A/N: I am really sorry about abandoning you all temporarily, I've just been non-stop studying then I did the exams then I had a volunteer week and just, they threw everything they possible could at me, Just ignore me while I ache all over from boxercise in PE. Anyway, shiz gets real in this chapter, won't get too wordy at the start, so here's part 4, enjoy the fun.

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing and I am dying in the Australian heat.


An Agent and An Assassin

Part 4: To Catch A Thief

"They have got to stop kidnapping us." Mary said in a quiet voice, as she awoke from her induced coma. "No, we can't be…"

"Can't be where?" Bucky asked, she raised a brow, mentally asking him if his hangover was alright. She guessed he understood as he nodded and pointed to his bottle of water and a convenient alka-seltzer beside him.

"I know this place, I grew up near here. My old school's not that far away." She said in a far-off voice before she realised that they were not on a plane, but in a car in a car park. Wow, wasn't she a lightweight when it came to drinking.

"Your royal highness." A familiar voice said as he opened the door. Mary also realised that she was in normal clothing and not her cosplay that she haphazardly threw together. Hey, it worked though.

"You son of a bitch!" Mary seethed, as she exited the car, staring the agent in the face.

"You know him?" Bucky asked as he exited the car through the opposite door. Mary stared at the agent, reacquainting herself with his slim and tall build, his ridiculously curly hair and that stupid grin.

"George Demetriou. Friend of mine, dated his brother for a bit."

"The one and only. Lovely to see you again, Mary." Mary dropped all anger, as the pair laughed and she was pulled into one of his trademark bear hugs.

"How's your brother?"

"He's moved on." George smiled. "Pleasure to meet you, Agent Barnes. Huge fan by the way."

"Pleasure to meet you too." Mary watched as Bucky took his hand, slightly noting the civil tone he took and the lingering feeling of resentment. "Why are we here?"

"Because I don't work for ASIO, per se." George answered coolly, motioning for them to follow him to the other side of the car park. Mary stopped for a moment, he did just state that he didn't work for ASIO.

"Oh I love you." Bucky said quietly, as Mary found herself being handed the keys to a retro Volkswagen Kombi, beautifully finished with chrome details and leather seats.

"It's also got all the modern toys for you, now here's where it gets better." George slid open the door of the Kombi, where there were multiple computer monitors and technology to hack into anything they could have ever wanted. "Also, cloaking device on both of them."

"Both of them?" They asked simultaneously. Mary noticed the customised smiley-face button on the key set, pressing it, a camper-trailer was revealed.

"Oh shit yes!" Mary said in absolute disbelief, running towards the door, also noticing their suitcases neatly piled next to it. "Has it got a kitchen and bathroom though?"

"Oh yeah, because personal experience says you are high maintenance."

"Bitch please, your brother was horrible when me and the guys all stayed at the snow. He stacked it so bad downhill. You should've seen his face-"

"Calm down girls, so if you don't work for ASIO, who do you work for?" Bucky asked, Mary turned around, questioning that as well.

"SHIELD." George said simply and on-cue the door of the trailer opened. Out stepped Agent Sam Wilson of SHIELD, and definitely not dead.

"Called it."


"So you're telling me that SHIELD's not gone?" Mary clarified for the last time, as they all sat together in the cramped trailer. George didn't lie, it had everything they could've ever wanted.

"No, we had to make it look like it. As of right now, you two don't even exist."

"Why are you even here though?" Mary asked again, her questions coming in like rapid fire. So she'd just learned alcohol impeded her abilities, which was probably both a blessing and a curse at the same time.

"Because your SO named me your temporary guardian angel. There are literally only 50 people at SHIELD right now, most of them got laid off or voluntarily left. For your sake, you were listed as dead."

"What about me?" Bucky asked, finally breaking his silence.

"You were never mentioned in our asset list in the first place. Holmes made a smart move and removed your name from the list the moment she got promoted."

"That smart fucker." Mary muttered under her breath. "So how come you're debriefing me. I literally negotiated rather than got a debrief yesterday."

"ASIO's going to fall too, aren't they?" Bucky said from beside her, Mary re-thought everything through and watched it all fall into place. There was a reason why Director General Rose was on tenterhooks and a reason why she was so hesitant half the time.

"From within, Hydra again."

"Getting a bit boring, isn't it?" George piped up sarcastically.

"Oh yeah, that reminds me, how come your badge says ASIO, not SHIELD?"

"I unofficially work for SHIELD, ASIO thinks I work for them. Not that hard, our point is we heavy suspect someone is trying to bring ASIO down from the inside."

