Vienna, Austria

Spring 2016

"You weren't kidding when you said you'd already been looking for him."

Nadine looked up to Steve at the comment, quirking a brow at him even as she failed to entirely hide an amused grin.

"You doubted," she challenged lightly. He grinned back, faintly abashed.

"No, not really." He nodded absently back over his shoulder toward the bulletin boards Nadine still had lining the wall of her Workshop. "It's just something else to see it." She looked over, eyes tracing the familiar webs of carefully organized clues and intel she'd been building for years. She nodded, chuckling softly. She was willing to give him that. The boards were impressive, especially when one knew they showed only a fraction—the highlights—of her work.

"Yeah. He certainly hasn't made it easy." She sighed, grin fading as her gaze skimmed across the boards before dropping back to the keypad she was programming. "We're so close, Steve..." she murmured.

"I know," he agreed softly. She looked up to him.

"We need to talk about next steps," she said softly. "With the JCTTF on him now too? We—"

"Sharon will tell us what she can," Steve assured her, the confidence in his voice making her stomach squirm. "We'll go from there."

"But what if she doesn't get a chance," Nadine challenged, an anxious pressure beginning to swell in her chest. "She might not have time to give us a warning if they do manage to find him. We need to find him first." Steve didn't argue, simply watching her work as he mulled over her warning.

"Then we find him," he finally said. Nadine let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Had it really meant that much to her to hear he trusted her judgement over Sharon Carter's?

Apparently.

Her stomach flipped happily. Especially as he edged closer. It took far more effort than she was comfortable with not to get distracted by his proximity.

"Nadine." She paused from validating Sam and Steve's fingerprints with her security system, looking up to Steve. He was still watching her, his eyes serious as they fixed solely on her. "Why did you tell Sharon?" He didn't need to elaborate. She knew exactly what he meant.

She probably shouldn't have. She knew that too. But at the same time, she'd recognized the way Sharon had been looking at her as Nadine had shared her links to both Barnes and Natasha; she had foolishly made herself a puzzle to the CIA agent, and there was little question Sharon would've started digging as soon as they all parted ways. To not tell her would've only forestalled the inevitable.

It would've only been a matter of time before Sharon made the connection that she was The Ghost.

"Because she was going to figure it out anyway," she answered softly, "and telling her keeps her from searching and tipping anyone off." Understanding flashed in his eyes. She knew he'd get it. As she turned her attention back to task yet again, the corner of her lip quirked fondly before she could help it. Only for her sure taps on the screen to falter as he seemed to edge closer still.

"Thank you for this," he said softly then. "All of this." Her heart was trying to pound, but she fought against it. This wasn't going to go where her subconscious wanted it to go. She smiled wanly back without letting herself look up to him, forcing herself to focus on reprogramming the keypad instead of on things that weren't going to happen. Things that couldn't happen. With a small smile, she raised the tablet she was using to connect with her Workshop's keypad.

"Well, it makes it easier for everyone if you have access without needing me. Nat has clearance, after all. Why not you?" His smile quirked in a silent chuckle.

"It's for more than just adding me and Sam to your security," he explained needlessly, easily brushing aside her futile attempt to maintain even the illusion of distance. "You've invited us into your sanctuary. We both know that's more than you needed to offer. A lot more." She shrugged, pointedly keeping herself from looking up again.

Looking up just now, with him so close...she was already in dangerous territory...

"Yeah, well...it's not entirely selfless," she brushed off. "You know I need to find him too. Besides, it doesn't sit right, what they're saying went down, the way they're hunting him." He only hummed in response, no doubt recognizing her painfully obvious deflection. There was no point in saying anything else. Nadine disconnected her tablet, closing up the housing for her Workshop's main entry keypad.

"You're cleared," she said to Steve with a smile as she slipped past him and headed back toward her boards, knowing he would follow.

Only to stop as his hand hooked lightly on her arm.

