Their first meetings sort of go like this.
The Winter Soldier is sent to kidnap a history teacher in training from her work placement. To be quite honest, he wasn't expecting the taser, but to be fair, he most certainly hesitated when he saw the red-white-and-blue Captain America satchel on her shoulder, giving her a good chance at getting him. The prongs connect on his shoulder, one on skin and the other metal – the electric shock disengages the nerve-endings and the arm deactivates. The last thing the Soldier sees before going down is Steve Roger smiling at him from under his cowl, pointing, the slogan above him saying buy bail bonds and the one beneath, they're a bullet in the barrel of your best guy's gun.
When the Soldier wakes, he expects to be in a cell, handcuffed at the very least. Instead, he's on a living room floor, tied to the stair banister. His metal arm is gone, his target poking around the insides and shrieking when something squirts blue hydraulic fluid up into the air. The Soldier, watches, waiting to be noticed. He can feel the after-effects of the tasering wearing off fast, now that he's awake.
The living room is small, but decorated nicely. Sparse and bare of personal belongings, except a red-white-and-blue Captain America throw that makes his eyes hurt. The book-shelf is mainly filled with – again – Captain America comics and merchandise, but the Soldier can pick out a few history texts, as well, mostly centred around the World Wars and – again – Captain America.
Something itches in his head, telling the Soldier that Captain America is just a rebellious little punk who can't get his shit together.
"Oh, you're awake!"
The Soldier looks back at the target. Philippa Coulson smiles with her lips squeezed together, like she can't contain her excitement.
"I always figured you survived, somehow, Sergeant Barnes."
The Soldier stays with Philippa. He hides in her home, avoiding the watchers his masters send to scope her out. Philippa was supposed to be kidnapped because, as the daughter of the Director of SHIELD and Hydra's own, Werner Reinhardt turned Daniel Whitehall, she could be used as leverage and or converted to Hydra's cause. When the Soldier told her this, Philippa was both surprised and upset, displaying no prior knowledge that she had been adopted.
"My dad was a SHIELD agent," she explains, wiping her eyes of tears. "I know Peggy, or I used to, I think. We stopped talking when she had to move away, for her job. Probably because she was promoted to Director. God, I'm so stupid."
"No," the Soldier intones quietly, disagreeing. "You aren't stupid. You recognised me for who I was, when I didn't."
Another month passes before his memories mostly return. In that time, James – James, James, not the Soldier, not Bucky, he's done too many terrible things to take up the mantle of Bucky Barnes again – spends more and more time with Philippa. They grow closer, even when James tries to divert that train of action. They work on his arm, disabling the tracking device – "Dad taught me a heap of stuff I barely remember, from his SHIELD training" – and disposing of the arm itself appropriately. They take it apart bit by bit, not leaving anything to chance. James keeps what remains of the poisons and the ammunition, staring at the red star emblazoned on each with a guilt that tears him to pieces inside.
Philippa is his anchor. When James can't think, drowning in memories of murder, arson and death, he looks at her, or a picture of her. He keeps her in his mind, thinking about her smile and her kindness.
Three months, four months. Six, nine, eleven-
Yelena holds a sharp garrotte around Philippa's throat on Valentine's day.
She's tied to a chair with a cut lip and a broken nose. Yelena tilts her head at him. James has a minimum of six knives on him at all times, but the gun hidden in the cupboard by the front door is disassembled on the kitchen counter. All the guns in the house are there, in fact. It surprises him to see an unfamiliar one in the centre, sleek and oiled well, despite its age. James guesses it was Robert Coulson's, once upon a time, before his death.
"Longing. Rusted. Furnace. Daybreak-" James can immediately feel himself begin to react, eyes widening. He goes to leap forwards but crumples as she continues, falling to the ground, calling out no as Yelena, his once-pupil, once-lover, once-partner breaks him. He screams for her to stop and Philippa calls his name, squirming under the rope binding her to the chair. "Seventeen. Benign. Nine. Homecoming. One. Freight car."
