So, it seems I've done it again. I know I shouldn't start a new story when I need to finish the ones I already have, but this one's been chasing me around for months and I've finally given in.
This one's a Bucky/OC fanfiction - Most of you would have guessed that from the title. I do hope you like the story - my idea is from a dream that haunts me almost every night that it's driven me to write it. I'm actually enjoying it at the moment and it's less of a chore and more for fun that I'm writing.
Sometimes I feel like I have to write a new chapter frequently to keep my readers happy, but for most of my fanfictions, I actually write them because I couldn't find the story I'm writing on fanfiction to read and felt obliged to write it so I can read it - does anyone else do that?
Right, I'mblabbingg now. Bucky isn't in the story till the next chapter but it's going to be a couple of chapter before any Bucky-Oc interaction so please be patient with me.
Please enjoy xx
"Can you explain to me why I'm here?" I asked, looking at the two people in front of me.
I knew them, I had known them for a couple of years now, but I never suspected they'd kidnap and hold me against my will.
"Look, Effie, we need your help," the man started only to be cut off by my snort.
"If you need my help, Steve, why am I tied up?" I asked him, finding it hard to believe that Captain America needed my help. Actually, it wasn't too hard to believe considering who my father was, but I never thought Captain freaking America would kidnap and tie me up.
"That's my doing," Natasha said, crouching in front of me and untying my legs. "I didn't know if we could trust you."
"Because of the whole Hydra thing," I said, knowing that's why she'd be freaking out.
"How do you know about that?" they both asked, growing tense as they glanced at each other. I rolled my eyes and would have smacked myself in the face if my hands were free.
"I work for Maria, remember?" I said, supplying them with my answer. Though, to be honest, Maria would never tell me anything about Hydra being Shield. I figured that out on my own.
"Yeah, but I doubt she knew anything about it until Fury found out," Nat replied, looking at me with her suspicious eyes. It was always so hard for her to be trusting. "How did you know?"
"Maria called me on Thursday, she said we were going to meet Nick at a rendezvous point, but neither of them turned up. I figured something was wrong, so I tried calling them. There was no answer, so I hacked into the system and ended up hitting a firewall," I explained hoping it would be enough for them to understand. Nat seemed to get me, but Steve was looking confused.
"You broke down the system from the inside and discovered Hydra in control," Nat continued, and Steve nodded as if it made sense. "What else did you see?"
"Something about, umm, what was it," I hissed closing my eyes and trying to remember the coding I saw. My fingers tapped on the arms of the chairs as I went over the algorithm I had used to break down the firewall. "Project Insight," I told them as the plans became clear in my mind. I opened my eyes seeing the uneasy looks on their faces.
"What can you tell us about Project Insight?" Steve asked, a stern look crossing his face.
"If you untie me I can show you. I've had Frankie decoding and copying everything on the system since Thursday," I said, nodding to the laptop on the bed.
"Who's Frankie?" Steve asked, looking around the room as if waiting for someone to step out.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Captain Rogers," a smooth, female, Irish voice said from my phone on the bed. Steve widened his eyes a little before glancing at Nat.
"She's my version of Jarvis," I explained, giving Nat a smirk as she rolled her eyes. "She does everything for me. Frankie, can you show us everything on Project Insight, please."
"Of course, Miss Stark, obtaining everything on Project Insight," Frankie said, and images blew up from my phone projecting around the hotel room.
"I can show you what I've found if you untie me," I muttered looking between them both. Nat scoffed rising to her feet and walking over to one of the holograms.
"You untied yourself three minutes ago," she muttered, her focus on the hologram of three helicarriers.
Steve looked at me and lowered his hands to the binding at my wrist to find that I had untied myself. I gave him a cheeky smile and made my way to Natasha.
"You do know what that is right?" I asked, pointing to a screen that was covering America in red spots until almost half of it was covered in red.
"I'm guessing we're not going to like the answer," Steve supplied as he joined us.
"You're not and when I tell you, you're going to want to find someone who can help us."
"You're going to help?" Steve asked, surprise coating his face as his nose wrinkled in confusion.
"You need my help and I'm going to give it to you. Though I would prefer it if there was someone that could help us," I grumbled, pulling my hair into a ponytail as I moved away from them and started packing my things into my backpack.