"Nadine," he said earnestly, his gaze snaring hers and not letting go, "really. Thank you." Her breath hitched, unable to quite manage to form the words required to respond. She was acutely aware of the warmth of his hand and just how close he was. Mentally she shook her head, forcing herself not to give in and study his features—his clear, ocean-hued eyes, his full lips...lips she'd dreamed of... No, she couldn't go there. She just couldn't.

Mutely, she just nodded, forcing a weak smile to her lips, reaching out to lay a hand on his bicep to convey her appreciation for the sentiment.

Only for her breath to well and truly catch when his fingers were suddenly grazing across her cheek, his thumb rising to brush the corner of her mouth...the way he was looking at her...considering, intent...

And then they were leaning closer, so close...and she couldn't stop it...she didn't have the will to stop it... She didn't know who moved first...was it her? Him? Both?

Warmth bloomed deep within her chest as his lips brushed, feather light against hers.

It could barely be called a kiss...almost more a mingling of breath than anything else...and yet...it left her lips tingling and her pulse fluttering as a small, tense part of her eased, pleased and nearly...relieved...

And suddenly her heart was hammering in her chest, realization crashing in on her as she pulled abruptly back, staring up at him in shock and disbelief.

Oh, God, had that really nearly happened...

Had she really just...

How could she have let herself almost...

Swallowing thickly, knowing her eyes were probably far too wide and conflicted and her cheeks undoubtedly beginning to flush, she searched his features, suddenly fearful. He looked so...thoughtful? Considering? There was an odd expression in his gaze that she couldn't quite decipher; that was happening more and more frequently with him. Why couldn't she read him? She needed to know! To understand what had just happened. To understand how he felt about what had just happened...of all the times to give into such a thoughtless impulse...why hadn't she stopped herself...but...he had been the one to lean in first...to nearly...did that mean...

It couldn't possibly...

Maybe she just didn't want to understand.

Maybe she was afraid to...

...but the way he was looking at her...like...like he knew something, like he was seeing something in her face...like he'd just gotten an answer to something he'd been waiting to find out...

Her gut twisted further and she slipped free of his hold.

No, that couldn't be. He couldn't. He shouldn't.

And yet...

She pointedly ignored the bewildered sting in her chest as he called after her. He sounded almost...apologetic. No, that couldn't be either. She was being ridiculous. She needed to stop letting her control over herself and her emotions falter. She needed to stop letting herself hope like that, she firmly reminded herself. He didn't like her the way the small, rebellious, secret part of her hoped and he shouldn't. So why on earth had she given into the impulse to almost do...that? It had to have been her. Hung up on him as she was? It had to have been her impulse behind it.

Not Steve's. Not someone like him. Someone loyal and principled, noble and kind-hearted... Not with someone like her.

Someone with entirely too much baggage and entirely too many ghosts and shadows in her past.

But he had reached out to her first, his fingers brushing so tenderly across her cheek before he leaned in fir—

No, it was best if she cut this line of thought off right now. At best, it had to have been nothing more than curiosity on his part. It can't have meant what part of her was trying to say it did. What part of her desperately wanted it to mean.

It really hadn't even been a kiss at all, she was suddenly arguing with herself, so why was she so worked up over it? She was probably just overthinking what she thought she saw in his face. Making more out of it that she should.

It would be best then to just put it from her mind. Continue on as though it really was no more than a gesture of thanks between friends. Like it meant no more than a kiss on the cheek; maybe that's what he'd meant it to be....yes. That was it. He undoubtedly meant to do just that; a friendly gesture of thanks just like the odd time she'd seen Natasha kiss his cheek in the past and vice versa. She was the one who had let her foolish, romantic impulses try to turn it into something else.

It probably hadn't meant a thing, so there was no point in fixating on it.

It was the safest explanation for what had happened...especially when a steadily growing part of her wanted to... No, the best thing to do would be to move on. To focus on what needed to be done. There was no point in dwelling since it couldn't possibly mean what she wanted it to.