"So you want us to…"

"Solve the case then help ASIO not fall. Or fall, depends what's going on." Wilson concluded. "Look, things are hard and-"

"Who's Director?"

"Fury isn't anymore, he's been demoted to a secret asset, like Barnes he isn't on the list. Coulson's now Director and Hill has asked to be relieved of her position and demoted to an agent. Coulson's gotten rid of levels except for some 'senior' sort of thing, so it just means they've been in there for longest or they're the head of the department." Wilson explained. "This means you don't need any clearances to access most files except for incredibly private ones. Agent Holmes also asked me to give you this, Agent Reyes." Mary was handed a large cardboard box, she took it and nodded in thanks, placing it beside the ladder of the loft-bed above the dining area. "Look, we'll be in contact with you all this time. I'm meant to be dead so I'll be enjoying the heat in Sydney. Agent Demetriou will also be in contact as will Agent Hill if you're absolutely desperate, we've left further instructions inside the van for sub-wave signals and such."

"Okay, so, what are we really here to do?"

"Find the last two remaining infinity stones." George said simply, Mary held her palm open as Bucky pressed a 10 dollar note in her hand. "It isn't hard to see why they chose a place like this. ASIO's too preoccupied with all its problems to notice."

"So, how do we find them?"

"We've got no idea except for Agent Holmes' speculation and her collaboration with Agent Rajawat in India, Agent Zheng in Singapore, Agent Fujioka in Japan and Agent Santos in the Philippines-"

"This sounds like a Pacific Rim AU of my life, except without the giant-robots."

"Well you obviously missed Christmas 2014." Wilson snorted "They're all in the Asia-Pacific region because the fluctuations in whatever- the- fuck- it- is came from these areas. Japan, India, Singapore, New Zealand have all fallen or found their versions of Hydra, so Australia's worried it'll be them next."

"So, mental note to self, too late to back out of a career in intelligence."

"Definitely." Wilson agreed with her. "So, without delaying you guys any further, we reckon you should head up north to the Hunter Valley."

"I am not taking him for a drinking trip." Mary protested, pointing to Bucky.

"Shut up you honeymooners, point is we go a lead there. You, lovebirds, go." George finished, standing up. Mary watched both of them exit the trailer, Wilson waving goodbye and George hopping into the other side of the car with him. It was going to be a long ride.


"So, you're fine with me driving?" Bucky asked, it was weird for him to be driving on this side of the road, but since he'd arrived at SHIELD, they had enrolled him in a course to be able to drive on both sides of the road. He passed with flying colours (no idea how Steve did, though).

"Oh yeah, I've driven to the Hunter Valley before, it's fine. We're probably going to de-bunk a winery, it's the most likely place. I'm hoping it's not the gardens, they lovely this time of year…"

"Well once you get over that, remind me why you've chosen the music?"

"Because you've yet to be introduced to the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's and now in music."

"I was there."

"In Soviet Russia."

"Okay so we had that one song-"

"Nah mate, my music." Mary happily chirped. Bucky rolled his eyes as 99 Red Balloons played from the speakers. "Also, I think we'll split cooking duties and we should designate some time to train."

"Fair enough, so this stuff only works if it's plugged into a powered site?"

"No, I did some looking around and it's definitely SHIELD make, it's been fitted out with a miniature arc-reactor, like in Avengers Tower, so it should run all our electricity if we choose for it to. But the water we have to re-fill."

"Yeah, you can't take you high-maintenance length showers." Bucky joked.

"Hey, my hair is up to my waist, you try rinsing out that much conditioner, I dare you." She challenged with a smile, before propping her feet up on the dash, air-drumming to the song then picking up the folders within the box she was handed earlier. "So it says here the person we're after is an agent of a man called 'The Collector', he's here to either hide the gems or make a dead-drop."

"If it's the latter?"

"Then it's a multiple man-hunt like we were told. If it's the latter, then I have a horrible feeling that ASIO's moles are after it to bring it down."

"Lovely, mission sorted." Bucky smiled, stopping that the traffic light, hopefully he made the turning onto the motorway. "Wait, have you got the E-tag?"

"Yeah." Mary placed the device on the dash and held up a wallet filled with credit cards "And the funding for your souvenirs."

"I thought you'd count." Bucky teased, she laughed before leafing through all the files that had been left to them. "Anything interesting yet?"

"How good are you with dealing with mercenaries?" She asked lightly before continuing to read. "Yeah, the dead-drop is set to take place at night, there's an auction for jewellery and such. And it seems I was right." She handed him an address, he wedged it between the visor and the ceiling. "It's an old mansion with a winery."

"Are we going to have to come up with an alias?"