"I think I know someone," Steve said, exchanging a look with Nat before turning to face me. I nodded, grabbing my laptop and shoving it into my pack before picking up my phone. The holograms disappeared, and I glanced down at my phone, seeing a message from Frankie.
Comms online.
"Here," I said as I fumbled with my pack and pulled out a silver case the size of my hand. I unzipped it, revealing a dozen comms, similar to the ones they've used before, only smaller. "I've been working on these for a while, Frankie's installed online if you need to ask her anything she'll reply, and we can stay in contact as well." I handed them a comm each before slipping one in my ear. Giving them a smile, I tapped my phone, sending Frankie a thumbs up in reply. "They're undetectable to the human eye when implanted."
"It's an honour working with you, Captain," Frankie said, alerting Steve and Natasha that she was online and ready to comply.
"Shall we head out?" I asked, pulling on my jacket and slipping my bag over my shoulder.
Steve was driving my car as he was the only one that knew where we were going. Nat was leaning against the passenger door, her body was facing Steve, but she was looking at me as I pulled out my tablet and pulled up the files. I handed the tablet to her as I pulled out my phone flicking through the same files Nat was.
"How did you find me?" I asked, glancing at Nat before flicking my eyes back to my phone. Frankie was hacking into the Shield files – should I still call them Shield? Perhaps I should just refer to them as Hydra?
"I know your hideouts, it didn't take me long find you," Nat said, keeping her eyes on the tablet.
"We saw you entering your room after coming back from the vending machine," Steve added, a smile on his lips as he shared another look with Nat.
If I didn't know better, I would have thought there was something going on with them, but I knew it was because they thought they only had each other to rely on.
"I'll remember that for next time," I mumbled, glancing up when Steve came to a stop. We were on a busy street and Steve was parking in a grocery store car park, so I assumed we'd be walking the rest of the way to wherever it was we were going.
"Are you sure we can trust this guy?" Nat asked, and I was sure she knew who Steve was taking us to.
"I wouldn't take us there if I didn't trust him," Steve replied, pulling my keys out of the engine. "Are you ready? We'll have to dodge the cameras." I glanced out the window flicking my eyes between all the cameras on the street.
"I can solve that for us," I said, taking the tablet from Nat as she passed it back to me. "Frankie, Operation Clean-Up," I said to her, giving Nat a small smile.
"Operation Clean-Up? Do I even want to know?" Steve asked as we climbed out of the car. He locked it and tossed me the keys.
"I like to stay off the grid, Frankie cleans up all the cameras I can be spotted on, keeps Hydra off my back," I said, slinging my pack over my shoulder following Steve down a side street that led to a nice looking neighborhood.
"It also keeps Tony off her back," Nat added, rolling her eyes as I shot her a shocked look. How did she know about that?
"Yeah, my dad can be kind of annoying at times. I don't need him following me around everywhere because he's worried something will happen," I grumbled, shrugging my shoulders at the look Steve shot me.
"He seems to care about you," he said, a curious look on his face.
"Of course, he cares about me, he's my dad, but I'm nearly twenty-two, I don't need him constantly following me."
"It's good to have someone watching out for you," Steve said, exchanging a look with Nat before taking us around the back of some houses. With the way he was constantly looking at her I was changing my mind about them having a thing together.
"Whatever you say, Captain," I muttered, rolling my eyes. I guess he didn't know what it was like having an overbearing father.
We came up to a glass backdoor and Steve knocked, glancing around to make sure no one was watching. I hope I didn't become as paranoid as these two, I felt I was paranoid enough as it was.
The door slide opened revealing someone I was familiar with. It had been a couple of weeks since I saw him, and it was accidental that I first met him after hacking into the VA files after reading about him in a Shield file. He peeked my interest and I wanted to find out more. I ended up bumping into him while spying on him at one of his meetings.
"Hey man," Sam said, his eyes flashed between us all, a confused look on his face.
"I'm sorry about this, we need a place to lay low," Steve said, a regretful look on his face.
"Everyone we know is trying to kill us," Nat added, and even though I couldn't see her face I knew she was probably giving him puppy dog eyes.
"Not everyone." Sam opened the door which Steve took as an invitation to enter.
"Long time no see, Short Stack," Sam greeted when Steve and Nat went off to clean up. I smiled at him, shaking my head at his nickname.