...but the way he'd touched her cheek...and the way he'd looked at her...the way he'd been the one to lean in first, leaving her to close the distance between them...

Could it be possible?

Her stomach flipped, and for the life of her she couldn't determine if it was out of giddiness or unease. As if her already faltering resolve needed any more encouragement.

Now was very much not a good time for this...

Not when there were more important things to worry about just now than her feelings and what Steve might or might not feel for her.

Like finding Barnes. Her daughter's father. The man she owed her life to.

That was the priority.

It was a sobering thought that washed over her with all the efficacy of a splash of cold water. Everything else could wait. Even confronting what was coming to feel like a rather astonishing revelation about Steve...

She was setting her tablet on the table next to her bulletin boards when he came to a stop beside her once again. Dread and hope mingled in her gut, not sure whether she wanted him to...she wasn't sure what, anymore. She wasn't sure what she was hoping, what she might be projecting...what she was actually seeing in him when he looked at her...God, the feelings swirling around in his eyes that she just couldn't quite seem to read...

Oh, for heaven's sake, it was just a kiss, she scolded herself. It wasn't like she'd declared just how much she'd come to care for him or anything, just like she couldn't be sure what it was he really felt—and she wasn't about to ask him and find out. She was making far too much of this and it needed to stop. She needed to get a hold of herself. This riot of thoughts and emotions threatening to overtake her common sense was dangerous. She couldn't allow herself to be anything but controlled and one hundred percent focused. Not with her—their mission hanging in the balance.

So she wrestled herself back under control as best she could even as she schooled her features as she'd been trained to carefully conceal just how unsettled he'd left her.

Broadcasting it wouldn't do either of them any good.

"The JCTTF are going to have their hands full sifting through all the rubbish tips they're bound to get now that they've gone public with Barnes' identity," she pointedly mused aloud even as she saw him opening his mouth out of the corner of her eye. "I should be able to tap into their network to keep an eye out, but since Sharon's got that mess covered, it's probably a good idea for us to focus on other avenues."

She nearly sighed in relief as he followed her cue and moved on to the task at hand.

"Where do you want to start, then?" he asked. She hummed, forcibly turning her own thoughts over to just that. It was just what she needed: a task. A reminder of her purpose, her priority. The focus she needed so she could lock away her conflicted feelings...not that she was wholly successful...

She glanced up to her boards for a moment, collecting her thoughts and aiming them where they needed to go. Where to start, indeed. Well, if he had been the one to set off the bomb it meant he had been in Vienna at the very least. They would be remiss if they didn't at least take a look at the safehouse she'd found here in Vienna in case that was where he'd been beforehand. Steve and Sam could check it out while she started working up where he was most likely to go next...

They both turned at the low whistle that indicated Sam's approach.

To say Sam—and Steve too, really—had been awed when Nadine had ushered them into her Workshop felt like an understatement. And Nadine had probably enjoyed both their reactions more than she should have. It made her sister's admiration seem almost lacking in comparison. Almost.

She was pretty sure Sam had spent the last ten minutes perusing her Workroom and its array of weaponry with all the intent interest of a child in a toy store...almost as long as Nat had, she recalled with a smile...

She fought back the residual flare of fear that still hadn't quite abated by reminding herself yet again that her sister was okay. On the jump over to Germany from Britain, Nadine had finally heard from Natasha, a short text telling her she was okay followed by a short call several minutes later that had done wonders to put Nadine's crushing worry at ease. All of their worry, really; hers, Steve's and Sam's. Nadine hadn't realized just how much the uncertainty of Natasha's safety had been weighing on her until the moment she heard her voice, immediately starting to shake as she willed back the dampness that had sprung to her eyes. Even now, it was still affecting her, her gut quivering in mixed relief and anxiety that came from knowing her sister was close and okay, yet still wanting to see it for herself.

