York.
Tony's defending a girl, which, sigh, Bucky supposes that makes sense. That the girl is Cassandra Gillespie is even less of a surprise, even though Cassandra hadn't been in his lab when Tony was taken out by the Black Widow.
There's something really messed up going on here, and Bucky's determined to find out what it is. Steve calls in one of his mystery contacts again, and Bucky keeps a tight hold of Tony Stark by the collar of his t-shirt, resisting the urge to grip him by the scruff of his neck and shake him down for answers. It helps that Tony looks just as baffled as he is.
"Where are your bodyguards?" Sam asks Cassandra.
"I don't know," Cassandra says. "One moment I'm in my room trying to study, then two of these guys bust in and drag me out here—"
"I was pulled out of my lab by this weird woman in black," Tony spits. "She was wearing one of my own damn stealth rigs! Thankfully, I managed to shake her loose, but then I got here and Cassie was being attacked."
"So of course you jumped in to fight them," Bucky says, pinching his nose, "instead of calling us straightaway?"
"The woman didn't exactly let me stop and pick up my phone," Tony says, glowering at Bucky like he's dumb.
"You know these guys?" Cassandra says, looking around at them.
"Sure, my dad hired them." Tony rolls his eyes. "The one with the wings is Falcon, the one in black over there is Nomad. And this idiot's the Winter Soldier, I don't know why."
Bucky may or may not tell Tony in Russian what he can do with his arrogance, and it may or may not be very difficult anatomically.
"That might be why he's the Winter Soldier," Tony amends, wincing like he speaks Russian. "They're my bodyguards, I guess. But I don't need them." He glances at Bucky with disdain. "Cassie managed to get hold of a gun, I'm a good shot, we would have been fine if you guys hadn't trampled in and taken over."
"And where's the gun now?" Sam asks.
Tony squints. "I'm not sure." He looks over to Cassandra, who just shrugs, but can't look anyone in the eye. Bucky and Sam exchange a glance. Cassandra fidgets. As two black vans come up to take the new unconscious pile of goons, Bucky gestures Steve over to him.
"We're taking both of them," Bucky says, nodding at Tony and Cassandra. "We got a safe house here, right?"
Steve opens his mouth to say something, but nods instead. "Yeah. Follow me."
The four of them follow Steve down a maze of side-streets. By silent agreement, Sam and Bucky keep Tony and Cassandra apart. There's definitely something fishy going on.
"This is crap," Tony sighs. "I mean, sure I got kidnapped, but I looked after myself well enough. I could have taken those guys down. I don't really need a babysitter."
"Uh, two gangs after you in two days says you do," Sam says.
"And we're not babysitters," Steve calls back. Bucky eyeballs the back of his head because that's not really true. That's basically their job description. Howard Stark knew someone was coming after his kid and he was right. "C'mon. We're Stark's best security squad."
"Uh, I saw my dad's records," Tony huffs. He keeps edging little looks at Cassandra. "You guys were only reassigned to me after another company stole one of my prototypes. You were demoted. My dad doesn't actually care about me."
"Not entirely true," Steve says. "The one who stole your prototype, the Black Widow, she's the best. I mean, the best at what she does. You can research her and you'll only find out a tenth of what she's actually done because the rest—you wouldn't believe it. The fact that we've been able to stop over half of her incursions to Stark Industries is more than a testament to our ability than you'll probably ever realize."
"So you're trying to say my dad sent his best team to protect me?" Tony laughs, not much humor in the tone.
"You've met me," Steve says, and he glances back, one eyebrow raised in challenge. "You want to say I'm not your dad's best protector?"
Tony looks like Steve just sucker punched him somehow, and Bucky feels like he's missed something impossibly important, that Steve knows, and Tony knows, and he doesn't. Whatever it is, it's powerful enough to make Tony fall quiet for a long moment.
"I just think if he was really concerned, he'd be here himself," Tony mutters after his long pause, and then he falls silent again, aggressively chewing on his lip as he walks.
The safe house seems pleasant enough, a terrace house nestled in among other terraced houses, and there's a keypad to open a small box containing the key. Steve goes in first to do a quick sweep and reappears a minute later and beckons them in. Bucky takes up the rear and closes the door, checking the empty street warily before following the others into a large sitting room.
There's a painting on the wall, a reproduction of the dogs playing poker. Bucky resists the urge to roll his eyes. Steve's pretty good at finding them a decent safe house, even if they all look like they were furnished in the eighties. Bucky's about to make a comment on the décor, but then they all move at once when the wall with the painting on it shatters inwards.
"Shit," Sam yells, his wings unfurling, already picking up Cassandra and Tony, ready to fly them out. Bucky raises his stun gun ready to start firing, and then he stops and stares.
It's the Black Widow. The freaking Black Widow. She's standing there, holding two guns, flanked by the Wasp and Agent 13. The Wasp is holding what looks like dual cattle prods and Agent 13 has a crossbow trained at Steve's chest.
Steve swallows.
Bucky's instantly pissed off, because he knows she's amazing at what she does, but how come she's found them so quickly?
"I think you have something that belongs to us," the Black Widow snarls.
NATASHA
"How did you find us?" Nomad barks, squinting the only part of him that's visible through his black mask—his bright blue eyes.
"You can't have him," the Winter Soldier adds. His voice sounds harsher than normal. He's angry. Furious. Natasha's mouth curls under her own mask, pleased that he seems so unsettled.
"Give her back, you fiend," Jan shrieks. "Kidnapping a young girl, you should be ashamed!"
"Wait," Nomad says. "The girl? You're after the girl? Why?"
"We didn't kidnap her, morons," the Falcon says. "We saved her from being kidnapped."
"Likely story," Sharon says, narrowing her eyes, keeping her gun trained fully on Nomad, who, as usual, has one hand on one of his lethal gas canisters.
"They did," Cassandra chimes in. Natasha shoots her a dour look through her thick mask that sadly Cassandra can't see. "They didn't hurt me at all, Ms. Uh, Ms. Widow."
The Winter Soldier does some sort of comedic double head-turn. "You know her?" the Winter Soldier hisses.
"Well, my dad—he didn't trust my bodyguards—I mean, do you see them here? No! So he said he was hiring another team to keep an eye on me." Cassandra points at Natasha, Sharon, and Jan. "That's them."
The Winter Soldier splutters. "Your father hired the Black Widow to protect you?"
Natasha sulks, because did the Winter Soldier have to sound so appalled by that?
"My dad hired these three too," Tony says, pointing at the Winter Soldier, Nomad, and the Falcon.
"You kidnapped our boy to start with," the Winter Soldier yells. "I saw the footage, Widow. Something about this smells rotten."
Natasha panics because she's seen the footage and she was just a blur, how could the Winter Soldier know it was her?
"We discovered the men were after him too, and our girl refused to come with us until she made sure he was safe, which just ended up putting her in danger," Jan yells. "You're still welcome for that, by-the-way."