"Ready to comply," he says, eyes empty. He stands, straight and still. He can remember everything that has happened, knows that he is James Buchanan Barnes, but he can do nothing. He barely twitches as Yelena tightens the garotte a little, beginning the short and easy slice to open up Philippa's throat.
"Soldier, I am changing your command words."
"Authorisation required."
Yelena gives the right authorisation and gives him new words to remember – a string so long that in the depths of his mind, he wonders how Yelena will remember them all, even with her Black Widow serum. After his new words are established, the garotte is taken away from Philippa's neck.
"We will speak in English, for the sake of your friend," Yelena says, betraying nothing even as she smiles, baring the tips of her teeth. She saunters over to the sofa, dropping down on top of the abominable red-white-and-blue, picking up a familiar red book. She opens it, clearly showing him the pages as she writes, 'New command words given and received as of February 14th, 1984. New command words as followed: if you really believe I'm going to write them down here, then you are a complete idiot.'
"Protocol dictates new command words are the be accurately submitted into the logbook," he says.
"I was always bad at following rules," Yelena says and both James and the Soldier recognise her behaviour as unordinary and strange, especially for the Red Room's finest operative. "My apologies for reactivating your programming, but as you might shortly realise, it's unconducive to having trigger words. I'm still working on mine. It would be a lot easier with a partner."
The Soldier doesn't say anything, or move as Yelena goes to the kitchen, dropping the logbook into the sink and covering it in cooking oil. The part of him that is still James tilts his head. The Soldier knows that the logbook must be kept and the Black Widow's actions will allow the book to be burned and destroyed. The Soldier also knows, shortly, that the logbook will be obsolete. Without the correct trigger phrase, no-one will be able to activate him properly. The Soldier thinks about writing the sequence of words down, but…no. Nothing compromising should be written down outside of the logbook.
Yelena uses a match to set the book ablaze and opens the window in front of it, taking out the batteries for the fire alarm.
"James, James, talk to me," Philippa begs. The Soldier takes a moment to remember that she is referring to him. He looks at her, barely glancing, but somehow her gaze catches his and he's stuck, rooted. He looks at her face, feeling grounded for a sparse few seconds before Yelena moves again. The Soldier looks at her, refraining from looking at Philippa Coulson, his former target…why did I not follow my mission objective?
"Soldier, as of further notice, I'm relinquishing primary control to Philippa Coulson."
"You- you're what?" Philippa questions and the Soldier looks to her, taking initiative and helping his new handler out of her bonds, ignoring the Black Widow, but keeping an eye on her as is proper, when in the same room as a fellow operative – and when in the same room as a potential rebel. The Soldier, analysing the situation in his head, decides that until the Black Widow makes a move or his handler orders it, he will remain on guard instead of attacking the rogue assassin.
"Who are you?" Philippa asks as she rubs her wrists. Yelena tilts her head again, face blank but her eyes strangely emotional, from the Soldier's point of view. She is not assuming an identity or mirroring, he thinks, the genuine expression underneath her calm facade puzzling him. He unties the rope around his handlers legs, crouching before her.
The Soldier feels his own emotion like a wrecking ball to the chest, then, as he sees where her skirt has ridden up past her knees.
Showing her knees, dear Christ – James Buchanan, if I ever see you bringing a gal home like that, I will not hesitate to call her a scarlet gal to her face, he recalls his mother practically bellowing, voice so loud that the girl herself could hear across the street.
The Soldier looks up at her face less gracefully at that, not bothering to adjust his position for an optimal viewpoint. Philippa Coulson is listening to Yelena as she introduces herself, explaining her previous allegiances and purpose here – to save James from being returned to a memory-blank, cryogenic state and used by the people she's finally learned after forty years are not who she should be aligning herself with.
To be honest, their first meetings could have gone a lot worse.
Philippa gets used to travelling. Philippa gets used to changing identities every few days, exchanging accents, appearances and personalities like a hat. Yelena is quick to teach her everything she can about espionage. James focuses more on the combat side and other things like how to drive varying sizes of vehicle.
