Upstate New York, USA

Fall 2015

This was not good. Not good at all, on so many levels. It had to stop.

But no matter how Nadine laid on the self-admonishment or tried to talk sense into her rogue subconscious, it wasn't working.

Her mind just did not seem to understand that it was highly inappropriate to wonder what it would feel like to have Steve's arms wrapped around her for reasons other than sparring. The fact that they were very strong and attractive arms was beside the point. As was the appeal of the shoulders and torso they were attached to. And those warm, ocean-hued eyes? The fact that a distracting but pleasant flutter woke in her chest when their owner smiled at her was something she needed to get better at ignoring.

Dammit, why did she have to be attracted to him of all people, she scolded herself internally. "Completely ridiculous," she muttered to herself in agreement.

Only, not all of her agreed on that, and therein lay the problem.

When had things started to change? When had she become so comfortable around him? When had he become so comfortable around her? Nadine wasn't even sure. She couldn't pinpoint one certain moment that had started...this.

Perhaps it was one of those moments of tense but still somehow comfortable silence when Nina had been recovering when they'd simply stood together in mutual vigil. Perhaps it had been the first time he'd genuinely smiled at her after their conversation on the Helicarrier, when she'd truly begun to allow herself to believe that they could move past what had happened on the way to Seoul. Or maybe that moment after she'd helped pull him back onto the lifeboat, when everything else had fallen away and they'd simply looked at each other, both knowing what they had narrowly escaped. Maybe even before all of that, when he'd promised that he and the Avengers would help her find Nina.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was when he'd given her some hope that she could—maybe—find some small measure of redemption for what had happened with Barnes. When Steve, despite his lingering reservations, had put his doubts aside and had asked her to find him. When she knew that he wanted to trust her again no matter how much she believed she didn't deserve it.

She simply didn't know.

Her life was already complicated enough. Why did this have to happen on top of everything else?

And it was made all the worse because of Barnes.

Barnes was Steve's best friend. And Barnes was the father of her daughter.

Everything else aside, that alone made her blooming feelings for Rogers all the more complicated and problematic.

It was a big part of the reason why she was having so much trouble opening the door.

And it had all come about because her stomach had flipped happily as her hand had risen to the brushed metal handle. And she had foolishly paused to examine the reaction.

It had all snowballed from there.

She'd been forced to confront the idea that she was growing to like Steve Rogers. In a very non-platonic sort of way. Very much against her better judgement. Infatuation of any kind for her was a very bad idea, for so many reasons. Especially an infatuation with him for the very obvious reasons she'd already contemplated at length.

Why was she even allowing herself to think on this? She knew better, she was trained better. She had been trained to be capable of pushing all self and sentiment aside. To be rational and logical and...

The problem was that part of her liked the idea...

She pushed the traitorous thought away. It was not going to happen. Nothing was going to happen, she reminded herself.

Unfortunately that rebellious little part of her wasn't wholly convinced.

Especially not since she stood, rooted to the spot with her hand frozen on the handle of Steve's office door. The office she knew held the very object of her conflicted thoughts and emotions.

Him and her sister.

She swallowed back an aggravated groan. How was she going to keep her sister's nose out of this? Nadine wasn't blind. She'd seen her sister eying Nadine and Steve with a scheming sort of speculation on more than one occasion as far back as the party in the Avengers' Tower when Ultron had revealed himself. And she'd heard from the Captain himself that Natasha had a bad habit of trying to play matchmaker for him.

As if this wasn't already complicated enough... She really wasn't keen on the idea of having to fend off Natasha's attempts to set them up...any more than she already was, at least.

Especially since that traitorous little part of her she was still trying to deny existed wouldn't mind in the slightest.

She huffed impatiently at herself. This hesitance and her inability to control her emotions really was ridiculous. Steeling her nerve and forcefully shoving her problematic emotions aside, she pushed the door open.

As she anticipated, Steve and Natasha stood inside the office joined, she realized, by Sam Wilson. Nadine bit back a faint groan that there was yet another person in the room to guard herself against before that thought too was pushed aside.

Technically the room, with its utilitarian yet still chic modern furnishings and wall of windows looking out at the Compound's lawn was designated Steve's office. But it didn't really feel like it. Steve wasn't really a desk sort of guy, after all. So it always felt like they were just using someone else's space, like they were intruding, even. But still, it was a handy place to meet for private discussions best kept to themselves.