"You did that?" Tony asks, blinking at Cassandra and smiling.
Natasha resists the urge to hug Jan for her swift thinking.
"Of course," Cassandra says in a coy tone, smiling back at him.
"Something's fishy about this," the Winter Soldier mutters.
"Give us the girl and we'll let you walk away," Natasha says. "This time."
"Are you definitely okay with this?" the Winter Soldier asks. His voice sounds different than when he's yelping at Natasha. Almost kind. It's jarring. "Blink three times if you're actually being coerced into this. We can get you to safety if you need it."
"I'm fine, Mr. Soldier," Cassandra says, wide-eyed and unblinking. "They're really just extra-bodyguards. Daddy said Hydra have been after rich kids recently. I guess that means both of us."
"We can take both of you home," Jan offers.
"Mr. Stark is fine with us," Nomad says, his voice very terse. He nods at the Soldier. "I say we let the girl go." His voice hardens. "For now. But if we find out you've hurt her—"
"I'd expect nothing less," Sharon says, almost sounding approving of Nomad.
"That's a hell of a protection squad," the Winter Soldier mutters as they retreat. Natasha smiles, almost proud at the compliment.
BUCKY
Bucky sits on the edge of his bed, his phone in his hands. He stares at it dolefully. He can hear the door to their hotel room open and shut, but he also hears Sam's quiet yay, so he doesn't need to look up. Steve must be back with the food he went for. Bucky can't work up the energy to care, even though he thinks he'll probably end up having to eat whatever it is.
"Oh no, don't tell me she canceled on you," Steve says.
Bucky doesn't even look up. "No."
"Whiny McMetalArm thinks he should cancel," Sam says. "Even if the girl's spent the entire day texting him. She's got it bad."
Steve abruptly dumps the rest of the bags he's carrying on the floor, not even putting them on a table, so he can hurry over to sit next to Bucky. "Hey, c'mon, of course things went a little dodgy the other day, but you can't still be brooding."
"The Gillespie girl must have had a tracker, man," Sam says, shrugging. "Not our fault. Stark's kid is still fine."
Tony Stark is okay, that's definitely the one relief of the whole situation. And, in apology, he fixed Redwing, so now Sam won't shut up about how amazing Stark's kid is. Sam is way too attached to that metal bird.
"I'm just worried," Bucky sighs. "And she deserves so much more than just a date. Especially one that will get interrupted, knowing my luck."
"Even if it's just a date, isn't it worth it?" Steve stares evenly at him. "You deserve a life, Buck. This is a really good step. And it's even better because we're overseas. If it goes wrong, no one but Sam and I will be able to mock you about it."
"You're the only ones who mock me anyway," Bucky mutters. "I dunno, it's just—"
"The Widow is in town and that makes you nervous," Steve finishes for him.
"How did you—?" Bucky starts.
"We share a brain cell, remember?" Steve nudges their shoulders together, companionably. "Look, you'll have an earpiece in, so if there's a problem, drop a codeword, we'll be right there. You're the Winter Soldier, Buck. You're probably the safest person to date. Heck, I'd try and date you if I didn't already know how bad your feet smell in the morning. That's kind of offputting. You really gotta learn about socks, and how you're supposed to wash them, not wear them until they can walk on their own."
"And if the date gets interrupted again—"
"Then you know you at least tried." Steve shrugs. "What else are you going to do? Sit around in this room with Sam and me eating...uh….whatever it is that Sam is eating." Steve squints. "I'm pretty sure the bottle said Salad Cream. I can't quite tell what he's dipping in it, but...it doesn't look like salad?"
"The packet said they were party rings," Sam says, shrugging.
Bucky and Steve exchange a glance and wince. Then Bucky's expression sours as he's haunted again by the same mental image. Sitting down to dinner with Natasha, who's smiling, and then the Black Widow, bursting through the wall… "What if the Widow turns up, Steve? What do I do then?" He frowns. "I can't—I can't have you and Sam hovering nearby, I just—I can't."
Steve shrugs. "So wear the arm."
Bucky looks at him doubtfully. "But what if—she wants to, y'know...see the guns."
"I said wear the arm, not take your gun," Steve blinks innocently, and then grins as Bucky pouts. "If things progress that far, just say you have to remove it yourself in the bathroom. You can wear gloves during dinner itself."
Bucky's mouth twists, but he nods.
"Relax. it's going to be fine," Steve says.
Bucky pushes his mouth into a line and does put his phone down, but then he stares dubiously into space for a while.
"Okay," Steve says, evenly, "now what's the matter?"
Bucky looks up at him, feeling wretched. "I don't know what to wear."
#
He's glad Steve talked him into the suit. Sam suggested wearing the hotel room's bathrobe, because Sam's an idiot who doesn't even get glancing possession of the communal brain cell. The restaurant Bucky's picked out is expensive enough that a suit is probably a good choice, and Bucky knows for sure when he sees Natasha in the lobby and he promptly swallows his tongue.
She looks amazing. Her long red hair is pulled up in a simple ponytail, her bangs sweeping over her face, and she's wearing red heels, and a black dress that has a slit up the side that shows tempting flashes of pale skin with every graceful movement. Bucky's finding it hard to breathe as she walks up to him.
His chest feels tight. He kind of wants to take her hand and run away with her forever. That's probably impossible with the life he has. There's nothing in life that can be guaranteed. Maybe this is all of Natasha he'll ever get to have.
If it's just this day, if this is all the time he'll ever get, then he's going to make the most of it. He leans in and presses his mouth to her cheek. The way her face lights up in joy makes him smile automatically.
"What was that for?" Natasha asks, her voice breathy, and Bucky feels warm at the idea that he's managed to affect her so visibly just from one kiss.
"I couldn't help myself," Bucky says, and he offers his right arm to her. "Shall we?"
Natasha considers it, and then she just pushes forwards, tangling her arms around his neck. He feels her fingers run possessively over the nape of his neck, into the base of his hair, and he closes his eyes as she kisses him properly, on the mouth.
Bucky sinks into it with a sigh, his right hand dropping to her waist, his thumb brushing against her like a promise. She kisses like a dream and she's panting when she pulls back, her eyes dark as she stares up at him. Her mouth is still wet and he watches, hypnotized, as her tongue darts out for a second like she's trying to chase the sensation of their kiss.
"What was that for?" Bucky asks, his own voice completely wrecked.
She smiles and takes his arm, starting to walk, and he's helpless to do anything but follow. "I couldn't help myself," she says.
Bucky smiles. "Well. You're welcome to kiss me any time you like, darling." His face freezes imperceptibly for a second, wondering whether the endearment is too soon, or too much, but the way she smiles makes him relax. It's welcome and he's thrilled.
"Nice gloves," Natasha says, as they walk to the restaurant. "Oatmeal-proofed?"