"Probably. I mean, honeymooning couple isn't enough. Honeymooning couple that happen to be billionaires on the other hand?"

"What happens if we max-out the credit cards? What if it's cash-on-hand?"

"Well then, that's where we thank Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton for teaching me how to steal things." Mary answered dryly. "Besides, what we have to worry about is who could want to steal it or what this infinity gem does."

"Why, what does it do?"

"Well, there are two. One of them controls all of reality and another controls time."

"Not a good combo."

"Exactly –ooh you're on the motorway now!- so we have to figure out where they could be found, who would want them, how we store them. Once we find them we've got like no time to get back to SHIELD's new headquarters and have our team of like 7 scientists work on it."

"So, what is this infinity gauntlet?" Bucky asked.

"Well, from what these files say, it's like a scary-ass glove that if you embed all of the infinity gems, will give you enough power to take over the galaxies. I mean, the tesseract was already bad news, and all that did was create portals through space, so imagine what these two could do."

"So you're saying they left us all alone, to find the most powerful weapons in the universe?"

"Yup." She popped her 'p', before checking the time, they still had a good 2 hours before they reached their destination. "So, killing time with conversation, would you mind if I took the loft, I tried climbing up there earlier and you know how short I am, and I could barely sit up. My legs were bent and everything."

"Yeah, it looked small. I don't get why they didn't just make it as wide as the caravan."

"It's because there's storage space on the side, also you have to take into account the door. I think the side where your bed is can be expanded out a bit as well, so it leaves more space for the passageway between the dressers and the bathroom. The fridge is stocked, there's even food from Ikea-"

"Does this mean we have to go grocery shopping?" Bucky asked, implying that he evidently didn't want to.

"Yeah, it'll be fun though, don't worry. But we're also going to have to look up places to drop this trailer off at- OH MY GOD I HAVE WI-FI!" Mary fist-pumped, as she logged onto her laptop and realised that both the Kombi and the trailer had StarkIndustries-speed Wi-Fi. "Anyway, is that a maccas?"

"Yeah… But we've only been driving for a few minutes."

"Fine. But I'm choosing where we have lunch, also if you're thinking about even drinking, I'm going to fucking kill you."


"That's a steak." Bucky managed to get out, staring at the large steak in front of him, served with a large serving of chips and salad.

"It's great though." Mary replied, happily cutting up her steak and thanking the waiter for bringing their milkshakes. The drive to Pokolbin had been alright, he complained a bit about the length of the drive and she laughed, talking about the time she and her university friends drove all the way down to Melbourne to attend another round of Supanova conventions. "Anyway, you got all those flyers we printed out? Do we know exactly where the dead drop will take place?"

"Yes, there's an auction for valuables and unique artefacts at a Vineyard a couple of minutes from here. Looks nice, masquerade theme doubles up as a guarantee of animosity, including the dark."

"Lovely, they got cute stores here we'll be able to buy something. Is there a clue on what they're auctioning?" She asked between her shovelling of chips and steak and salad into her mouth.

"Like I said, valuables. But if SHIELD pointed us in this direction… I'm pretty sure this is what we're looking for. What we have to do know is find a way to get in without an invitation."

"Oh, leave that to me. I've been meaning to get into these computers ever since we got them. A couple of hours with photoshop, tops?"


"Yoooo, loving the mysterious yet sexy vibe we've got going here." Mary teased, as he turned around, despite his upper face being covered by a silken, black mask; he was evidently exasperated.

"You appear to be giving a very floaty, butterfly look. What is that in your hair, you'll poke someone's eye out!" Bucky was referencing her fascinator. She'd made it for Melbourne Cup a few years back, the butterfly was laser-cut by her friend while she and another friend made the bed of flowers to be perched at an angle on her hair.

"It's a fantastical masquerade; did you not read the encrypted message?" She held her mask in her hands, motioning for Bucky to assist her in tying it. "It's just I won't be able to tie it up properly and I don't want it to come off, it's hard virtually not having a nose bridge…"

"Yeah, yeah, just shut your mouth, will you dollface?"

"You call me dollface one more time…"

"I don't even like calling you dollface, I just know it'll annoy you!" Bucky defended as she swivelled around angrily, and blinking irregularly, trying to get used to the mascara clumping on her real and fake lashes. "So, we got a game plan?"

"No, not really. The general idea was that we waltz in looking fabulous, go along with it, get the gems, maybe get some intel and then do a runner."

"What makes you think they'd even have both gems?" Bucky asked cynically, she nodded, conceding he had a point. "Nice dress by the way, is that a wedding gown?..."

"What? No!" Mary was a little taken aback, it was a white dress, but it certainly wasn't a wedding dress, she'd worn it to a wedding, but it wasn't a wedding gown….