"I missed you too, Sammie," I laughed bringing him into a hug. He pulled back, his hands resting on my shoulders as he frowned at me. Oh God, was he giving me the disproving older brother look?
"Is this what you've been doing? Hanging out with Captain America and getting yourself on the most wanted list?" he asked, moving away from me and pulling a newspaper from his breakfast bar.
I took the newspaper from him and looked at the front cover where a large picture of Steve was plastered on the front. The words fugitive where massive under his photo.
Saturday 11th, January 2014 – Captain America a fugitive to the USA. Extremely dangerous.
"Huh, would you look at that," I muttered, smiling at the look on Sam's face. "Okay, maybe this isn't something to laugh at." I paused glancing at the bedroom door where I could hear Nat and Steve talking. "We're gonna need your help Bird Boy."
I was waiting on the roof for Steve and Natasha to appear with Sitwell. I wasn't one for the big dramatic introductions, so I thought I'd just hang back. I was on the last round of my crossword game when Steve kicked Sitwell through the door, the man stumbling back and falling to the floor as he tried to get away from the two ex-Shield agents.
I followed behind them as they backed Sitwell to the edge of the roof, and I felt a little guilty pleasure at the scared look on his face. Steve said something to him, but the look of horror on Sitwell's face was too amusing to be paying attention to Steve – plus I was sure I already knew what Steve was saying.
"Is this little display meant to insinuate that you're gonna throw me off the roof?" Sitwell asked, a smirk on his face. Oh, he would not be smug about this if he knew what was about to happen. "'Cause it's really not your style, Rogers."
"You're right," Steve replied, taking his hands off Sitwell. "It's hers," he added and quickly moved to the side as Natasha kicked him off the roof.
Sitwell's scream made me chuckle which caused Steve to frown at me. I think he was worse than my dad, always seemed so disapproving of something.
"Wait. What about that girl from Accounting, Laura … Lisa—"
"Lillian. Lip piercing, right?" Steve cut her off obviously knowing who Nat was going on about. Everyone knew Lillian from accounting. She had a massive crush on Steve.
"Yeah, she's cute," Nat said, giving him a smile as he looked to be thinking it over.
"I'm not sure he'd go for her," I mumbled, ignoring the fact that they were ignoring me.
"Yeah. I'm not ready for that," Steve said, glancing over to the edge of the roof as we could hear Sitwell as Sam flew him up.
"Told you," I said to Nat as Sam dropped Sitwell in the middle of the roof. Steve made his way to Sitwell, Nat flanking him on his right and me on his left. I hadn't done much fieldwork, but this seemed a hell of a lot more fun than some of the missions I'd read. I was waiting for the pain that was due to come.
"Zola's algorithm is a program … for choosing Insight's targets," Sitwell said, raising his hand up to stop Steve from hurting him.
"What targets?" Steve asked, his jaw clenched tight. We kind of knew what targets considering I hacked into the database. Well, we sort of knew, it didn't actually tell us who they were targeting.
"You!" that was obvious. "A TV anchor in Cairo, the Under Secretary of Defence, a high school valedictorian in Iowa City, Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange, anyone who's a threat to Hydra. Now, or in the future." In the future? What was that meant to mean? I shared an uncertain look with Sam, unsure of what Sitwell was getting at. None of this was on the data I hacked.
"In the future? How could it know?"
"How could it not? The 21st century is a digital book. Zola taught Hydra how to read it." He was definitely sounding smug now. I wanted to punch him in the face. "Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, your damn SAT scores!" Defo a little bit smug. Would Steve notice if I hit him? "Zola's algorithm evaluates people's past to predict their future.
"And what then?" Sitwell ignored him, a look of pure shock on his face as he realized what he just told us.
"Oh, my God. Pierce is gonna kill me." Yeah, well Pierce is gonna have to get in line, buddy.
"What then?" Steve pressed, and I was really considering hitting Sitwell. Perhaps Steve would see it as me helping him get the truth.
"Then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time."
Wow. Was not expecting that. Well, considering I saw the map of Project Insight I was expecting it, I just wasn't expecting it to be real. And neither was Natasha as she bit her lip in what I think looked like defeat.
This wasn't going to plan.
Thank you for reading xx