Bucky laughs. "Helps my grip on cutlery," he lies. "But also, they do wash quite well." He side-eyes her, his gaze lingering on her cute nose and the faint rosy blush on her cheeks. "You might have noticed I'm a little clumsy, so I'm afraid assessing how launderable things are is just a constant theme in my personal life."
Natasha gives him a heated look and leans in to whisper, "I'm very easy to clean-up. I can guarantee that."
Bucky flushes and promptly trips over his own feet. The restaurant isn't far away. It's probably a good thing.
The date is going well—so well—up until their orders have been made. A waiter came over with vodka, because Bucky had called ahead to say that was their wine of choice, and Natasha's very charmed at the thoughtfulness. She orders for him, which makes him laugh; the fact he lets her without protest obviously pleases her.
As the waiter hurries away, Bucky's about to ask Natasha what her day job is, when they're interrupted.
"Oh my god, Natasha," a woman's voice calls out from nearby. "I'm sorry for interrupting, but I really need your help."
Bucky looks up to see who's talking to Natasha, because the girl's come from an awkward angle and he has to twist to see her, and realization crunches hard in his stomach.
It's Cassandra Gillespie. The girl who has the Black Widow on her protection squad. He's baffled. How does Natasha know her?
"I really need your help," Cassandra whines, ignoring Bucky in favor of putting her hands on the table and staring at Natasha in wide-eyed horror. "It's the plan. I can't do it."
"Cassandra, this isn't the time for this," Natasha says, through a clenched smile.
"But it's important, it's Tony, I can't—I can't do this to him, I love him. I'm in love with him, I can't spy on him. You have to talk to my father, Nat, he hired you to protect me, he'll listen to you."
Cassandra's words sink in and Bucky's body cools in absolute terror. He's feeling a thousand things at once—stupidity, horror, revelation—too many things to name, too many facts pushing together, but his post-mission report will fail to adequately convey any of this. Later, his post-mission report will cover it in this simple truth, that:
This is the exact moment that Bucky realizes he's on a date with the Black Widow.
NATASHA
Cassandra's looking at Natasha intently, pleadingly, and Natasha doesn't know what to do. It's irritating, that's what it is. Natasha's trying to grasp just this one night with a normal guy who likes her. Who kisses like he goddamn knows his way around a warm body. And this little stupid job keeps getting in the way to the point that Natasha's even hiding her stealth rig under her dress, just in case something dumb happens again.
Natasha tries not to sigh. She glances at Bucky apologetically.
Bucky scratches his ear and looks at her. There's a wariness on his face that Natasha hates. Dammit. They'd been having such a good time, too.
"Maybe we should go for some ice-cream after this?" he says, and Natasha's disappointment doubles, because she didn't mean for the interruption, and that's his suggestion? Ice-cream? Maybe he's not the catch she thought he was.
"That's great, let me just—" Natasha says, and gestures at Cassandra. She's kind of irritated—can't Bucky see she's busy?
"Sure," Bucky says, and then he falls and stays quiet, which is much more reassuring, because even if Natasha's irritated that he interrupted, it proves he can learn. That's a nice quality in a person.
"Cassandra. Why don't you just go back to the hotel, go and see my colleagues, and we'll come up with a new approach," Natasha says, in as soothing a voice as she can manage. "There's no rush—"
"Oh, no," Cassandra breathes. "He's here!"
Natasha's knife drops into her hand automatically, because somehow Anthony Stark's right there, standing right beside the table, and he's snuck up on them, and how could someone sneak up on her? She knows how Cassandra managed, because Bucky was distracting her, but there's no way Anthony should have been able to do it too. She stares, baffled, as the young Stark looks at Cassandra with a sharp expression.
"Hello," Anthony Stark says, his tone weirdly flat. Natasha's stomach crunches. Shit. He overheard everything. Well, that's their paycheck ruined.
"Tony," Cassandra says, and her cheeks go pink. "How did you—?"
"Stealth rig I've been working on," Anthony—Tony—says through clenched teeth. "It can make me invisible. Uh, it might also give the wearer cancer, I'm working on that—" He obviously realizes he's off-course, because he brings up a finger and points it at her. "I saw you so I thought I'd follow you to surprise you, but—You were sent to spy on me?"
"Yes! But after meeting you, I didn't want to—I couldn't. That's why I'm here," Cassandra says, and steps forward, looking at him pleadingly. "Please, you have to believe me."
"I don't have to believe anything you say," Tony says grimly, and turns to see Bucky looking at him curiously, and Natasha's about to try and excuse them from the conversation, apologize to Bucky for the interruption, and then Natasha's startled into silence, because Tony grins at Bucky, a flash of a smile. Like he knows him, somehow? What the heck?
"Oh, hi Bucky," Tony says, in surprise, confirming Natasha's observation. "What are you doing here?"
"Uh," Bucky says, and he squints up at Tony with an almost guilty expression.
There's no reason why her date should know someone like Tony Stark.
Unless—
Oh god.
Oh god.
Tony Stark's got a protection squad of his own, three very irritating guys. One who likes flying, one who likes gas grenades a little too much, and one that punches very hard with his left arm.
Natasha's always assumed the Winter Soldier was just left-handed. But she got a look in Tony Stark's lab just the other day, and the intensely complicated robotics he's working in, and if the Winter Soldier's not an enhanced like she's always imagined, but a regular guy with a prosthetic arm of some sort— The Winter Soldier is usually covered in head-to-toe black, with a metal mask, and eyes smudged over in charcoal, so she wouldn't know what he would look like. He couldn't know who she was either.
Except the Winter Soldier knows she's been working with Cassandra Gillespie, and the Winter Soldier has been working with Tony Stark, and cute, charming, clumsy, adorable Bucky's knife...has suddenly gone missing from the table?
Natasha's body heats up in absolute terror. She's feeling a thousand things at once—stupidity, horror, revelation—too many things to name, too many facts pushing together, but her post-mission report will fail to adequately convey any of this. Later, her post-mission report will cover it in the simple truth, that:
This is the exact moment that Natasha realizes she's on a date with the freaking Winter Soldier.
Chapter Text
BUCKY
It's chaos.
Absolutely chaos.
Bucky can tell the exact moment that it hits Natasha, and he wonders if she's thinking it the exact same way he is—that they're glorious, dumb idiots—and then he's too busy, because she barely hesitates. There's barely any space between the moment she realizes who he is and the moment she acts on it. Bucky has barely enough time to respond, but when he does, he makes the obvious play.
When he looks up from where he has his knife at Cassandra Gillespie's throat, his right leg pinning her to the table, Natasha has Tony Stark in a similar lock. She's breathing hard and glaring at him in horror.
Bucky wishes he could return the glare, but his emotions are a thunderstorm. He feels so stupid, and yet, he's also weirdly feeling like his heart just grew a size underneath his rib cage.
"Did you know?" Natasha hisses, and she must use some sort of voice distorter as the Black Widow, but there's a distinctive rumble of power even in her natural voice as she accuses him.