"Oh… sorry, I just thought…"

"Mass production, going to have to get used to it. Anyway, listen, I think we should leave our communication channels open in the van, so if we do get anything, we can relay it over."

"Figured out how to use it yet?" Bucky held the van's door open, she nodded in thanks, trying not to sink in the grass. They had moved the camper and van to a relatively close and dark part of the estate's gardens, just off the main road. With the cloaking devices on, she was sure it would be more or less safe, as for them, it was a bit harder to conceal weapons, they were hoping that SHIELD were right about their ability to cheat security. "Okay, so what was your genius idea on the cover again?"

"Arranged marriage, means we don't have to walk together or even have to look at each other too much. Also, It means we can get more information, listen, I'm gonna try a couple of things I learned from Derren Brown, so fair warning, try not to disturb me too much."

"Okay, you sure I should've changed my arm?" They'd agreed that afternoon that it would be wise to wear his realistic-looking arm rather than his usual metal one. "If we get into trouble, I'd hate to spend more time than we'd have to."

"We won't, this is just… a dinner party neither of us want to go to…"

The Estate preferred that like it's guests, that it's true name remain anonymous (well, once it got to wine tasting she was sure experts would be able to figure it out). Like many wine estates in the Hunter Valley, it was large and grand to the very definition of the words. This particular estate was a federation-era mansion, red brick matching the red fruit of the grapes. Many guests were already waiting by the entrance to enter, it had yet to chime 7. To her it felt surreal, she'd had a debutante ball (well, which Filipino teenager didn't, it was either that or a trip overseas during her HSC trials in Year 12), but she'd never gotten the fairytale vibes until that very moment. All emotion aside, she found herself able to hone in on the multitude of emotions, however the most prominent of them all was the pure lust for these unique pieces.

"What are you sensing?" Bucky asked her quietly as he readjusted his mask, she tapped her temple before opening her mouth to speak.

"And you said I was over-dressed." She smirked, as Bucky took in the sights and textures of the grand Carnivale and Commedia dell'Arte costumes and Venetian masks, though of course not all were as grand as the many Pantalones or Arlecchinos, there were even Brighellas and Columbines. So she enjoyed Commedia, basically, things like this stuck in her mind with all the studying she did for her major work in Drama and Extension English 2. "Not to worry, it was either this mask or a wolf mask. I was really tempted to get you the wolf mask, would've spoke volumes about your sex life-"

"Will you please drop that? It was the one annoying guy who got all the wrong ideas-"

"Calm down." She whispered as the now stood at the entrance, already catching glimpses of a golden and crystalline world within.

"Names?" The masked woman dressed in a tuxedo-uniform inquired, as she stood behind the large tome, which sat upon a glass lectern. "Just your first."

"Irina." Mary answered, handing over their very-well faked invitations.

"James." Bucky gave, the woman nodded and they passed through a wooden archway, though the unusual thickness of the wood told her it concealed security devices. They found themselves in a golden ballroom, two attendants handed them each a small velvet, drawstring purse, upon closer inspection it held a black fountain pen and small, thick calling cards. "Who do we attack first?"

"Flirt a little, that woman with the fox mask over there by the punch would be a good person to start with. Get some intel, I'll be over there with that lecher, if things get out of hand, please don't hesitate to interfere."

"So, does this make me your knight in shining armour?"

"No, this just makes you a decent human being, who looks out for the wellbeing of others."


The golden grandfather clock chimed 10 and there was an immediate silence. Mary had managed to find him, a rather demure smile on her face. He noticed that she was rubbing at the base of her neck, and placing a perfume bottle back in her clutch.

"I just found out what's happening." She murmured, as people began to assemble in front of the grand staircase, a man in a full Bauta outfit took his place beside a woman dressed in an identical outfit, save for its blue colour. "Also, if one more person calls me their dolce farfallina, I'm going to shove that Il Dottore mask up someone's ass."

"I never knew you understood Italian…" Bucky said quietly.

"Primary school, lessons every Thursday. I'm pretty fluent." She answered before they were all hushed, the man with his grand theatrics, Bucky couldn't quite make what he was saying, he guessed that his partner was quietly taking everything in, perhaps trying to come up with the best way to emotionally manipulate their way into having one of the gems. "Oh…"

"What?"

"In two minutes they bring out the artefacts for inspection, it's a silent auction, except for the biggest prize-"

"The gem."

"Exactly- Oh, don't let Flavio and Isabella wander off…"

"What?"

"Sorry, drama jokes. Go through the artefacts, we need to see what we're up against." Mary instructed, she left his side again and he wandered about, glass cases now displayed what were previously hidden under velvet cloth. The piece, as he suspected, that all people would flock towards was the gem.