As she anticipated from previous experience, no one actually sat at the desk, though Nadine wouldn't be surprised if Nat had been at one point given where she stood leaning against the short edge of the desk closest to the bank of windows. Steve was similarly leaning against the low row of shelves and their built-in cabinets just beyond Natasha, looking out the window as the three of them spoke quietly. Sam, meanwhile, stood next to Natasha, his back to Nadine, with his arms crossed loosely over his chest as he chuckled at something her sister said. And Natasha smiled back, what little Nadine could see from her sister's profile giving her a moment's pause.

Truthfully? Nadine wasn't sure she'd ever seen her sister so easy around someone else, save herself and perhaps Rogers. Not even Bruce had put her so at ease. And Nadine had wondered if there had been true potential with the doctor. But this was something...different.

It was then that the door clicked shut behind her, the sound seeming painfully loud to her ears as it jolted her from her train of thought.

"Nadine." At once, three sets of eyes had turned to the blonde assassin, Steve gesturing for her to join them. As she approached, Nadine couldn't help but notice the subtle way her little sister shifted away from Wilson. That was interesting... But she willed herself not to react, knowing that, were Natasha to realize she'd noticed something was up, the redhead would be on her guard. Then how was Nadine supposed to learn anything?

As she approached the trio, though, her thoughts were pulled away from whatever was going on between Natasha and Sam.

"You find anything?" Steve was trying hard not to appear too anxious, but Nadine could see it in the tightness around his eyes and mouth and hear it in his tone. Slowly she shook her head, her lips parting as a response began to build on her tongue. Only to tense as her eyes fell on Sam. At once her instincts to shut down resurfaced with a vengeance from where she'd been training herself to lock them away. The words died on her tongue.

"Nadine," Natasha questioned then, noticing her sister's reaction instantly. Steve picked up on it a moment later, Natasha's cautious tone clueing him in.

"It's okay, Ryker," the Captain reassured. "Sam's in on this. He was already helping me track Bucky before you came on board." It didn't exactly help, but Nadine forced herself to pretend it had, though the anxious tension wasn't interested in draining away in the least. Nevertheless, she forced it aside, shooting Steve a wan grin before shaking loose what she'd been preparing to share.

"No new leads on where he might be," she admitted bitterly, before tossing the one thing of value she had found to Steve, "but I did find these." He caught it easily, frowning faintly at her before his fingers opened for him to examine it closer. His eyes went wide as he realized what he held, his gaze snapping to Nadine.

"His tags?" His tone was thick with disbelief and wonder. Nadine nodded in confirmation. Not that Steve needed it when he had Barnes' dog tags lying in the palm of his hand.

"They were the only thing worth finding in that place, really," Nadine said, her disappointment clear in her voice. Natasha frowned at the comment.

"Nothing in their records?" Nadine shook her head at her sister's question.

Her mission had been to pay a visit to one of HYDRA's older record repositories, this one hidden in an old base in the Alps. It was one Nadine hadn't come across before, until she'd dug it up from one of the intelligence stashes she'd found while tying up Madame B's loose ends. After discussing it with Natasha and the Captain—Steve's help in strategic analysis along with his working knowledge of WWII-era HYDRA bases proving invaluable—and thanks to Steve's observation that Barnes had gone missing in the Austrian Alps, it was decided that it wasn't an opportunity they could afford to pass up. Natasha had even posited that it might very well have been the base Barnes had been treated in initially after he'd been found. Perhaps even where his indoctrination had begun.

Well? She hadn't been wrong. Before it had been converted into a records storage facility, it had been an active base complete with the facilities necessary to treat Barnes after his fall from the train. So it was possible. But whether or not his programming had begun there was far less certain.

Nadine had hoped the old base might prove a lost treasure trove of intelligence, but it had instead proven to be little more than a dud. There had been a single case file on the Winter Soldier, the individual files inside containing little more than old information Nadine already had; a few of his earlier mission files.

The only valuable thing she had learned was that the document she'd privately dubbed the Austria File was, in fact, a real document, it having been listed on the Winter Soldier's case file index sheet. It was the main reason she'd wanted to investigate that base as eagerly as she had. She'd wanted that file for a long time. If she was right? It was his Asset Intake file, and should contain, among other valuable intel, details about his transition from James Barnes to the Winter Soldier. There were no other copies that she could find, and no digital record save a single notation in one secure server that it existed. And that had been unverified. Frustratingly, though, the file in question had been missing.