"Did you?" Bucky hisses back.
"Of course not! You're cute and fucking charming, how was I supposed to put that together with you also being the dickhead of the century?" Natasha hisses.
Bucky can see a waiter edging closer to them, looking petrified. Bucky winces. This is probably about to get very, very violent. He hopes Sam and Steve got his ice-cream hint and are on their way. The comm line is depressingly silent, though.
"Oh, I don't know, the whole missing the same arm as the Winter Soldier feels like a bigger clue than I had," Bucky says.
"How was I supposed to know the Winter Soldier has a metal arm?"
Bucky glances at her, thrown. "You didn't know the arm was metal?"
Natasha glares back. "I just thought you were a consummate pain in my ass," she hisses. "How was I supposed to look at someone entirely wearing black and think hey, he might be part robot."
"It's just a prosthetic," Bucky says dumbly, thinking back. Well, he guesses his tactical gear usually covers everything, including the arm.
"One of my friends is part-robot," Tony offers, helpfully.
"You shut up!" Bucky hisses, and then startles when he realizes Natasha—oh shit, the Black Widow, that's still sinking in—has yelled that at Tony at exactly the same time.
"Scary," Tony whispers, looking between the two of them. "You know what, this is bullshit," he adds, and then says, "Friday, you wanna help me out here?"
Bucky squints, because who is Tony talking to? A second later, he still doesn't know, but he's figured out enough: it must be some sort of activation code. Because Bucky's immediately flung down to the ground, Cassandra Gillespie skipping away from him, and nearby, Natasha tumbles over, convulsing like she's being electrocuted, and Bucky's heart leaps into his throat in worry for her—well, along with worry for himself, because for some reason his own arm is attacking him, what the fuck?
"I built everything my dad says is his," Tony says, backing up and looking wild-eyed. "And I can control them all still, I'm not stupid enough not to leave a back door in everything I make."
"Thank goodness, you saved me," Cassandra gushes, as Bucky grabs his left metal wrist with his right hand, but he just gets pushed backwards and he rolls on top of it, trying to use his body weight as leverage. He can see Natasha flailing in the corner of his eye like she's got some sort of tech under her dress that's choking her, goddammit Stark is a brat, just like his annoying father.
"You can get the hell away from me, liar," Tony yells, and then he hurls himself at her, and Bucky still has enough energy to be furious as he rides his own hand like it's a tiny arm-shaped rodeo bull, because if Tony's interrupted his date just for some romantic shenanigans of his own, Bucky's not exactly impressed—and then he registers what Tony's doing.
Namely, saving her from actual gun shots.
"Kid, turn this the fuck off," Bucky hisses at him, and Tony really is smart, because he does, and Bucky's able to immediately flip up the table and grab both Tony, Cassandra and Natasha, yanking them behind it.
"I can take care of myself," Natasha hisses, already moving into a crouched stance that Bucky has encountered more than once. Usually moments before he gets taken down to the ground in a painful manner.
"Those guys have guns," Tony yelps.
"No shit," Bucky snarks, peering around and trying to count the number of men currently shooting at them. "Widow, did you hire these morons?"
"Would they be shooting at me if they were?" Natasha snarks back, which, yes, valid. "Ugh, German guns, why is their reload speed so fast?"
"See, these guys are probably Hydra," Tony says, which is pretty un-fucking-helpful at this point.
Bucky grits his teeth, mentally tosses up what he would hate more—dying or living because the Black Widow saved him—and reluctantly decides he'd rather live. "How about we team up, get these two idiots to safety before we kick the crap out of each other?"
"Not what I had in mind for the evening," Natasha growls, "but I guess it'll do nearly as well."
"You call point," Bucky says, reaching out to kick up a chair, and with a second neat movement, he kicks the chair at one of the gunmen at full force.
"Me?" Natasha yells, throwing the blunt cutlery from their table with deadly pinpoint accuracy.
"Like you'd listen to my commands?"
Natasha's mouth wrinkles, like he has a point and she doesn't want to admit it. "Fine. We need to get the civilians somewhere safer."
Bucky stares. He doesn't know why he's surprised that's even a priority for her. He gazes around quickly. "Gunfire seems focused on us, not even the two brats." He swallows back surprise when Tony is shot, and the bullet just glances off. That kid's brain must be a terrifying place if he can invent something that can deflect a bullet. He touches his ear to activate his commline again. "Nomad, please tell me you're nearby."
"We're outside the restaurant," Steve says. "You're surrounded. The Falcon's positive it's Hydra this time. We're thinning the herd. Uh, we seem to have help."
"Thirteen and the Wasp?" Bucky guesses.
"They're outside?" Natasha hisses. Bucky nods. "And your goons?"
"Nomad and Falcon are there too."
Natasha squints. "Can your gas-happy buddy send some knock-out gas our way?"
Bucky contemplates the logistics and nods. After hissing his plan, he snags his jacket and starts ripping it up, his metal fingers easily tearing the material, and he passes a piece to Natasha. She looks at him in surprise, like she's startled he would help her, and oh god, she must think of the Winter Soldier like he regards the Black Widow. Well, there's a compliment somewhere in there.
"It's coming in," Sam yells, and Bucky covers his face as best he can. One second later, the front window of the restaurant shatters and Redwing swoops in. Seconds later, gas starts spilling from the drone's claws.
"Go," Natasha yells, after a second, and she ushers Tony and Cassandra to the back of the restaurant. Bucky uses his arm to flip another table in the direction of the Hydra goons, and they all have to scramble onto all fours to make it into the kitchen.
His eyes stinging from Steve's combination of gases in the attack, Bucky straightens and immediately jams the nearest object—a mop—through the door handles, and then he picks up and throws an entire commercial oven at the door, because he doesn't have to hide how strong his metal arm is now, and Natasha whistles.
"Nice," she says, approvingly, already yanking out several large knives from a nearby knife block. No one's around to stop her. It's funny how quickly gunfire can empty a building.
"Did you just compliment me?" Bucky demands.
"Heat of the moment," Natasha hisses, already moving to a good exit. She puts a hand to her own ear. "Wasp, tell me the back exit of this place is safe." Whatever she hears makes her nod. "Let's move."
NATASHA
Natasha's about to roast Jan's description of safe when she opens the door to a large van reversing, and she's already moving with a cleaver in her right hand when the door opens to reveal Sharon inside.
"Get in, all of you," Sharon says, beckoning. "The Falcon and Wasp are providing cover. Move it!"
Natasha nods and grabs Cassandra, pushing her up into the van.
"Get in here, Buck," a deep male voice says, and Natasha startles to see that it's Nomad in the front seat. His voice sounds really familiar up this close, but she can't place why.
"Nomad?" Bucky breathes, and then forcibly grabs Tony Stark with his metal arm (and oh god, Natasha's never going to stop feeling embarrassed that she didn't know it was one of Stark's amazing prosthetics) and yanks Stark into the van with him, pulling the door closed.
