Unravel

“You good?”

Liz turned around to face Bucky, who was leaning against the door frame. She kept fiddling with the phone in her hand and as his eyes wandered down to indicate what he was referring to, she sighed and turned back around.

To be frank, she felt nauseous and more nervous than ever. Despite the cabin fever that had slowly been developing, she was afraid to go out again. And now she not only needed to go outside, but she was also going to meet up in a public place with someone that had been accused of being part of Hydra by the people around her only mere days before. Who, to her, was not only a co-worker. Who was a friend, a good friend, maybe even the only one she had had. Whose ties to Hydra, if there were any, would devastate her and leave her unbelieving in the good in this world.

“I’m good,” she concluded, swiping her thumb over the phone’s display and pocketing it. Turning around, she fell under Bucky’s scrutinizing gaze, his shoulders tense and face stoic. Had he worn a hard and cold expression before whenever their safety came into play, she didn’t know what to call it now. Sinister, maybe. Unyielding, definitely.
She was relieved he showed his dislike of the current situation to all those around him. But the usefulness of bringing Ewan into the loop outweighed his negative feelings. She just hoped guilt wouldn’t be added to that anytime soon.

“Got the number?”

Nodding earnestly, she patted her pocket. “Got it. Memorized it. Didn’t save it. Didn’t write it down. Will call it if I run into any trouble. Steve was very particular about that.”

“Good,” he sighed and held out his hand to her. The corner of her mouth lifting slightly, Liz grabbed his warm hand and let herself be pulled into the hallway and stumbling down to the living room where the rest of the house’s occupants were.

The atmosphere had been tense ever since she had arrived but it had reached its peak the moment Liz had told them she would meet with Ewan and make him into an alliance partner. The assumptions. The attacks. The whole Winter Soldier story minus her current ties to him. That wasn’t particularly necessary. Especially since she didn’t quite know herself where they stood and where they were headed. But there were more pressing matters at hand than this possible relationship.

However, that possible relationship had suffered during the last few days. Liz had known from the beginning that she wouldn’t stay hidden away forever and would be back at her job as soon as she could. Concerning this aspect Bucky wore his heart on his sleeve and he seemed to get more and more restless the more he could watch her get better and taking on longer stretches of way. Despite feeling unsure, Liz knew she wouldn’t be able to compensate on that front. So they both had ignored the need for that talk completely.

Stepping into the living room by Bucky’s side, she saw Sam, Steve and Clint, all three of them sticking their heads together and being shadowed by a beautiful redhead standing by the window. Elizabeth knew immediately who the woman was and also why all of the pants she had been provided with where at least 2 inches too short. But even her lack in height didn’t make the woman seem less daunting. Her stance and expression screamed dangerous and Liz knew that wasn’t just a facade.

Without any of them lifting their head, Clint suddenly exclaimed, “Number, now. Go!”

Quite stumped, she started stammering at first but recited the number anyway. “Oh two oh, five five five. Oh one three- sixish?”

“Not funny,” Steve sighed and threw whatever file he had been holding in his hand onto the table and leaned back with a sigh.

“I know. Don’t worry. This number will still be spooking around my brain by the time I’m eighty, you made sure of that,” she told him, patting his shoulder and her eyes fell on Natasha again. “I don’t believe we’ve met yet.”

Natasha stepped closer and the murderous expression changing as soon as a small smirk replaced the hard line her mouth formed. “No, not formally. You were kind of passed out the last time I was here.”

“Well that was graceful of me,” Liz concluded with a grimace and held out her hand. “I’m Liz, nice to finally meet you.”

“Natasha,” the redhead simply said and shook her hand with a soft grip that didn’t quite match Liz’ previous assessment of the spy. “Clint and I will be shadowing you today.”

Two trained spies to shadow her while she was meeting a friend. In a semi-public place. In the middle of the day. Letting out a small sigh she looked around in mild annoyance and said, “You still believe he’s Hydra.”

“If he is, we’ll take him with us and squeeze the details out of him,” Sam shrugged nonchalantly, as if that had been the plan all along. It probably had been.

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better”

////

Liz took her first steps outside a few minutes later, stubbornly and utterly relieved that walking seemed to get easier day after day. She was still limping noticeably and the sharp pain she felt shooting up from her thigh with every step she took was still there but she pushed through. And the moment she saw the sun outside she knew it had been worth it.

It was warm now, in comparison to the time of year that whole ordeal had started, and the ache in her bones started to slowly fade. But the ache in her stomach couldn’t be undone by physical heat.

Turning around to face Bucky again before she made off with Clint and Natasha, she tried to swallow her nervousness and masked it with a small smile, failing miserably.

“Be careful,” he told her, not caring about the emotions displayed on his face. Him not masking his feelings had been a new development and Liz didn’t know whether she liked it or was concerned because of it. The more serious he got, the harder an attack would hit him personally and just the idea of more suffering on his part made her sick.

Pushing her thoughts into the back of her mind, the corner of her mouth quirked and she leaned in to circle her arms around his torso tightly. Careful had never been something people would describe her as, it would be idiotic to start now. She could try but there was no guarantee for it. So she stuck to keeping quiet, holding on tighter for a moment and hoping he understood her lack of response.

Letting go, she looked at him for a moment longer and turned to get into the black van waiting in the driveway. Hadn’t it been for her awareness of the super soldiers, soldier and spies, the neighbourhood would seem hilariously suburban. As an FBI agent she wasn’t sure whether she would like to find suspects hiding out in a picture perfect neighbourhood. On the one hand, she preferred it to the usual dumps they found them in. On the other, there was a much higher chance of casualties. So she didn’t waste any time in climbing into the van.