They have to keep moving, apparently. Philippa understands, mostly. The fact that the only reason Yelena can give her for not just living like she and James had been for the last near-year, is that she's Peggy Carter and Daniel Whitehall's daughter, barely keeps her at bay, sometimes. Philippa was normal – she had a life and a house to keep with no overbearing mortgage or set of loans to pay off and dammit, she really had wanted to be a history professor, one day. But James and Yelena's safety is more important than her dream.
Most of their safe-houses are in Europe, a 'nice middle ground' according to Yelena. James says that most singularly Hydra bases are in Europe. When they blow the first one up…so what if Philippa gets a rush from killing leftover Nazis? Nazis are bad, Hydra doubly-so, except with less influence. Or maybe more influence. There are a lot of Hydra bases. It concerns Philippa enough that she debates the merits of contacting some sort of international agency like SHIELD, but not SHIELD.
(SHIELD is compromised. Philippa had to stall Yelena and James for days, sometimes, just so she could find out if their supposed Hydra base had any innocent SHIELD employees inside – because no way, after growing up with Robert Coulson and Peggy Carter, does Philippa not recognise the SHIELD emblem. She saves dozens of lives, curbing the more murderous tendencies of her fellows.
How could it have only been two months?)
"I miss my comic-book collection," she mutters into James' chest as she curls into him. Her friend, back to his normal self – nearly – chuckles a little.
"Why? You've got the real deal right here. I might not be Captain America's pint-sized side-kick, but I was actually there during most of the raids those comics are based off. I'd've thought the history nerd in you would appreciate that."
"Shut up," Philippa grumbles, playing with the button of his shirt. He'd been undercover that day as a college graduate looking for a job. He's still wearing his cheap, new prosthetic arm underneath. The button of his shirt comes undone by accident, her hand slipping onto skin. She pauses as he stills, before retreating hastily.
His hand grabs hers.
"You know, this last year…" James starts suddenly, voice wavering. Philippa looks up at his face, seeing the nervousness there and thinks, oh before she climbs onto his lap and kisses him. He kisses her back and Yelena makes a noise of interest.
"Are you going to have sex? May I watch?"
"You can either fuck off or join in," Philippa says after pulling away from James' searching lips, feeling more brazen than she's ever felt in her life, her confidence soaring through the roof. Yelena stares at her for a few moments, stunned before a feral grin takes over her face. The blonde woman comes over to the couch, climbing so that her thighs cinch around one of Philippa's, knees resting on James beneath them.
Philippa had never kissed a woman until then. She'd never been eaten out, either. In retrospect, her only mistake that night was assuming her IUD worked on super-soldier sperm.
"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap, crap." Philippa rings her hands, sitting down on the toilet-seat, staring at the test. "This can't be real. I can't be pregnant. We've literally had penetrative sex twice in the last month and a half. Twice – I have an IUD, as well."
"You've got to get it taken out," Yelena immediately says, voice frank but wavering as she sits on the edge of the bathtub. Philippa swallows, nodding. "Unless you want to abort it."
"No," Philippa and James say at the same time, looking at each other in surprise. Yelena sighs.
"I will work on getting us some more long-term covers. Hopefully, they will withstand scrutiny."
"What if I returned to being Philippa Coulson?" Philippa questions.
"Out of the question," James says in the doorway, crossing his arms. "It's too dangerous to draw that kind of attention. It wouldn't be safe normally and just blatantly displaying your pregnancy would give us away later, if we had to run."
"Just to be clear," Yelena begins, cutting in, "Philippa, are you going to change your mind at a later date? Are you keeping this child – raising it?"
"I…I mean, I suppose so." Philippa falls silent, thinking about it. Strangely, a smile appears on her face. I'm going to be a mom.
"Yes, well," Yelena purses her lips, seemingly unhappy with Philippa's I suppose so. "You need to make a firm decision. Quickly. Our old handlers will kill whoever is unlucky enough to fall in front of them on their way to get a single hand on our offspring, if they are discovered."
Philippa's smile disappears.
Three months later, in the high heat of July, Yelena is in the middle of establishing the second of their 'long-term covers' – "You call three months 'long-term'?" – in Austria when she spots someone tailing her. She sends James a message, telling them both to hide.
