Chapter 2
"Isabella... Just Isabella or?"
"Bella for short, but no one uses my old nickname anymore. I believe that what you are asking is my last name..?" Bucky nodded. " Everyone has family, or had. I have none and myself, I've been dead for years. Isabella is the most accurate of who I am. It is my real name and the name you will never be permitted to use in public."
Bucky didn't sense hostility coming from her which unnerved him. If she wanted to kill him Bucky wouldn't now be trying to understand riddles. He noted Isabella is a beautiful woman, although her face ruined, not what is deemed standard beauty, but with lovely features. She sparked an interest in him. He heard her before he saw her, she talked to the woman in the hall and though she didn't raise her voice, she was demanding and authoritative. Bucky wasn't fooled easily; Isabella may appear casual now, but she picked her words with caution and masked stiffness of her speech with a generous smile showing her perfect, pearly, fake teeth.
"It is nice to meet you." It was courtesy.
"I doubt. I made you impatient, but otherwise no." She spoke with an accent, funny sounding British one.
"Your accent?" By asking her that Bucky hoped to learn more about her. What is she?
"Fake as my hair color."
Isabella was a straightforward or brilliant liar. When she spoke again, it was flat, less forced, but still unnatural. One couldn't see her as someone who comes from the same place as common people, she was a stranger, someone who doesn't belong anywhere. Bucky wondered for a while if she is an alien, but she didn't look like anything special. Just one ordinary human living in a big luxury house with enough money to feed fifty guards that protected her house
"Why am I here?"
"I have no quarrel with you, James." He wasn't called by his name for what it felt like a century, it wasn't far from the truth as it was only few decades difference. "Lady Sigyn informs me she managed to get you out before others did. Those people who were coming for you did not plan to take you alive."
"That is not exactly a surprise, but what make you better than them? Why should I trust you? You seem to know all about me, but I know nothing about you."
"You've seen hell and so did I. Mine is different that yours and I did not come out of it as a victim. You did."
What kind of hell leaves no visible trace on you? Bucky lost his arm and he couldn't hide it, Isabella sported an ugly scar from lips to ear. Bucky suffered brainwash over and over again, but what happened to Isabella? The scar on the face is here, but what more? Isabella wore yellow turtleneck dress, she was to be covered from head to toe, even wearing gloves though it wasn't chilly in the office. Sitting behind mahogany desk wasn't a woman who gave up after life screwed her over.
"Secrecy in this house is a sign of loyalty, but I am here now. I don't keep secrets, of course I don't give it all on silver plate and that is why you need to think good about questions you ask me." There is always a way around it... "We haven't crossed paths before, I know of you because I know Steve. You will get to know me and you will learn I am worse than anyone you ever meet, but you will learn to deal with it."
"What do you do?"
"Everything I do is connected to my personal gain."
"Is this why I am here? Because you need a hitman?"
Bucky Barnes has an impressive career as Winter Soldier as Isabella read in his file. Killing a man through the stomach of agent Romanoff is something she would pay to see in person. Terrorist attacks, various murders across decades, even the speculation that he killed Ironman's parents... It was brilliant in Isabella's eyes. For everybody else the file was working against him and there really is no confusion to why someone would order to take him out. Take out as kill him, not take out for dinner. Maybe take out for dinner and kill him after hot date.
"You claimed not to do that anymore." Why did she smile? "It is for my personal gain, but James, I won't ask you to kill for me. I am no stranger to the dirty work."
"Why then?"
"The war is coming and I want to save as many people as I can. I can't save everyone or should I say I won't try to. You noticed, the world is bizarre these days and I am just helping with my participation."
"If I figured this correctly; You are offering to be my guardian angel."
"In a way. People in this house are not ordinary. They all need protection as you do. I want more from you. You will be safe with me, but I need to be safe with you."
"Is this connected to Steve?"
"You two go together till the end of the line so partly it is, but I am not trying to cause Captain damage."
"But you are trying to hurt somebody." An accusation didn't upset her." You allowed me to see all weapons in these houses and are all made by Stark."
"So is the gun you have in your boot." She knows everything. "Those are all for security reasons."If her engine of her car dies off there is always tank in the garage to take her around. "My connection with Stark are money and arms, both I stole from him."
"Safest hands are still unarmed."
"You don't trust me yet, but you will."
"Not if you don't explain who you are and what this all is."
"I am tired." She yawned. "There is my file which you are free to read." She pulled it out of the drawer and placed it before him. "Ask me or google me."
Review.
Isabella. How do you like her?
Nods to Civil War.