"Blaze it," Sharon yells, and Nomad immediately complies, the van screeching as it starts to move.
"This is nice," Natasha compliments, jerking in surprise as the van is shot at—and barely even dents.
"Called in a favor from up top," Sharon says, briefly meeting Natasha's gaze in the rearview mirror. Natasha nods at her.
There's a loud thump on the ceiling. "That's Falcon and the Wasp," Nomad says. Natasha squints again, because that is a hell of a familiar voice. Nomad rarely talks around her. She guesses it must be for a reason. She's just still so rattled that Bucky—lovely, cute, makes her want to do dumb stuff, adorable Bucky—is the Winter Soldier. What even is her love life? Non-existent before now, and now...probably still non-existent. Dammit.
"We're still being pursued," Sharon says. "Shit. Evasive pattern, Cap."
"Got it," Nomad says, and Natasha swears, because son of a bitch.
"You've got to be kidding me," Natasha yelps. "Seriously?"
"What's going on?" Bucky says. "Don't tell me there's worse out there than Hydra?"
Natasha glances over at him, about to tell him to stop acting dumb, she knows who his friend really is, but then she stops short in realization. "You don't know?"
"Know what?" Bucky blinks several times.
"Holy shit," Natasha says, shaking her head dumbly. "I can't believe I've been bested so many times by a fucking idiot."
Bucky gapes at her for a second, and then he looks sad, and Natasha immediately feels like a shitheel of the highest order. His jaw clenches and pulses moodily. "Let's save the insults for later, darling."
Natasha glares back, hating how much she still likes the sound of that. A lot. Shit. Shit. How the hell is this her actual life?
"Can you open the back, let Jan—uh, Wasp and the Falcon inside?" Sharon says. "They're getting shot at and I don't approve."
Natasha nods and climbs past a cowering Cassandra to reach the back, and it's so weird to be opening the door to let the Falcon in. It's even weirder to see Jan clinging to him. She shuts the door and glances around at the now-crammed back of the van.
"Sorry about your date, man," the Falcon says to Bucky, his mouth turned down. "I know you really liked her."
"This is her, actually," Bucky says, and gestures at Natasha. "Natasha, meet the Falcon. Falcon, meet the Black Widow, Natasha."
Falcon's face has already turned to Natasha to smile at her and the smile freezes. "Uh, Bucky—"
"I know," Bucky says, and he sounds utterly miserable.
"Guess that makes sense, actually," Falcon says. Natasha amends her inner thoughts, because now she knows who Nomad is, that must mean Falcon is the mysterious Sam of Bucky's text records.
"Uh, maybe you could have told me sooner?" Bucky demands. "Before I made the biggest goddamned fool of myself on the planet."
"I didn't know your date was the Widow!" Sam hisses. "It just makes sense—in hindsight—that the only woman you've ever obsessed over forever is your first date in forever."
Bucky makes an adorably exasperated noise. "Well, I guess she can't think any worse of me. There's literally not much more damage that could be done."
"I don't know," Natasha says, softly. "You could have been paid to try and date me in order to steal my secrets."
"I wasn't paid," Cassandra immediately defends, realizing it's an attack on her after Tony makes a sad, strangled sort of noise.
"Tell me we have a plan," Bucky says, looking around. "Do we know what's actually going on? I presume the first two fake Hydra teams were yours."
"Guilty as charged," Natasha admits.
"Before your ice cream warning came through, we were already active—an alert went up on the deep web," Sam says. "There was a request for the forcible kidnap of Anthony Stark. We managed to trace it back to one of Gillespie's ops."
"My dad did what?" Cassandra yells.
Natasha glares, her face confidently projecting nothing but pure threat. "Can you think of any reason why he wouldn't give our op a chance before making a move like this?"
"Well…I did send my dad a text," Cassandra says.
Natasha's eyes narrow dangerously. "Saying what?"
"That...I'd fallen in love with Tony so I was going to run away with him," Cassandra says.
"Oh no," Tony whispers.
"What now?" Bucky hisses.
"Well, that's really sweet," Tony says. "But also, she was going to betray me. I'm conflicted."
Natasha sighs audibly. "Right. So now he's accelerated to actual kidnap."
"There's already a ransom demand gone to Howard Stark," Nomad calls back, grimly. "That confidence spooks me."
Bucky looks in the direction of his friend. "Please say we have an exit?"
Nomad nods. "Half a mile out."
Bucky frowns, and god help her, Natasha finds herself thinking even that facial expression is cute, and she's appalled at herself. "Is it safe?" he asks.
Sharon meets Natasha's eyes again in the rearview mirror. "We hope so."
BUCKY
The answer should have been no, because although Steve is an awesome driver—and apparently Sam and the Wasp managed to blow the tires of their pursuers' cars—somehow their movements have been anticipated.
They pull up to an airfield which seems abandoned, and it seems like it's going to be fine. An aircraft of some sort lowers down, but Steve smiles at it and waves, and Bucky relaxes, because this must be the exit plan. Steve's pulled his Nomad mask down, which Bucky thinks might be in solidarity with his own face being visible. Steve's like that sometimes.
They're exiting the van, still looking warily at each other, when the first gunshot hits them. It actually hits Sam, right in one of his wings, and he immediately stretches them wider and crouches so that he's shielding everyone. Cassandra yelps and dives back inside the van. They all crouch down and huddle closer, scoping out the threat.
"Must be a leak in SHIELD," Agent 13 murmurs to Steve, who just nods, like he'd been thinking the same thing.
"Must be," Steve sighs, and shrugs his jacket off, and Bucky's mind shuts down, because what the hell is Steve wearing on his back?
"Dude, do you always wear that under everything?" Sam says, rolling his eyes. Steve looks back, grins, and tugs a different kind of mask on—it's bright blue with a white A on it?—and yep, Bucky gives up, he's going insane.
"Obviously," Steve says. Or, Captain America says. Apparently. Maybe? Bucky's kind of having a confusing day.
"Steve?" Bucky says, confused.
Steve just winks at Bucky. "Long story. Tell you later!" he yells, and then turns away, dropping the rest of his Nomad gear in one smooth movement, revealing an entirely red, white and blue uniform beneath. Steve—Captain America, what the actual fuck—goes off hurtling towards what must be over a hundred Hydra agents, what the fuck, hurling something heavy at them, and yeah, that seems to be Captain America's shield too. Bucky's seen him on the news, just a couple of times, as part of that new team that SHIELD has tried to put together, with Giant-Girl, and a woman that could fly and make storms, and the Daily Bugle's favorite menace Spider-Man. Steve said he'd been visiting friends, what the actual hell, Steve? Bucky's going to kick his ass when this is over.
If he can. He's not seen much of Captain America in action, but Bucky's not sure his metal arm can go against super soldier.