God, she was feeling far too much, just now...she needed to get herself back under control.

Coming to a stop next to Steve, Sam's keen eye took in the bulletin boards with a distinctly impressed look. They weren't even complete, anymore, what with the portions she taken back to the Compound and the work she'd done since she'd last updated the boards absent from the whole. Nor was it counting the parts that lived solely on the encrypted hard drives currently back at the Compound. Even so, a small smug grin quirked the corner of her lip of its own volition. She had taken her personal project to find Barnes seriously. How could she not? So of course it was impressive.

"You really have been tracking Barnes a long time," Sam murmured. Nadine nearly rolled her eyes even as Steve stifled a chuckle at hearing Sam make such a similar comment to his own. She shot Sam an indulgent look.

"Of course," she scoffed, "Given our respective trades? Not to mention our history. I'd have had to track him down eventually. I knew one day I'd been contracted to hunt him down. It was inevitable. He's one of the world's best assassins. Eventually, someone would decide he needed to be taken out. It always happens to the best, even to me. And because I'm another of the best? Because it's my specialty to go after people like him, like me? It's a good bet they'd have called in The Ghost. Hell, there's probably someone out there who was—is—considering it just to see which one of us would come out alive.

"So it became a project between other jobs," she finished with a shrug, suddenly feeling rather self-conscious and definitely self-admonishing at the way she'd started to ramble, words spilling free before she could stop them. Surprisingly, an impish light glinted in Steve's eyes as she spared him a glance.

"Because you had no other motivation for trying to track him down." Nadine nearly started at the teasing tone. Instead she let out a faint huff of a chuckle, pointedly ignoring the way her cheeks threatened to warm again at the way he was looking at her.

"Well, yeah. There's the other reason too," she agreed with a wry grin. Steve smiled, looking back to the boards.

But she hesitated then, catching Sam looking to her from Steve's other side, his dark eyes alight with curiosity. He'd heard Steve's soft quip. Her stomach twisted as what to say next caught on the tip of her tongue, leaving her painfully conflicted. What did she say? She swallowed thickly as she caught Steve's concerned look out of the corner of her eye. And before she could help it, the rest came spilling out; if there had been any doubt before that her self-control was effectively shot, it was gone now. "I—I need to find him, Sam... I want to find him...I want to help him...it...it feels like the least I could do after everything he's done for me..." She could practically feel both men's eyes on her, but she kept her gaze on the boards, not sure if she could handle Sam's inevitable look of interest—or Steve's look of guarded sympathy.

"What did he do for you?" She smiled sadly at the tentative question. Sam recognized a minefield when he saw one. There was nothing for it. It was going to come out sooner or later. And Nadine had to admit that she'd come to trust Sam. She...well, 'wanted' wasn't precisely the right word, but it came closest. It felt like it was time to tell him the truth.

"You know that I ran from the place where Natasha and I trained, from the Red Room, before I could Graduate the program," she asked, earning a small nod from Sam. She knew he did; Natasha had told her when she'd filled Sam in about their shared past. "Barnes caught me leaving the night I ran, and he let me go...and...and he gave me Nina," she added softly, finally looking up to Sam's suddenly bewildered and incredulous face. "Barnes is Nina's father," she confirmed, knowing the question would come as soon as Sam got over his initial shock.

"Well damn," he breathed, turning to Steve, "and I take it you knew that too?" Soberly Steve nodded. Sam let out a gusting breath, glancing between the two of them in a way that nearly had Nadine's cheeks warming yet again. She didn't allow herself to glance to Steve. Not even for a millisecond. "Well that explains a few things...certainly what Rumlow was talking about."

Nadine frowned at that, her resolve not to look to Steve abruptly forgotten. He groaned softly as it hit him what Sam meant, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You heard what Rumlow said to me in Lagos," Steve said. At once Nadine understood, her eyes sliding shut against the rush of emotion that day still never failed to send through her despite her best efforts. Sam nodded, looking back to the boards, stepping closer to inspect them.