“Number,” Clint’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts the moment she moved to put her seatbelt on.

Sighing, she composed herself before she could snark back. “Oh two oh. Five five five. Oh one three six. You’ve all been doing that for three days straight. I'll remember it. You’re worse than Steve, though.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he answered passively, watching Natasha get into the passenger seat and losing no time to start driving away.

The trip to the small coffeehouse they had chosen for her to meet Ewan at was tucked away in an alleyway, not heavily frequented and with a multitude of escape routes. Since Liz had been hidden in Clint’s safe house she wasn’t concerned that anyone that could cause her to be in danger would try something today. First, they had to find her. Second, they had to get past the people shadowing her. Despite everything, she felt rather safe today.

So when they finally reached the coffeehouse, got her fixed up with an earpiece for communication, a code word and settled into a booth in the back with a cup of coffee, her heart wasn’t thumping as hard as it probably should have been. But Ewan hadn’t shown any reluctance in meeting her. She was just going to talk, explain and hope for the best.

Despite it being Friday, there were hardly any customers in the little shop, so she stuck to watching a couple of kids with their mothers on the other side of the room when she suddenly heard the earpiece she had been given come to life, followed by Natasha’s curt instructions. “We can see him. If anything seems out of the ordinary use the code word and wait. Don't alarm him, we'll get you out.”

Nodding to herself, she watched the entrance until Ewan’s familiar form walked in, a troubled expression on his face until he spotted Liz sitting at the back.

“I thought you were kidding when you said you wanted to meet in Jersey,” he stated as he made himself comfortable on her opposite side, giving Liz the opportunity to look him over properly. He looked the same way he always did. Brown messy hair, brown hooded eyes, tall and lanky, still dressed in his suit.

“I would never joke about Jersey,” she replied, wanting to laugh but being unable to. When Ewan furrowed his eyebrows at her behaviour, she sighed and continued before he could even interrupt her. “Thank you for coming. This is going to be- it’s going to be difficult for me to tell you about everything because it is difficult.”

“O-kay,” he replied slowly.

“The Winter Soldier. James Barnes.”

“Yeah?”

“You were all right. I did know who he was and I did have contact. A lot more so, actually,” she stated.

Watching Ewans expression closely, she followed the way a multitude of emotions flitted over his face. Confusion to disbelieve to more confusion. “What?”

“However,” she continued firmly, “I need you to be one hundred percent quiet about this because, quite frankly, my life is at stake.”

“Why would your life be at stake because of that?” he interrupted her, “Your job, sure. Hawk would be out of his mind. But not your life.”

“That’s why I asked you to meet me here,” she explained. “Because something isn’t right. I’ve noticed it before I had regular contact. He’s a good guy. Barnes. He really is. But S.H.I.E.L.D apparently wasn’t an isolated case an-”

As soon as Ewan realized what Liz was getting at, his eyes widened and he interrupted her. “No.”

“No?”

“You’re wrong,” he told her, grimacing.

“I wish I was,” Liz responded with sympathy. She hadn’t expected he would believe her immediately. He had been trained to question everything, the same way she had been.

“When?”

“I don’t know,” she told him. “Maybe years. I don’t know who has been passing on information. We’re still trying to figure that out.”

“We?” he asked surprised.

“It’s a long story,” she told him, “Maybe after all of this is over I’ll tell you. I just hope I have your support. I’ll be back at work in a week. But- just having someone there that knows what’s going on, it’s...”

////

“Stop staring at the clock,” Bucky’s thoughts got interrupted by Steve. “Clint already called. Nothing unusual and they’re on their way back. He's on our side.”

Tearing his eyes away from the hypnotizing movement of the clock’s hands, his gaze wandered to his friend standing in the doorway. He was right. Staring at the clock until something happened wasn’t useful. But he had lost his usefulness a while back.

Standing to leave, Steve caught him by the shoulder, forcing him to stand still. Watching as Bucky’s jaw worked, Steve furrowed his eyebrows. Bucky knew he hadn’t masked his feelings well, if at all. But today had taken a sledgehammer to the remaining facade.

“Why is this getting you so worked up?”

“Shouldn’t it?” Bucky asked, genuinely curious but clenching his fists all at the same time. Because no matter how often he mulled over the facts, he couldn’t find any way out of this mess. He, the person that had been trained to design tactics and plans, couldn’t figure out even one way that would leave everyone somewhat unharmed. He hadn't been trained with that in mind.

“Bucky,” Steve, sensing his distress, interrupted his thoughts again, “Why?”

“Because no matter what I do or where I go, people get hurt!” he roared back.

“Buck-”

“I- almost killed you! Sam! I fucking choked Liz because I had no control over myself!” he continued, horrified with himself and still, the facts kept bubbling up. Even Steve’s stricken expression couldn’t steer him away from the path his thoughts had chosen. “I know it’s not my fault, what Hydra did to me, but I fucking did it!”

“What’s wrong?”

The softly asked question pulled him out of his thoughts immediately. Liz. Of course. However, his thoughts weren't replaced by blissful silence as he would have hoped. Instead shame and guilt filled their place.

“Bucky?”

He couldn’t turn around and face her. He wanted to but he was the reason for everything that had happened. He was the reason she had gotten hurt, no matter how many times she stressed that she didn’t have to snoop around but did it anyway, exercised her own free will. That she was glad that she had done it.

Squaring his shoulders once again, he left, pushing past Liz without a glance and leaving them standing in the living room to figure out what had just happened.