"She'll find us," James promises Philippa, when they settle in Brazil, in the middle of the rainforest. They survive off fruit and the occasional predator that James deals with, roasting it over a spit. It's not the kind of conditions Philippa had hoped to deal with, while pregnant.
"If she can find us, so can others, though."
They stay in Brazil for two weeks, before James gets bitten by a scorpion with a sting so sharp even he, the resident super-soldier, has trouble staying alive long enough to get an antidote.
"We can't stay here," Philippa states after receiving a message from Yelena – they know where you are. "Come on, come on."
James is still very weak when Philippa reuses a set of identities, chartering a boat to Russia. Then, she flies them to Tokyo, then Sidney and then Prague. James has to snap the necks of two Hydra agents that try to set up a sniper's nest opposite their motel.
"I wish Yelena were here," she mutters after he's disposed of their bodies. Her hands clutch her belly and she thinks of her own mother, Julia, carrying h- "Oh." She stops still, eyes widening. "James?"
"What?" he questions, towelling his face dry.
"I've had an idea."
It takes some time for him to agree – three weeks and as many different countries. Philippa steers them towards Ireland, eventually and faced with the great Atlantic and Philippa's pleading face, hand resting on her seven-month stomach – slightly blatant manipulation on her part, but she's gotten used to acting the part, for their combined purposes – James concedes.
The first thing they do is go back to America, all the way to Wisconsin to Philippa's home. It sits unattended, with police tape on the door. James says that there's a new family across the road and Philippa believes him, not wanting to deal with anyone else right now. She sits on her sofa, on top of her Captain America throw, only now realising after ten months away how luridly coloured it is.
Her house is the same. There's a bit more dust everywhere and what ash remains in the sink has lines in it – like someone swabbed at it. The chair Yelena had tied her up in is up against the staircase, the rope gone. Probably being held as evidence that someone kidnapped me, she thinks, looking at the little dots on her coffee table from nearly two years ago, when she first spilled the hydraulic fluid from James' bionic arm.
They make coffee and get settled in a little. Not too much – Philippa doesn't know what will happen and she doesn't want to get used to it all again, not wanting to sink back into the life she once had. Eventually, the door opens, admitting three suits of varying description. The leading suit is black and bald, with a nice moustache, his fellow's blonde and brunette respectively, one with a receding hairline.
"It's considered polite to knock in most countries," Philippa says, sipping her coffee, still slightly surprised she had decaf in her cupboards. The leading suit glances at her rounded stomach, frowning deeply.
"Miss Coulson, ten months ago you were reported missing."
"I was. Tell me who you are?" Philippa says, before taking out her gun from her jacket, putting down her coffee as she trains it at them, just like James taught her – he himself taking out his own gun in sync with her. Immediately the three suits arm themselves as well. "I'm waiting."
"We're from the FBI," the leading suit says.
"Try again," Philippa takes the safety off, taking note of how James already had his off. You have no sense for the dramatic, she thinks in his direction. "My dad was a SHIELD agent. I'm pretty damn aware of the infiltration in that agency, too."
"Infiltration?" the leading suit narrows his eyes. "What infiltration? And how do you know about SHIELD? Agents aren't supposed to tell their families."
"Well, obviously someone didn't do their research," Philippa replies, before nodding at him. "Badges please, on the coffee table."
"It's three against two," he says.
A laugh comes from the staircase, Yelena making her way down with two glocks aimed at the suits. Philippa immediately perks up, smiling widely.
"You're here!"
"I've been here ever since before you made coffee, sweetie," Yelena replies as she comes to settle one gun on the head of the blonde suit, the other aimed at his leader. "Our big boy just didn't want to ruin the surprise."
"James!" Philippa looks at him in surprise. "Why didn't you tell me she was here?"
"Surprise," he mutters.
"What is this, some kind of reunion?" the leading agent grunts, glaring at Philippa as Yelena puts a gun away, reaching inside the blonde suit's jacket, withdrawing an ID. She flips it open, showing off the SHIELD logo. "Happy?"