"So you're really looking for him because of Nina," Sam said, sparing Nadine a glance. She nodded, subtly clearing her throat before she answered properly.

"Yes," she confirmed simply, only barely able to keep her voice steady. "And because it feels like the least I can do for him." She swallowed thickly before meeting Steve's eye. "I owe him everything. How could I not at least try to help him?" Steve's lip quirked into a small, crooked smile, his hand lifting to brush reassuringly against her shoulder. Her breath caught, his sympathetic gaze seeming to trap hers.

"DC's up here," Sam commented absently to himself then, drawing both their attention back to him as he looked briefly back to Nadine with a faint grin, "and the police report that chased him out of town; you did say before that you'd seen it." He frowned then, looking to her thoughtfully. "That fight in DC on the freeway, that's up here... You had to have heard in time to head for DC before the whole Helicarrier thing went down." Nadine sighed heavily, looking to the part of the boards set aside for the Incident in DC and what she now knew was Barnes' break from HYDRA. The question he left unsaid was clear.

"No, I didn't go to DC. You have no idea how hard it was not to jump on a plane as soon as I learned he was there. But I was alone," she said, her tone turning brisk. "For all that he was reckless in pulling Barnes out as an asset, Pierce played it close to the vest. Until rumours made it to me that Barnes had been involved in the Helicarrier Incident on top of the Freeway one? As valuable an asset as he was? I had been sure he would have been whisked out of the country after having the truth of his existence blown wide open like that; HYDRA had managed to keep him as little more than a ghost story for over seventy years, and Pierce blew that. He let the world know the Winter Soldier was real." She inhaled deeply as she wrestled her thoughts back into some semblance of order as opposed to the rambling she was verging on again. They really had no idea how strained her self-control had been those few days in the spring of 2014. "I...I had no way of knowing what I'd be flying into if I'd jumped on a plane. He had a mission, support, a team of mercenaries at his back. More than that, I had no intel. I had no idea how long he'd been out of cryo, how recently his memory had been modified, the parameters of his mission. There were too many variables. Not to mention the risk it would be for someone like me charging into a city already on high alert for the Winter Soldier. I couldn't risk getting caught. Not when I still had Nina at home.

"So no matter that it tore me up inside to stay out of it, I held back," she admitted wearily. "I watched. Listened. Waited for a better opportunity. Then he dropped off the grid and I lost my best chance." She sighed heavily in remembered frustration from those few months. "Looking back, I wish I had taken it..."

"I know what you mean," Steve agreed softly. Next to him Sam nodded sedately.

The moment broke with a quiet buzz. Excusing himself, Steve stepped away to answer his phone—Sharon, Nadine concluded from the few words she caught before he moved too far away. At once her heart was thrumming in an uncomfortable mix of dread, anxiety and—irritatingly...still—a flash of jealousy. Swallowing back an annoyed huff at her ridiculous inability to keep her emotions in check, she squashed them aside once more. This really was getting quite tiresome...not to mention potentially problematic. She needed to stay focused.

Instead she forced her attention back to her musing over how best to track Barnes, picking up her tablet again to begin digging into a few trusted avenues to get a sense of options...and tapping into a few places she probably shouldn't. Thankfully, it wasn't a difficult mental switch to throw after so many years of practice. Not far away, Sam was sparing her a look from his perusal of her bulletin boards at her movement.

"Tell me straight; do you think you can find him before the JCTTF does?" he asked softly. Nadine paused, looking up to him after a moment. Sam was watching her closely, his friendly features guarded. She inhaled slowly, letting her gaze flow across her boards. Truthfully?

"There are three of us," she finally said sedately, "and I am the best in the world at what I do." She met his eye then, just as serious as he was. "But they have the entire world on their side looking for him. I can't beat that. Even tapping into their network." His eyes fell to her tablet as she gestured pointedly with it. He sighed heavily, crossing his arms loosely as he looked back to the boards while she returned her attention to her tablet.