"Ooh," the Wasp says. "Nomad is Cap, wow! Didn't see that one coming!" She beams. "Hey, Winghead, don't go without me!" The Wasp flies forward and then starts growing, her black and yellow uniform turning purple.
Natasha draws up alongside Bucky, confusion clear on her face.
"Since when has Jan been able to do that?" Natasha demands.
Agent 13 glances at her. "Uh, so, couple of years, really. But Fury thought she'd be great on the Avengers initiative, especially since Steve was assigned as SHIELD's Stark Industries rep."
"I can't believe my best friend can grow to the size of a skyscraper," Natasha says, her voice faint as she stares. "I'm a spy! I'm a superspy! I feel like I should have known this!"
"I can't believe my best friend is Captain America," Bucky says, his voice also faint. He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Do you think they need help?"
"They don't look like they need help," Natasha says. She's squinting and staring at them. Then she glances at Agent 13. "Uh...Steve? Since when are you on first name basis with Nomad?"
"I've been dating him for a year, Nat," Agent 13 says, placidly.
Natasha looks lost, like she's a second away from imploding. Bucky empathizes more than he thought he ever would with the Black Widow.
"Maybe we should do all the freaking out later," Tony yelps, pointing upwards. "As good as Cap and Giant-Girl are, we're a few Avengers short of being able to deal with that."
Bucky follows Tony's arm to see several incoming aircraft. He swears in Russian, loudly.
"I hate that I agree with you on that," Natasha says, softly.
NATASHA
There's a lot to unpack with what's going on, but Natasha's always been able to compartmentalize. She looks at what she has at hand and improvises.
"There'll be weapons in the quinjet," Natasha says, softly pointing at the aircraft that touched down. It seems like it's not under Hydra control, but the door to the jet is under almost constant fire. She can't see the pilots, which makes her feel queasy.
"Can you fly it?" Bucky asks, his eyes keenly tracking the best route. He's already contemplating the van, which is an excellent strategy.
Natasha nods. "Kids. Back in the van. Sharon, drive us. Sam, I'm going to need you to cover us so we can get into the jet. Bucky—"
He nods at her, eyes shining. "I'm with you."
She smiles, the words meaning so much more than they should. Sharon hustles back into the driver seat, and the rest of them pile into the van. Natasha takes one last glimpse of the crazy battlefield, Captain America and Giant-Girl (what the fuck, Jan?) fighting gracefully together, holding their own against the Hydra forces. They won't be able to hold them back alone for long. Natasha yanks the van door closed behind her, viciously, resentful she can't be out there fighting. Something out there explodes and she resists the urge to throw herself out of the van and join in the combat. The incoming planes are a much bigger problem.
"You two, stay down low," Natasha says, as Sharon guns the engine. "This place is bulletproof, but I don't know what artillery the incoming planes have."
"Something explosive," Tonysays, doing something with his tablet. "I'm in their systems but I can't delay them firing for long."
Natasha blinks, impressed he's able to delay them at all. "I want you both to stay in here."
"No problem," Cassandra agrees.
"No chance," Tony says.
"Tony—" Natasha starts.
"Jet's been hit," Tony says. "But I'm pretty sure I can fix it." He flashes a charming grin at her, "Unless you're hiding an engineering doctorate in that dress of yours."
"Down boy," Bucky hisses in warning.
Natasha has found that most people who were as confident in their skills as Tony Stark were overconfident braggarts, but over isn't the right premodifier here, because his confidence in his skills isn't an exaggeration. Sharon and Sam lay down cover for the three of them, and Natasha, Bucky, and Tony swing up into the quinjet through a hatch in the underbelly, and Tony immediately starts fixing something that's sparking dangerously, his blue eyes bright with a quick and sharp energy.
Natasha moves towards the cockpit, and she and Bucky reach the pilots together at the same time; both pilots are on the ground, it looks like they have been hit by stray shots that punctured through the wall of the jet. Natasha's chest hurts as she checks for a pulse and finds nothing. When she looks up to see Bucky checking the pulse of the other pilot, they look at each other for a second over the bodies, and her pain is mirrored so clearly on his face.
"Let's get this done," Bucky says, his voice thick, and Natasha nods.
BUCKY
From up in the air, Bucky gets a really good glimpse of Steve fighting as Captain America, and it's really fucking something, even if he feels a little betrayed at the same time as he feels deep admiration.
He supposes it explains Steve's quietness. And the way he disappeared during the war and came back different. Bucky just figured that's what happened to everyone who experienced war.
"Okay," Tony yells through the jet. "Got the engine on line, shield's at 80% power. Some of the weapons are online, I'm interfacing with them now. Gonna aim for the engines of the other guys."
"You ever been up in a bird like this before?" Natasha asks, sliding comfortably into the pilot's seat. Bucky's sitting in the matching seat, even though he doesn't have a clue how he can help.
"Never," Bucky says.
Natasha beams at him. "You're gonna love it."
She's not wrong. Now Bucky knows that she's the Black Widow, he shouldn't be surprised by that, but then he recalls her surprise at seeing the Wasp turn into Giant-Girl, and her apparent unawareness that he's the Winter Soldier, and that the Winter Soldier had a metal arm… so he supposes she's not infallible.
It still doesn't make her any less beautiful to him. Any less frighteningly competent.
Down below, the hand-to-hand fighting seems to have slowed, so it's probably up to them now, and whatever Tony's doing apparently works, because he yells, "This is gonna be just like Duck Hunt" and two of the enemy planes get knocked out of the sky. Bucky scours the monitors in the cockpit to see that the missiles came from this jet, and he glances back at a triumphant Tony. That kid is fricking terrifying.
"If they fire at the ground, even if Jan and Steve are fine, Cassandra, Sam and Sharon are sitting ducks," Natasha says.
"Then let's draw their attention," Bucky says. He looks at her speculatively. "Does this thing have a—loudspeaker or something?"
Natasha grins, points out a microphone and punches in something on the console in front of her. "And the stage is yours in three...two...one..."
"We have the Stark kid," Bucky says. "Catch us if you can!"
Natasha disconnects the microphone and laughs. "I always thought you'd be a little bit insane under the mask."
Bucky smirks. "Just a little?"
NATASHA
By the time the enemy ships are down, and Natasha's parked the quinjet, she can see Director Fury's favorite jet already starting to touch down and a fleet of SHIELD vehicles coming up the road.
Time for the clean-up, she supposes.
There's so much Natasha wants to say to Bucky, but it all knots up in her throat, so she just nods at him instead and climbs out of the pilot seat. Tony's lowering the back ramp so they don't have to crawl out the same hatch they came in through, and she throws a grateful smile at him as she heads straight for where Sharon's already talking animatedly to Director Fury, filling him in.