So, beyond an incontrovertible confirmation that the file existed, the tags were the only other thing of value she'd found there. They'd been tucked in an envelope at the bottom of the disappointingly thin master folder.

So while it had been an overall bust, her mission hadn't quite been a total loss. Looking at Steve's face? It was worth it, even if the only thing she'd retrieved was effectively a sentimental keepsake.

"Nothing we didn't already know," Nadine said. "I took copies anyway to do a deep dive, and I notified Stark's people so they could go in and catalogue the place, but I'm not expecting much." Her expression grew cool them, her eyes glinting. "Didn't get much from the facility's supervisor or his agents either. At least, nothing interesting...or relevant." Next to Natasha, Sam swallowed nervously, glancing to the redhead. She shot him a sympathetic look before turning back to Nadine. Steve was still staring at the dog tags, though his fingers were now fisted tightly around them, his jaw just as tense as his fingers. Nadine's mask broke at the near reverent, determined look on his face.

Yeah. They held value enough to make the trip worth it.

After a moment he pulled himself back from wherever his thoughts had disappeared, his controlled demeanour firmly back in place as he looked to Nadine.

"What next?"

"Dig through what I found there with a fine-toothed comb?" she offered. "At this point, the most promising avenue I can think of is to try and locate any more HYDRA archives or secure records depositories, really. And even though I'm still looking, tracking him directly is all but a dead end right now. He's took good at disappearing. I do have a safehouse angle I want to try working on that Clint suggested last time Nat talked to him," she nodded toward her sister at her mention of the idea, earning a faint, distracted smile in return, "but I don't have any guarantees that anything will come of it."

Absently Steve nodded, considering her assessment. Only to look up as Sam cleared his throat, reaching to the desk behind Natasha to pick up an older file sitting on top of a neatly stacked pile of newer ones.

Nadine's gut was suddenly twisting, completely unable to so much as draw breath in anxious anticipation as she caught a glimpse of the cover.

It was Russian.

With a look to Steve, Sam held out the old KGB Asset file to Nadine. Steve looked on, his expression curiously apologetic but intent as he watched the file exchange hands.

Beginning to feel light-headed, Nadine all but snatched the file from Sam, looking incredulously between him, Steve and Natasha.

"The Austria file?" The three of them frowned at Nadine's incredulous outburst, Natasha sparing a quick glance to Steve in confusion. But Nadine barely registered that her personal name for the file had thrown them off. "This is the Austria File! Where did you get this? I've been trying to get my hands on it for ages. It took me years to figure out if it even existed." She was suddenly eying the three of them with narrowed, piercing eyes, her attention finally settling on Natasha thanks to the gleam that appeared in the younger spy's gaze. "It's missing. The only copy is missing; it was supposed to be at the repository I just hit." Steve and Sam exchanged a startled look; Nadine hadn't told them that. Natasha merely grinned, an eyebrow raising in amusement.

"You're not the only one with connections," she said casually, a sly glint in her eyes, "and I didn't burn all my bridges quite so spectacularly when I cut ties with the KGB." Nadine could only wrinkle her nose in annoyance at the comment, severely tempted to stick out her tongue petulantly at her little sister. Only for her eyes to narrow again as another thought hit her.

"Wait, where did you get this," she asked, holding up the file, "exactly." Natasha shrugged, though her eyes grew veiled.

"An old handler," she said, her tone guarded and strictly business, "one who made his way up the food chain of the KGB and on into one of the more elite secret Russian Intelligence Agencies when the Soviet Union fell."

"HYDRA?" Nadine asked softly. Natasha met her eye, her thoughts carefully hidden away. She knew what Nadine was asking without words: was he the one who had been tasked to recruit Natasha to HYDRA? At first Natasha didn't seem inclined to answer. But then she nodded sharply.

"Probably. He was definitely shady, at the very least, and I had to press some pretty risky buttons to convince him to get that for me." She'd blackmailed him. Nadine could read that between the lines easily enough. But then Natasha smirked. "But that's all water under the bridge," she said with a sly, ruthless grin that piqued Nadine's interest.

"How so?" She suspected even as she asked that she already knew the answer. Natasha's eyes glittered.

"Not only was he picked up and locked up by Interpol shortly after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, but he was on one of your lists. And he didn't make the final cut," she said happily. Nadine couldn't help the grin that spread across her own face. She glanced back down to the file in her hands, flipping it open. Two photos were pinned to the inside cover, one of Barnes in cryofreeze, and a smaller one from before HYDRA had gotten their hands on him. She traced a finger along the edge of the photo, captivated by how different a person he seemed from the picture alone.