"She's not going to be happy about this..." he muttered under his breath. It was said so softly Nadine nearly didn't hear him. Nearly.

And her fingers stilled as what he said sank in. At once her pale eyes had snapped up to Sam in surprise.

"Wait, she?" she asked deliberately. "Who's she? You're passing intel on Barnes?" Sam shifted uncomfortably under Nadine's sudden scrutiny.

"Not exactly," he hedged.

Her eyes narrowed. "Well, what exactly?" After a moment he sighed, unable to hold her gaze.

"She's just someone else looking to find him." Nadine's eyes widened briefly before narrowing again, going cold. Sam quickly held up his hands in surrender.

"He was staying with her and she just wants to know he's safe." Nadine's eyes narrowed further still, this time with thoughtful frown as she glanced to the bulletin boards devoted solely to Barnes. When it hit her, she froze for a split-second, a flicker of curious consideration waking in the back of her mind as pieces from her search she had set aside as unimportant re-emerged with a new sense of relevance before she turned to look to Sam, a trace of suspicion still written on her face.

"The landlady in DC? Flower name? I didn't peg her as a genuine link. She's on there somewhere," she said absently as she gestured half-heartedly back to the board. A sound halfway between a chuckle and a groan escaped Sam as he nodded reluctantly.

"Damn, you weren't kidding when you said you were tracking him. Yeah, her. He stayed with her for months after the Helicarrier thing, using her place as a base, of sorts, as he travelled around to places like Brooklyn, New Jersey...places from his past. Steve thinks he may even have visited his sister in her nursing home before she passed away, but that's more a gut instinct on his part." Nadine frowned as she absorbed the former paratrooper's intelligence, her mind fitting the pieces together. It made a certain amount of sense...but still...there was something more...

"Why would he stay there so long," she murmured mostly to herself, "if he was lying low to throw off...but that's still a long time, especially if there was someo—" her eyes went wide then as another thought struck her, a curious flutter waking beneath her breastbone. She turned back to Sam, her eyes sharp and discerning, "he fell in love with her...there's no other explanation for him to stay in DC for so long. It's not convenient enough to be a home base, not for the places he'd have gone to visit and even then, it wouldn't have taken that long to hit everywhere significant or even lose a track." Slowly Sam started nodding, the answer clear on his face before he even said a word.

"While I don't know for sure about Barnes' side of it," he said carefully, "I got the definite impression that she's in love with him."

She couldn't help herself. She laughed, causing Sam's eyes to widen slightly with surprise. "So it's because of her that I thought I'd lost him in DC," she said dryly, shaking her head, "that I'd missed him leaving. It wasn't until he started moving again that I realized he really had been lying low. I spent months trying to pick up his trail but, of course, there wasn't a trail to find because he hadn't left. Not until that police report..." Sam hummed in agreement. They exchanged a wry grin; they'd commiserated over how close they'd both been thanks to that lucky break only to have Barnes slip away again. It had set Nadine right back on Barnes' trail again just as it had Sam and Steve.

"That's why you're so sure about this safehouse theory, isn't it," Sam asked thoughtfully. "You think he's done the same thing he did in DC. Gone to ground. I have to admit, it makes sense."

Nadine nodded in agreement. "He found somewhere to hide just like in DC, hunkered down and we looked right past him just like we did then. That's where he's been these last few months. One of those safehouses. It's the only explanation."

"So it's just figuring out which one on your list is most likely."

"Exactly. If we find that, we might be able to track him from there." She looked back down to her tablet, pulling up the list of safehouses and their coordinates. "If his programming was activated, he might go back there out of habit as he reorients. If not..."