Over in the distance, Steve—still in his Captain America gear—is yelling at a slowly-shrinking Jan. Natasha is going to give Steve so much shit for not letting her know he was also Nomad. A lot of Sharon's reports of engaging the Winter Soldier and his team at Stark Industries have included her "sadly having to fight one-on-one with Nomad in some random secluded room"; they're going to get a serious re-read or three so Natasha knows how much yelling she's going to need to do now she knows. It doesn't take a superspy to conclude fighting probably means kissing.
Natasha heads over to Fury first, giving her report briefly, and trying to skim over why she was at a restaurant with the Winter Soldier when the attack started, but Fury gives her a knowing eyeball, and she guesses he is the King of All Secrets. Jan's finished shrinking by the time Natasha's covered most of it, and she heads over, hanging back awkwardly as Natasha gives her conclusion: that they probably have enough material now to sink Giorgio Gillespie, but one or two follow-up missions wouldn't hurt.
"How about you three go and see if the Gillespie girl is willing to give us a statement," Fury suggests. "I'm sure Cap can give me a rundown on what happened, and why I have so many explosions to clear up."
Natasha shoots an amused look at Steve, who's standing awkwardly a few meters away, before she nods and starts heading over to where Cassandra Gillespie is sitting in the van still, looking shell-shocked.
"Natasha—" Jan starts.
"Later," Natasha says, and eyeballs Sharon too. "We'll do the team debrief after all the business is done. I'll give you the conclusion early, though: needless to say, you're both on my shitlist."
Jan and Sharon consult each other silently for a second and then both sag at the same time.
"Fair," Sharon sighs.
Cassandra perks up when she sees Natasha coming. "Hey, does this mean I go home now?"
"We'll be sending you straight to your father," Natasha says, firmly. "Unless you give us a good reason not to."
"I hate my dad," Cassandra whines. "I don't want to go back to him. I'm over eighteen, I don't have to."
Natasha quirks an eyebrow at her. "Then would you be willing to testify to some of the weird stuff he's done?"
Cassandra blinks. "And put him in jail?" Well, that's a nicely damning first response. She tilts her head. "Why would I?"
"Because he tried to kidnap the boy you like?" Jan suggests.
"But I've known him for a hot second," Cassandra says, looking askance. "My dad is my dad, no way I'm going to grass on him."
"Let's just arrest her for conspiracy to kidnap," Natasha sighs.
Cassandra starts yelping, but it's too late; Natasha gestures at a couple of nearby SHIELD agents, and they nod at her and move in to put Cassandra in handcuffs. "But you helped me," Cassandra hisses, "you hired the guys, you gave me advice, I was just doing what I was told."
"You're over eighteen," Natasha says, almost sing-song. "Prove I was involved." She grins, shark-like. "I dare you."
Cassandra gasps.
"Sharon, can you go help process her?" Natasha asks, and surreptitiously thumbs in Jan's direction. "I need a moment."
"Sure," Sharon says, walking away with the SHIELD agents who have Cassandra in tow.
Natasha looks over speculatively to where Bucky—the Winter Soldier—is sitting on the ramp of the quinjet. Steve's approaching him sheepishly, the Captain America shield slung on his back. Natasha holds back, even though she really actually wants to go over and sit next to him. Maybe holds his hand. She swallows awkwardly.
"So," Jan says, drawing out the sound, drawing Natasha's attention away from Bucky.
"So," Natasha repeats, and she quirks an eyebrow at her. "Giant-Girl?"
Jan winces. "I thought you'd figure it out and I wouldn't have to tell you." She squints. "It's not like you're very good at telling me things. Don't think I'm not still holding a grudge that you told Sharon about the cutie you were dating first."
"You'd already been lying at the time," Natasha says, frowning.
"But you didn't know that," Jan says, folding her arms stubbornly. "I wasn't allowed to tell anyone about the Avengers thing."
"Avengers," Natasha says slowly. "It's kind of a dumb name."
"I came up with it!" Jan yelps, outraged. Then she deflates. "It kind of is a dumb name. We never actually avenge things. It's usually more...prevenging."
"I don't think that's a real word."
Jan laughs. She nods over at Bucky. "Apparently Cap's been working to recruit the Winter Soldier to join SHIELD. That means he could be working with you more often."
Natasha chews on her lower lip, looking over at Bucky. "There's something wrong with him. He's—possibly actually crazy?"
"Trying to see how that means he's not exactly your type," Jan says. She nudges Natasha softly with her shoulder. "I mean, you voluntarily picked me to be on your team when you had a choice."
"I might be regretting that decision," Natasha says grumpily, even though she knows that's mostly a lie the second she says it. Well. She said might.
"Ah, you love me," Jan says.
"I'm incapable of love," Natasha lies.
"Sure you are," Jan says, placating.
Natasha's gaze drifts back to where Bucky's shaking his head at Steve, and then Bucky's gesturing for Steve to join him, like there's no problem with Steve's secret identity, like their friendship is more important than anything else. Her heart feels like it's actually expanding in her chest, goddammit. She can still feel an echo of his mouth on hers. This might be a problem, how she's feeling, but it doesn't feel like one. It feels like a promise. It feels like Bucky's voice saying, softly, in a tone of wonder, darling.
When she looks back at her friend, Jan's staring up at her in amusement.
"Shut up," Natasha mutters, embarrassed.
"I didn't say anything," Jan says.
"Which is why I'm angry at you right now," Natasha reminds her.
BUCKY
"So," Bucky says, and eyeballs Steve. "You wanna tell me a story?"
Steve looks like he'd rather shoot himself in the face, actually, but he sits down next to Bucky and frowns at him. "I wasn't allowed to tell you. You didn't have high enough clearance." Bucky starts to splutter, but Steve holds up a hand. "You do now. I just cleared it with, well, not my boss, but my supervisor." Steve gestures at the guy who'd arrived after all the bad guys had been subdued, a black burly looking guy in a trench coat and wearing an eye patch.
"Okay," Bucky says, and he tries to breathe evenly. He's hurt, more than he'd like to be. "So do you wanna tell me the story now?"
Steve grimaces. "It happened...well, just before I disappeared for a bit. You remember." At Bucky's nod, Steve continues. "My facility was bombed, pretty badly."
Bucky stares at the side of Steve's face. He feels suddenly cold. How badly is pretty badly? Was Steve caught up in the blast?
"I was one of only two survivors," Steve says, and Bucky's frozen with the sudden swell of empathy and pain, because Steve—it sounds like Steve nearly died? What the hell? "But there was a guy in the building, a genius, name of Erskine. He'd been creating this serum—and even though he was dying, and I was dying, he gave me it, because he couldn't operate the machine and be in it. He saved my life. And he made me like this." Steve gestures at his body. "I hated lying to you, Buck. I really did."
His eyes are shining. Bucky sighs and wishes it was easy to hate the fucker. It's not. He's just overwhelmingly relieved his friend is alive, and he's grateful. His eyes sting. "I'm just happy you survived. I'm just—I'm really mad you've been hiding something so big from me, but—you're alive. You're alive. I don't know if I can explain what that feels like."
