Chapter Text
The mission was an easy one, at least on the surface. Familiar. Seduce Steve Rogers or James Buchanan Barnes - it didn’t really matter which since they spent so much time together - complete your assignment, and get back to base all before anyone ever noticed you were there.
You’d done this setup over a dozen times before - even with an enhanced individual or two. After all, they had no reason to suspect you. You didn’t look like what most people thought of as an assassin.
You looked...normal. Maybe even slightly out of shape. No She-Hulk eight pack or Captain Marvel biceps here. Your body had a certain softness to it.
Of course, there was still muscle underneath. You were a professional, after all. Could bench press your body weight and run a marathon in what would be first place time for your age group. But you didn’t look like you could, and that was the point. You looked harmless.
That was why they chose you for this mission. That and you fit your targets’ ideal of what a woman should look like. You had a feeling their ideas on attractiveness were a little more expansive than what you'd been told, but it wasn’t for you to make those decisions.
Your phone chirped, and your handler texted with Bucky and Steve’s projected location. It wouldn’t do to show up exactly where they were, oh no. They were both too old and experienced for that. The meeting had to be a true accident, or as close to one as you could reasonably get. That meant showing up where they could reasonably encounter you.
Sometimes it took a few days, sometimes a few weeks, rarely more than a month, but it was a tested and true strategy.
You knew from your briefing that Steve was known for his strategy. Bucky? Well, he had more of a reputation for his brutality. You’d seen pictures of those who’d been on the wrong end of his metal arm. Even though you were intimately acquainted with violence, they still made you shudder.
You chose a coffee shop a few blocks from where they were having an early dinner. You could spend time there for awhile without it seeming amiss, and could position yourself right next to the large window to watch the sidewalk. Now it was time for the least glamourous part of your work. The waiting.
While you sat, you took out a sketchbook. Sketching was one of the “hobbies” you’d cultivated in preparation for this mission, having heard Steve liked to draw. It was also an innocuous way to record and transmit information.
A sketch could be left in a trash can or forgotten in a park. Even if someone retrieved it, how would they know what it meant? How one flower conveyed a particular meaning when another did not?
Developing new codes for communication was something you were good at. It was part of the reason you had never been caught. And you never wanted to be caught. Even if you escaped and made it back, termination was the usual remedy for those who’d been captured. Never spoken of but always known. So you sat and you sketched and you waited.
Unfortunately, today wasn’t your lucky day, but no matter. Now you had a place to become a regular, to cultivate your persona. It was a risky strategy in that people would recognize you. But the tradeoff is that no one would think it was weird for you to be here several days a week, if that became necessary.
It also helped that you had a face which was “pleasantly attractive,” as your handler said, “but easily forgettable.”
You were pretty, but any truly distinguishing features you had were created with an artful fiction of mild plastic surgery, fillers, and tattoos. People who remembered you by a mole on your chin or a scar above your eyebrow or a “ski slope” nose would forget your face as soon as those details changed.
You returned to your cosy little home, which was also strategically placed in proximity to both their home and their place of work.
The home was a sublease. It’s owner had conveniently “won” a research fellowship that would take them to another country for the next six months. The research was real as was the fellowship. After all, the best fiction was heavy on the truth, and it didn’t make sense to disappear people when you didn’t have to. Too much of that, and certain observant people could pick up on a pattern. The best operatives were always unnoticed and easily forgotten.