"It's still a solid lead to start from," Sam said, stepping closer to look over her shoulder as she started striking off the ones they'd already checked and pulling up a map-view with the remaining locations pinned. He spared her a roguish grin. "What would we do if you weren't here?"

"I'm sure you would've managed to figure it out," she smirked impishly. "It just would've taken longer." He laughed as she considered and added a few parameters for distance and travel times, the corner of her lip quirking as she did.

"The obvious place to start is going to be the one here in Vienna, though I think given what's happened here, that one's unlikely as his long-term base. But with his history?" She manipulated the map a bit, shifting the focus. "I'd shift our focus southeast; the Real Estate in Belgrade, Bucharest, Kiev...geographically, they make the most sense. The ones in Minsk and Kharkiv are pushing it, but they're also good options—" Sam looked up then, realizing Steve had finished his phone call and had made his way back over to them.

"Agent Carter?" Sam asked, earning a confirming nod from Steve. "What's the plan then, Cap?" Nadine once more ignored the uncomfortable little twist her stomach made, focusing back to her tablet and pulling up the searches she'd been starting before her talk with Sam to give herself something innocuous to do.

"Sharon's heading up the unit tasked with assessing tips," Steve explained, his 'Captain' persona edging into his demeanour. "She said she should be able to give us a heads up before any actions are taken, but she won't have much time, so it's best if we're close. Apparently there's a café not far from where JCTTF is set up that should work."

Sam gave a brisk nod. "Sounds good," he agreed, mirroring Steve as he took an unconscious step toward the door. Nadine stayed rooted to the spot, looking up just as Steve and Sam picked up on her hesitation. She pointedly ignored the pleased fluttering in her stomach at the way Steve was looking at her.

"Nadine?" Steve prompted with a frown. Slowly Nadine shook her head.

"Now that the JCTTF is involved? I can't be in the field, Steve," she said softly. "If you and Sam get caught, you're both still somewhat protected. You'll probably get a pass." She paused, inhaling deeply before continuing, forcing herself to meet Steve's eye. "I don't have that. They will make me disappear if they catch me. So as much as it kills me? I have to stay behind the scenes. Anything at the Workshop you think can help is yours. But I can't go out on this one. I didn't like how Carter was looking at me."

"Sharon wouldn't do anything like that," Steve assured her. Nadine made a non-committal noise.

"Maybe not, but bringing in The Ghost would be a pretty big deal, Steve. Whether she does anything about it or not, she's thinking about it. You have to have noticed that; you know her better than I do." Steve's jaw tensed and he dropped her gaze. He had noticed something. After a long moment he looked up to her again, inhaling deeply.

"I need you with me on this, Nadine," he said earnestly. "And not just because I trust you to have my back." She fought back the urge to swallow thickly at the careless statement. "I know who he used to be. You know what they made him. Between the two of us? We can better handle who he is now." She sighed. He was right. She knew he was. And it was the argument she would have made were their positions reversed.

But there were more factors at play.

Before she could formulate her counter-argument, though, he sighed, stepping closer as he looked to her thoughtfully, almost plaintively. "At least come with to meet Sharon," he asked softly. "Neither Sam nor I can vet whatever she brings us as well as you can. I need us to be sure; it's Bucky's life on the line."

Nadine bit back a heavy sigh, her gaze falling back to the tablet in her hands. It was hard enough resisting when it was just for his sake that he was asking...but to bring in her sense of responsibility for Barnes?

This was a bad idea...

She set the tablet on the table.

And she ignored the warmth in her chest at the relief that spread across Steve's face.    

A/N: Thanks for reading!

Don't forget to Vote and Comment!

OH, and if any of you were a little lost when it came to the 'Flower Name' landlady of Bucky's from DC Sam was referring to? Well, now would be as good a time as any to pop over and check out my other MCU story, Haven! It will explain everything, I promise...and is a pretty lovely story in its own right, if I do say so myself. lol! ;) 

And keep an eye out for Nadine! She made her first appearance in that story, after all!