Steve gently touches Bucky's metal arm. "I have some idea."
They're silent for a long moment, just staring at each other.
"I do really appreciate you believing it was just war that had made me buff," Steve says, because maybe he's always going to be the one that breaks their awkward silences first.
"I always had faith in you," Bucky says, and he frowns. "You could have told me, even without the whole—clearance level."
Steve sighs. "It's been a lot. A lot. Especially with the whole Avengers thing, and—the things I can do as Captain America...it's so much. I can help so many people. It's hard to know when to actually stop. I wouldn't take a vacation, so Fury forcibly assigned me to Stark Industries as the official SHIELD liaison, but then you were still—you were struggling. So I asked Director Fury—he's the head of SHIELD—if I could recruit you. But he wanted a field test."
"You...you were already working for SHIELD at Stark Industries… Are you telling me all the work we did, you set it all up?" Bucky stares.
Steve shrugs. "I just opened the door, you walked through it. The Widow's SHIELD too. I always presumed Fury sent her as a test."
"Presumed wrong," Natasha says, and both Bucky and Steve lurch up at the same time.
"Hey Nat," Steve says, gently. He frowns. "So why were you always there?"
Natasha shrugs. "My mission was Gillespie senior. I'm trying to get proof of what the fucker's up to. Thankfully now we think his daughter's going to testify against him, so I can quit and get back to some real work. Where hopefully there are no murder-bastards running around to ruin my day."
"Murder-bastards," Bucky echoes, and then sulks when he realizes she's pointing at him. "What? I've never murdered anyone!"
"You've murdered my good moods," Natasha says, moodily. "More than once."
"You blew up my favorite cover," Bucky says. "And hey, wait, I was busy being mad at Steve."
"You can't be mad at him, he's a national icon," Tony says, appearing from within the quinjet and throwing himself down next to them.
Bucky eyeballs him balefully. "You're still here?"
"Of course," Tony says. "I'm going to be an Avenger soon, networking is good for me."
Bucky turns to Steve. "This kid?"
"Don't discourage him," Steve says, softly. "Kid's an Arthurian nerd. Thinks he can make a flying suit of armor or something."
"I know I can," Tony says, mutinously. "Once I figure out the energy problem so I don't, y'know, give myself cancer."
"That's probably a good aim," Bucky says.
"I thought so," Tony says, "because—" but then he trails off, and his eyes go wide in shock at something behind Bucky's head, and Bucky's about to just sigh, roll over, and let whatever it is shoot him—he is just that level of done with surprises at this point—when he realizes that Tony's staring at Howard Stark. Who's actually there, standing with that Director Fury guy. "Dad?"
"Hey, kiddo," Howard says, and Tony leaps up and flings himself forward and Bucky has to watch the most awkward father-son relieved hug in the world. Neither of them actually apparently know how a hug works.
"That pitiful attempt at a hug is physically causing me pain," Bucky whimpers.
"It's like they're both the claws in a claw machine," Natasha echoes, tilting her head.
"I'm going to go and find Sam," Steve says, patting Bucky on the head. "You can yell at me again later."
"I will yell," Bucky promises, as Steve laughs and hurries off, the shiny red, white and blue shield glinting on his back as he hops away. Dammit, he's more impressed at Steve than angry. Ugh. That's irritating.
"So," Natasha says, and when Bucky looks at her, she's staring off into the horizon, her pretty mouth turned up in a soft smile, "today was a bit crazy, huh?"
"Understatement," Bucky says. "Uh, apparently I'm being recruited into SHIELD? I mean, I haven't said yes yet. Steve said you're SHIELD. Is it good?"
"Well, it has its moments," Natasha says. She holds out her right hand. "I'm Natasha. Natasha Romanova. Pleased to meet you."
"James Buchanan Barnes," Bucky says. "My friends call me Bucky." He goes to shake her hand, but she pulls hers back, squinting at him in disbelief.
"You gave me your real name? In the airport?" Natasha looks horrified. "What kind of spy are you?"
"I'm kind of a terrible one," Bucky says. "Sam and Steve keep me around because of the metal fist thing. And the eye candy thing."
Natasha frowns at him, and then slowly extends her hand back out again. Bucky reaches back out to shake it, and instead, she takes it in hers and laces their fingers together. He smiles in genuine, happy surprise.
"You know, I was upset when Howard Stark sent us to England," Bucky says. "I didn't think I'd like it here."
"And you've changed your mind?" Natasha's smiling too now.
"Well," Bucky says slowly, "it has some charms to it I didn't anticipate."
"You're really charming when you put your mind to it."
Bucky smirks. "I appreciate the kind assumption I have a mind. It's actually, uh, a common joke at work. That Steve and I have joint-ownership of a single braincell."
Natasha laughs. "For us, we fight over who has possession of our last nerve." She purses her lips thoughtfully. "You often got on it." She huffs at his sudden, cheeky smile. "Don't think being cute means you get off without hassle, the Winter Soldier severely ruined my calm, more than once."
"You've called me cute and charming in the last minute alone," Bucky says. "Someone with more than one brain cell might read something into that."
"Someone with more than one brain cell wouldn't be so dense about the fact I've been trying to get into your pants since the moment we met," Natasha grumps. And then she looks startled, like she's just realized what she's said.
She isn't removing her hand from his, though. That's a good sign. Bucky takes that sign and uses it to fake a confidence he doesn't feel. "I'm a little clumsy," he sighs. "You might have to do that for me."
Natasha shakes her head ruefully. "Just don't call me the Black Widow in bed and I think we'll do fine, James."
"Well I guess as long as you don't bite my head off afterwards, we should be good." Bucky narrows his eyes. "You want to bed me, but you don't want to call me Bucky?"
"You said Bucky is what your friends call you," Natasha says, and Bucky's stomach swoops, because he'd kind of been hoping—well, she was interested in him, and even finding out he's someone she's actively spent time hating hasn't chased her off—but apparently he's been overly assumptive… "Do you really think a girlfriend would call you it too? I think your girlfriend would call you James."
Oh, Bucky thinks. He grins giddily. He feels like Sam could tell him he's secretly also Captain America and he probably wouldn't be mad. "That would be nice," he says. "And, uh, what do you think a boyfriend might call you?"
Natasha leans in close, and kisses him on the cheek. "Why don't you find out, darling?"
Bucky nods like he's thinking about it, and he wants to kiss her so badly. He tries to find it in him to care that there are witnesses, but Natasha makes it hard for him to concentrate on anything when she's around. He's fallen around her a fair few times in the last few days and he thinks he's been falling the entire time. As soon as her mouth leaves his cheek, he pulls her into a proper kiss because he's feeling brave. Natasha kisses back immediately, demanding, guiding his right hand to the slit on her dress, and his fingers find the soft, warm skin there. She tastes like promises and vodka, and the full wide freedom of a cloudless sky.
