A/N: I didn't want to move forward with updates before I got some things in order. There have been a few slight changes, but no need to reread. Updated: 5/3/19.

One

"Yes, mom," Agent Zora Haque muttered into her phone at appropriate intervals, holding the slim object precariously in the crook of her neck while she unpacked one of her countless go-bags from her latest mission. She cringed as she lifted her heavy ammo box up; her entire body felt like one big bruise.

But Jesus or Ra or Allah bless Tony Stark and his overly air-conditioned compound. Or really, just her room, since the rest of the compound was pretty well heated considering there was a light dusting of snow on the ground outside. Like the man had known she'd be this miserable. The cool air was a sweet balm for her aching body, her overheated skin. Had anyone informed her that she'd have to trudge through the interior African heat for a week straight, she would have packed lighter clothing. As it was, she had only taken her staple items: black long-sleeved shirts, the two custom black combat vests, black anti-ballistic weave pants, and yes, you guessed it, black boots.

Why wasn't it nearly as cool to wear white?

"Are you even going to fly home to see us for Christmas this year, baby?" her mother asked in that if-you-say-no, I-have-a-lecture-already-prepared-for-you tone. Zora's eyes rolled as she tossed all of her sweaty laundry into a pile on the floor. Gods, she just wanted to take a bath. Why had she answered the phone, anyway? "Maybe you should think about taking some time off," her mother suggested, tugging Zora's thoughts away from the jacuzzi tub Tony had recently installed for her and back to the unpleasant conversation. It wasn't that she and her mom weren't on good terms – far from it, actually. It was just that Zora loved to work. And only work.

Whenever the matriarch of the Haque family pulled out Maybe you should think about taking some time off was typically the worst time possible for Zora to even consider taking time off. Especially right now, with all of the Avengers sans Barnes in Switzerland for an important conference, she couldn't afford time off. There was even more work to be done than usual.

And she loved that.

"Yeah, ma, I hear you," Zora said, trying to muster a tone of patience and love while simultaneously reaching for her typical cover story. "There's just a lot to do right now. You know the Embassy is short-staffed, and I just don't think the Ambassador would appreciate having her assistant gone. Not when things are – "

Her next long-winded excuse was cut short by a blaring BEEP BEEP BEEP that sounded way too much like a nuclear warfare siren for Zora's liking, ringing throughout the New Avenger's Compound ominously. Evidently, her mother thought this too, shrilly demanding through the phone, "Zora? Where are you? I thought you said you were at the apartment in Haiti? Is everything – "

"Uh, ma," Zora said quickly, eyes darting around her bedroom, where absolutely nothing was amiss. There was something wrong outside. An attack? "I'm gonna have to call you back." There was likely some universal rule against hanging up on your mother when she probably thought you were about to die – and hell, maybe she was about to die – but Zora hit the end call button, snatched up the second go-bag from her closet, and booked it out towards the helipad.

"FRIDAY?" she huffed out as she ran, barely taking the time to slow as she rounded corners, her boots squeaking on the recently waxed floor. With a snap, she buckled her backpack to her body and palmed the glock still holstered on her thigh, just to make sure. "What's going on out there?"

Even more ominous was the lack of reply from the facility's omnipotent A.I. system. Zora ran faster.

She was just about to shove open the heavy glass doors that stood between her and the outside world when she heard the telltale rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. Inside. Pulling up short, nearly smacking her head against the door, Zora paused and listened harder.

More gunfire.

But the HQ staff was at minimum. It was the holidays, or just about – most had taken leave, and those who hadn't wouldn't be in this part of the facility. This was reserved for level-eight agents and the Avengers' housing. Zora knew for a fact that she was the only level-eight agent who'd stayed on for the holiday.

Which could only mean one thing.

"Aw, hell."

Sucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she debated the merits of just leaving the bastard to fend for himself. He was the Winter Soldier, for crying out loud – a couple of goons with guns wouldn't kill him. Protocol demanded she vacate the premises at once to ensure the lowest possible mortality rate.

But Zora never much liked protocol, and if someone was attacking the compound while literally all of the other Avengers were away… then that someone was definitely here for Barnes.

Mind made up, she spun on her heel and sprinted in the direction of the gunfire. Up a set of stairs, to the right… Sounded like it was near the gyms.

As the young agent neared the glass dome that served as a gym-cum-training area for the Earth's Mightiest Heroes (and sometimes lowly people like Zora), she heard another spray of bullets, glass shatter, and a very manly, very Russian curse.

Unsnapping her bag and tossing it to the floor, Zora fell to her knees and made quick work of unzipping it. She tugged her combat vest on, quickly did up all the complicated fastens as she had hundreds of times before, and grabbed her daggers. Between the knives and the Glock on her thigh… she knew she wasn't prepared to fight whatever chaos was occurring inside the gym. But that had never stopped her before.

Circling the wall that had covered her from the gunfight, Zora took the battle in, green eyes flashing from this to that. Men clad in all black like some B-movie SWAT team. At least ten of them, now. Just less than that dead or bleeding out on the floor. Barnes, dressed almost comically in his typical tight-fitting workout clothes, stood in the midst of them, shielding the worst of the gunshots with his arm and throwing punches left and right.