"Moderately. We need you to get a message to the Director. It's quite urgent, actually and it has to be secret, kept between the three of you and the Director."
"I don't exactly have the kind of authority to get a private room," the leading agent says, before Yelena puts the blonde suit's ID back, walking backwards to join James and Philippa. He reaches into his suit, drawing out his own ID, flipping it open. "Agent Fury, Level Five, of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. These are agents Todd and Ryans."
"Nice to meet you, Agent Fury, Agent Todd, Agent Ryans," Philippa lowers her gun, clicking on the safety. Fury lowers his too, slowly, his agents and then the rest of the room following after a few more seconds. "Now, if you don't mind, I need you to phone my mother."
"Your what now?"
"My mother – Director Peggy Carter. I need to call in a favour."
It takes less than three days before a car, driven by Agent Fury, comes to collect them after a hurried call cut off by a flying knife to the phone cord. He's just in time to help them escape, tires screeching as shots ring out from the remaining two Hydra agents left in their dust. Agent Fury escorts them all the way from Manitowoc to DC, avoiding various Hydra attacks and attempted kidnappings. They only get caught unawares once, when someone tries to activate Yelena's programming in the middle of an emergency Target-run. Philippa shoots the Hydra agent in the head.
Philippa is very attached to her gun by the end of their road-trip.
"Back entrance," Agent Fury grunts as they park in the private underground parking lot. Philippa tries not to be too impressed by the Aston Martin they pull up beside. "That's Howard Stark's."
"He's here?" James questions, pausing.
"Yeah," Agent Fury wastes no time leading them into SHIELD HQ, Yelena taking up the rear. Eventually, they find themselves outside an office labelled DIRECTOR CARTER.
"She's in there?" Philippa asks, so very nervous all of a sudden. What if this was all a big mistake? What if she's called us here because she's Hydra? Philippa hopes the latter one isn't true more than she does the former, guided by her morals and ethics rather than personal reasons. If the Director of SHIELD is Hydra, we're all doomed.
Agent Fury answers her question by knocking, opening the door at the faint come in. At her desk, Philippa sees her – Peggy Carter in all her glory. Her hair is greying, but her eyes are still sharp as she looks over at them.
Philippa pretends not to see James tugging his hat down in front of his face, though she does wonder at Yelena's identical motion, as well.
"Philippa," Peggy breathes. "Come in – please."
Philippa enters, noticing Howard Stark standing by the window and another man with yellow-blonde hair that smiles at Agent Fury.
"So this is your sprog," Stark says gruffly, smoking a cigar. "She's got her own on the way."
"I think I remember you better now," James mutters humorously. "Rude, arrogant and completely disrespectful of women."
"And when have we met?" Stark questions. "And as a matter of fact, who are your friends here, Carter Junior?"
"It's Coulson," Philippa says, before beginning her delicate introductions. "My friends are complicated. Both were taken by the Russians some years ago and brainwashed to suit their needs. Experimented on."
"That's terrible," Peggy narrows her eyes at Yelena and James. "And their identities?"
"Well, sugar," Yelena starts in a voice dripping with sweet. She takes off her hat, smirking. "I'm not called Dottie anymore, that's for sure." Peggy takes out a gun, aiming it at Yelena.
"Hey! She's here for asylum!" Philippa moves to stand in front of her, taking her hand and squeezing extra, painfully tight because that was not what they planned to do! "Her name's Yelena Belova."
"I know who she is – she worked for Leviathan, back in the day. I must say, you've aged well," Peggy says.
"Oh, not as well as you, Peg," Yelena jokes, grinning.
"Shut the hell up, Yelena," Philippa hisses.
"Do you kiss your mother with that mouth, Miss Coulson? Because I know I do," Yelena laughs at her own joke, even as Philippa wrinkles her nose up.
"You've kissed my mother?"
"It was so I could drug her, don't worry, it was nothing personal," Yelena brushes it off, lightly pushing Philippa out of the line of fire, twisting them around. "Now, stop standing in front of armed folk for me, sweetie. We're supposed to take care of you, not the other way around."