"Well," she said softly, glancing up to meet her sister's eye, "then it all worked out." Natasha's smirk widened, and the tension that had begin spreading through her frame was once again easing.

But then a frown was once again overtaking Nadine's features as she looked between the two photos. She looked up to Steve, feeling her face growing guarded as she did. She didn't make an effort to stop it.

"Why didn't you share this before?" She asked softly, her voice sounding nearly gentle despite her distinctly controlled tone. Steve's neck began to flush, but he met her wary gaze levelly. Nadine pointedly ignored the twinge of hurt in her chest. Natasha had given this to him who knew how long ago, and he'd kept it from her. He still didn't wholly trust her.

Not that she could exactly blame him...

"Honestly? I'd nearly forgotten we had it. And then once I'd remembered—" he was interrupted when Natasha pointedly cleared her throat, fixing Steve with a raised brow and the trace of a smirk on her lips. Sparing her an apologetic, even abashed grin, Steve raised his hands slightly in surrender before continuing, "okay, once I was reminded we still had it, I, well..." his expression grew more serious as he looked to Nadine, some of what Nadine had come to consider his 'Captain' persona coming out. "I wanted to see what you would do once you had a lead before I handed it over. I wanted to see how serious you were about finding him," he said softly. The twinge deepened, but Nadine pushed it away again. It was a logical explanation. Arguably, his willingness to trust her as he had been already was a leap of faith enough considering the rocky ground they'd been on after Seoul. Surely he was allowed to exercise a measure of caution...a moment of doubt. It was his oldest and closest friend they were talking about, after all, and he effectively hadn't known her at all when he'd charged her to find Barnes. It could even be said that, for all their recent friendliness, he still barely knew her.

It didn't stop it from hurting though. Just a little.

But then Nadine frowned, looking down to the file in her hand and the frozen face and the smaller, gently smiling one staring up at her from the file's inside cover. Her finger traced absently along his face as she sank into thought. This trip to Austria had been her first real mission specifically in her search for Barnes since joining up with Steve and Natasha. Just the sort of lead Steve had likely been thinking of. And Steve had the file ready and waiting. She looked up to the Captain, a tentative flicker of hope lighting amid the ache she didn't want to acknowledge.

"Yet you had this here. Now. Ready to give to me as soon as I got back...whether I'd found anything or not." Steve shrugged, suddenly looking nearly...contrite.

"Well, to be honest, it didn't take me long to re-evaluate my decision to hold it back." He glanced to Natasha, who was watching the Captain with an intent expression. Nadine frowned at the exchange. Steve cleared his throat before looking back to Nadine. "I was going to give it to you as soon as Sam had a chance to collect it. Then your mission came up," he admitted.

"Didn't help that I'd left the file back in DC," Sam added apologetically. "I pretty much have everything in it that Nat translated for us memorized, so I haven't been carting it around for a few months now; locked it up in a safety deposit box. And we didn't want to tip our hand by uploading it anywhere, 'case someone else was watching. I didn't really catch the urgency when Steve here asked me to bring it back with me last time I was home. Earlier this week was the first chance I had to grab it since then." Nadine's frown deepened.

"The last time you went back to DC was, what, a month ago?" Her question was met with a sheepish wince.

"Month and a half," he corrected. "Sorry 'bout that."

The hurt was quickly beginning to fade as the strangely warm little flutter woke in her stomach as Steve gave her a renewed apologetic look of his own.

"I didn't want to bring it up without the file," he explained. That was fair, she supposed. She knew very well her impatience would've gotten the better of her had she know they had it but been forced to wait until Sam could retrieve it. She probably would've done something drastic, honestly, like gone to DC and broken into wherever Sam had secreted it away.

She looked to Steve thoughtfully, her features still carefully controlled. "What changed?" The question was all but blurted out before she could help herself. Steve didn't answer for a moment, studying her levelly back. Sam and Natasha just watched the pair of them in silence, the redheaded spy looking rather like she was watching a sports match, she was so enthralled. Finally Steve shrugged.

"I got to know you," he said simply. The intensity of that distracting warm flutter intensified, especially as he smiled wryly.