Zora stepped through the completely shattered doorway, boots crunching on glass, but not a single fighter noticed. She threw her two knives first; one at the enemy headed straight for Barnes, a semi-auto in hand. The dagger planted itself in the man's chest with that sickening thump that told Zora she'd made a powerful throw. The second knife she threw as she began to sprint, its metal slicing straight through the throat of Barnes' next opponent.

She entered the fray. Drop-kicking the nearest operative, Zora landed on the ground with a grunt, the man barely a foot away from her, and threw her elbow so hard into his head that he blacked out. Flipping over, she swept her foot at a black-clad figure charging her, his eyes obscured by some tactical helmet, but the man jumped before she could knock him on his ass. She engaged the fight, Glock left in its holster, with just her hands. Like Steve had taught her on those very few, very rare occasions he showed her some of his boxing moves. One fist to the gut, shove straight into the solar-plexus, grab his head and bring it straight down onto her knee. Another enemy knocked out cold.

When she glanced up, she found Barnes' deep blue eyes on her, flashing and hard, before he grunted again and literally punched the life out of a man who tried to get the jump on him. Zora was so floored by the show of pure, unadulterated force that she didn't realize someone had lined their crosshairs up with her.

She was lucky Barnes did. He threw himself on top of her, his metal arm coming up yet again to shield the two of them from getting filled with lead, and his weight pinning her to the ground left her lungs wheezing for air. Time slowed for a moment and she thought to herself: this is it, this is how I die, trying to keep the Winter Soldier from getting killed when he clearly needs no help at all, but then she was pulled to her feet, shoved behind him, and handed a rifle longer than her entire arm.

"Shoot," Barnes ordered, having snatched up a weapon of his own. Back to back, they went for headshots, Zora's heart pounding wildly in her chest all the while, until the room was silent and empty, save for her, James Buchanan Barnes, and nearly two dozen dead men.

000

Zora was wheezing like an asthmatic, which was strange, considering she didn't recall ever having asthma in her life. Her chest felt ready to explode – from adrenaline? – and her body felt impossibly more bruised than it had earlier. How the hell was she still standing?

Suddenly, she was face-to-chest with the perfect male specimen and killing machine that was Sergeant Barnes. AKA the Winter Soldier. AKA the dude with the long-ish hair who had always tossed her sideways looks but never once spoke to her in the entire eight months they'd both been living at the compound. A hard feat to achieve, since they'd always crossed paths.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" he demanded, and Zora canted her chin up from staring at his chest only to meet his extremely irate gaze, his eyes the swirling blue only an ocean rampaged by a tempest could be. Her head tipped upwards further – since when was he as tall as Steve? – to look at him straight-on.

Another wheeze. It was starting to slow. "Uh, sorry?"

A tiny line appeared between the man's eyebrows. She hadn't even realized he had grabbed her by the biceps until he squeezed, just the slightest, the gentlest really, until she blinked and straightened out her thoughts. Being in the midst of a battle always made her a little blood-thirsty and high. "I said, what the hell did you think you were doing? You could've gotten yourself killed!"

Coming back to herself, Zora scoffed. She stepped away from him, forcing his hands to fall to his sides. "Me? Uh, I wasn't the one standing in the middle of nearly a dozen men in a tracksuit buddy!"

Barnes stared at her, blank and entirely intimidating. "I'm a supersoldier," he said, as if this made him as indestructible as some god, "and you're an agent. Never do that again."

Oh ho ho, did she have some words for this guy. She just came to his rescue and he couldn't even act a little bit thankful? He was lucky those spooky alarms were still going off, making the soft hairs on Zora's arms stand upright. Shaking her head at him, she pointed up and asked, "What's happening?"

Finally, that blank mask turned into a frown. "I thought you knew."

"I'm just an agent," Zora snapped at him. "Or have you forgotten?"

He scowled. "FRIDAY hasn't been responsive. Have you made contact with her?"

"No," Zora said, fighting to keep a level tone, because they were clearly in the midst of some crisis. And it was just the two of them. "Seems like the compound has gone dark. For those men to even get in here…" She trailed off, looking at the mess of bodies she and Barnes had added to Tony's interior décor.

Barnes shared her concern. "Yeah," he agreed. "It's bad." Then he grabbed her by the arm, yet again, and started dragging her towards the door like she was some annoying dog on a leash. "We need to get to the O and A building. Now."

Zora yanked her arm from his grasp and pulled back, affronted. Barnes, too, stopped, but looked back at her impatiently. "What?"

"O and A?" she questioned him. "Why? Seems to me like we need to get out of here."

"Yeah," he grit out. "But we gotta check O and A first. FRIDAY should still be operational in the war room. So quit whinin' and let's go."

Crossing her arms over her chest, she considered her options. Which were extremely limited. "Fine." She walked past him and into the hallway to collect her go-bag. "Lead the way, supersoldier."