Philippa glances at her mother, who frowns briefly. Swallowing, Philippa decides to let James deal with his own issues and reaches over, tipping off his hat. It takes a few seconds.
"Bucky Barnes," Stark's cigar drops out of his mouth.
"I prefer James, nowadays," James mutters, before doing a proper sweep of the room, which his hat had made him avoid doing. His eyes stop on the third, blonde man. All the colour in James' face drains. "You."
"Me?" he raises an eyebrow. "Recognise me? Am I that famous?" He jokes, but Philippa sees Yelena suddenly scrutinising him, gasping a few moments later as something clicks.
"Pierce!"
Philippa doesn't know much of what happens next, mainly because Agent Fury knocks her out with the butt of his gun while James and Yelena succeed in killing a man who apparently runs the hidden Hydra regime. That takes a lot of explanation and Stark certainly swears a lot, Agent Fury silent for a long time until he gives a biting apology to Philippa for knocking her out.
"This is fucked up," Philippa mutters afterwards in Peggy's chair, letting her mother attend to her head while Stark interrogates Yelena and James, making both a battleplan and a birthing plan. "And he's on this council thing?"
"Indeed," Peggy says, before attaching a large plaster to her head. "That should do it. Agent Fury is too good at his job, sometimes."
"I'll be fine." Philippa says, wincing as a sharp lance of pain flares through her abdomen.
"Are you alright?" Peggy questions worriedly.
"Braxton hicks, maybe, I don't know. I'm not due until November." Philippa stills as Peggy runs a hand of her head, pulling a free, chocolate-brown lock of hair back behind her ear. "I look like you, you know. It was weird when I realised – I always thought I looked like- like Julia."
"Julia was your mother," Peggy says quietly, before shakily getting to her feet. Philippa winces at the realisation that she had been crouching that entire time. She's an old woman. In heels. "Does it sit well with you? That I birthed you?"
"Well, it sort of got the Winter Soldier on my ass, but I think that turned out for the better. I mean, I'm pregnant, which I didn't think would happen for a while. Or ever, when I think about it. I wanted to be a history teacher, in a high school, I think."
"A more honest life than mine."
Philippa wants to speak so badly to this woman, but there's really nothing – nothing at all – that she wants to say. She was happy being the daughter of Robert and Julia Coulson. Having another mother doesn't invalidate her life with them.
"Come for dinner, sometime? When I'm in hiding, I mean, if you can."
"Of course."
They're settled in Alaska before October starts and then…time progresses. James worries about the safety of a home-birth, Yelena nit-picking Stark and Peggy's choice in midwife. Philippa almost doesn't tell them when labour starts, but of course, they're superspies – they notice it before she does. At eleven in the morning on the twenty-fourth of November, nineteen eighty-four, their daughter is born.
"Natalia," Yelena picks that name out of thin air, after they realise they haven't thought of names once at any time during Philippa's pregnancy.
"Natalia Rebecca," James adds.
"After your sister?" Philippa asks, receiving a nod. "I like it. Natalia Rebecca Coulson. I hate to ask what her undercover name is, in case of emergency."
"Julia. Julia Carter." Yelena curls up into Philippa's side, shifting the weight of Natalia's small, bundled form between their legs. Philippa looks at Yelena in a moment of speechlessness, before kissing her, right as her mother comes in the room – not that she sees, until after the kiss is done. Peggy stands awkwardly with chocolates, flowers and a card in the doorway.
"Ah," Philippa starts, before her mother surprises her.
"I have a girlfriend."
"Peggy Carter has a girlfriend?" Yelena twists her head around to stare at her. "No, let me guess, that cute little hustler mobster's daughter of a barista? She can beat me at a game of pool."
Peggy swallows. "The very same. Her name is Angie. She- she's outside."
"Bring her in," Philippa smiles at her mother. "It's her granddaughter too." Peggy's brief ecstatic look before she twists, opening the door to call for her Angie, is one Philippa will gladly treasure for the rest of her years.