It was quickly getting to the point where her weekly sparring sessions with Steve were one of the highlights of her week. As was the coffee or lunch they'd headed off to a couple times now afterward. Sure, it was just the Avengers Common Room they would retreat to, but the conversation and the company was good. They seemed to speak of everything and nothing, and Nadine felt she was finally getting to know him too. She had even heard most of what Natasha had told her about Barnes from Steve himself, now. And more. And she had told him about Nina and her life in Vienna. Generally they stayed away from other aspects of her past, but that too had ultimately come out in some capacity. Only her past with Barnes had been effectively off-limits, neither particularly keen on revisiting the topic.

And he had listened, without censure—something that had part of her still reeling—and things between her and the Captain were admittedly better for it.

Really, if she were being completely honest, her afternoons with Steve were becoming one of the things she looked forward to most, coming ever closer to her lunchdates with Nina and Natasha and the odd afternoon she stole away from the Compound with her daughter as something she anticipated happily in the course of a week.

His smile grew amused and he stole a glance to Natasha as her sister subtly cleared her throat. "And really," he continued as Natasha smirked with satisfaction, nearly causing Nadine to roll her eyes at her little sister, "as someone recently pointed out to me, you've already more than proved yourself. You did stay, after all," he pointed, growing serious. "You could've taken Nina and run as soon as she was cleared the way everyone expected. But you didn't." He was so sincere her breath caught. But she pushed the feeling aside. Infatuation wasn't a good thing, she forcefully reminded herself.

Again.

"I didn't expect it," Natasha broke in smugly, her arms crossing over her chest, "I knew she'd stick around." This time, Nadine really did roll her eyes at her sister's antics.

"Well, that makes one of us," Nadine teased dryly back. Natasha only barely restrained a snicker.

Next to Natasha Steve was fighting to hold back a grin of his own before nodding toward the file in her hand, bringing them back around to the topic at hand.

"Think it'll help?" She smiled at his question.

"I'll let you know. In the meantime," she turned, snatching up the tablet she had spied laying on the desk as she spoke, "I may have another lead." As she straightened, she took note of both Rogers and Natasha's eager faces, especially the anxious hope in Steve's eyes. Her stomach flopped uncomfortably as she turned her attention back to the intel she was pulling up from the Compound's server; something she had come across and dug into on the trip home. "Not on Barnes personally, but on another possible avenue." She fought not to wince as they both seemed to deflate, the Captain visibly setting aside his disappointment. But quickly enough they were both all business, the pair of Avengers looking to the intel Nadine handed them. She'd been poking through some underworld chatter to pass the time and get her mind off the rather disappointing outcome of her mission. She hadn't expected to actually find anything of interest. "I believe you've met."

Steve looked up to Nadine in surprise as he read the name displayed on the screen's file heading.

"Rumlow?" he asked, his tone hard to decipher. Nadine nodded. At once his expression hardened. Nadine had to fight not to grin. She knew she'd been into something.

"Goes by Crossbones, now," she elaborated, breaking down what she'd found out and compiled in the file she'd pulled up for them. "He's broken with HYDRA, too, not that there's much to break with right now. He's gone rogue; operates as a gun for hire along with his crew. I don't think I need to tell you, but since he was running support for the Winter Soldier in DC? He might know something that could help." Nat had been watching Nadine thoughtfully as she spoke, finally turning to Steve when she fell silent. The Captain was skimming through the file as he listened, finally looking up to meet Natasha's eye before looking back to Nadine. Sam watched the three of them with a serious, assessing look on his face. Steve straightened after a moment of thought.

"It's worth a shot," he admitted, his voice turning serious in a way that indicated he'd shifted to 'Captain' mode as he handed the tablet to Natasha. "And even if it is a dead end, with what he's been doing since breaking with HYDRA? He was bound to show up on our radar at some point; he needs to be stopped whether he can help lead us to Bucky or not."

"Agreed," Natasha added seriously, all hint of her scheming smirk gone as she too turned to business mode. She glanced between Steve and Nadine, then. "I think we should bring the Twins in on this one," she continued, "it's time they got some field experience." Nadine couldn't help her hesitation; she wasn't sure they were quite ready. But Steve seemed to agree with Natasha, nodding as the two Avengers exchanged a look.

"Alright," he confirmed. "The Maximoffs are in on this one. Sam?" He turned to the former paratrooper with a questioning look. Sam didn't even hesitate.

"No question. I'm in. Besides," he added with a confident grin, "the guy's a right bastard. I wouldn't mind another go at him." Steve chuckled, and Nadine couldn't help but grin.

She pointedly ignored the way her stomach flipped happily at the sound. 

A/N: Thanks for Reading!

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