It seemed to be the centrepiece to a magnificent golden necklace. The small gold plague beside it informed Bucky that it was the Brisìngamen. From memory, he remembered once reading that it belonged to the Norse goddess Freya, it was her torc or something to that effect. It was only then that Bucky noticed that if he wandered to the veranda beyond the large windows of the ballroom, there were multiple curtained booths, where costumed men and women would write upon their slips of card and hand them to the woman who was wearing, what Mary told him, was called a Bauta.

"What are you doing?" he asked, grabbing Mary's wrist after she turned the corner, having handed a slip to the woman.

"It's nothing." She answered stiffly, miraculously prising her tiny wrist out of his grip (it really was small) and walking further down the veranda.

"No, what did you bid?"

"Nothing you need to know about."

"Look, I know we're pretending that we're disliking our arranged marriage, but you need to tell me what you just bid on."

"You don't need to know." He noticed the dangerous tone in her voice that time. "Just so you know, the format for bidding is: 'I formally bid, insert your amount here, for the, insert the artefact here, collection point by the, insert selection point here.'" That was all she said before vanishing into the crowd of sumptuous fabrics, the fluttery white fabric of her gown dispersing like mist. He stood there, unsure of what so say, before moving over to the woman Mary had handed the small card to.

"What did my wife bid on?" He asked casually. "It's just that, I don't think it was enough, and it is her birthday in a month."

"The woman in the silver and pearl mask? Butterfly fascinator?" The woman asked, going through the small cards filed in crystal boxes. "I'm going to need an assurance detail. Blackmail material, you get the point."

"On her?"

"You are only married by arrangement." The woman replied coldly, steely glint of her eyes piercing him through the sheer, black ribbon that acted as mask. "So, your assurance? Please take this recorder into the booth and record it." He followed her instructions, closing the velvet curtains behind him.

"You don't need to know anything about my wife. I am a murderer." Bucky quietly stated into the small box. It was a simple as that, the woman took the box and handed over her card. Bucky quickly took note of the serial number, handed it back with thanks and desperately tried to run back into the house, in search of Mary and the piece.

He found the piece first, and he was just a little taken aback at what she had bid 10 thousand dollars for. It was a simple engagement ring, charming enough. A simple pear-cut diamond was set on a silver-gold ring, with a matching set of earrings. Along with the set were a child's set of ruby-earrings and matching pendant, and another child's opal bracelet. 10 thousand dollars of her own hard-earned money, he was confused, and as confused as he was, he couldn't risk bidding higher than that as they needed all their money for the gems.


Mary couldn't sense any emotions, she was too caught up in her own. What was that set doing there? It shouldn't have been there.

"There it is." Bucky pointed. There was almost a reverent silence as the Brìsingamen was bought out of it's case. Another piece, this time a mid-1400s circlet of what appeared to be French design was placed beside it. "How much can we bid?"

"According to these cards, they're linked to Asgard's royal treasury."

"What?"

"Yeah, so we can't go over 1 billion. Emma wrote out that she's working on the loan arrangements on our behalf. As you could expect, they have to orchestrate this so that no one on Asgard or Earth knows what we're bidding on, or that the money's missing anyway."

"They'll probably just want the necklace and crown-"

"Circlet. But we need to figure out a way to keep the gems out of their sights. Off radar and off whatever else they can throw at us. I think in the files it said the Tesseract was giving off low-levels of gamma radiation. So I'll whack these in the radiation-proof safe… oh god."

"Mary, calm down." Bucky soothed, his metal arm, winding around her, his mere presence giving her comfort. "Even if we only get one, we'll be able to track it."

"I'm just scared whatever we bid isn't going to be enough." Mary replied quietly, before watching the host walk to the front, before him the two artefacts.

"We have a starting bid of 1.5 million."

"Fuck." Bucky whispered. Mary decided to hold out for a moment, hopefully she'd managed to discourage enough people from bidding while she went around.

"2 million."

"5 million."

"Come on." Bucky said quietly.

"This is an auction, darling, not a sale on E-bay." Mary smiled grimly, the price now hiking to 20 million, then to 30 million.

"50 million." Bucky bid, giving an apologetic shrug.

"60." Another person countered. Mary had now narrowed down who wanted the gems, the man dressed as Pantalone, another dressed as The Sun King, a woman dressed as Titania. What struck her was the woman held a small mask, belonging to a small child who would've been dressed as Puck.

"Rest it a bit, watch it slow down." Mary whispered urgently. Bucky nodded and together they despaired, the bid reaching 200 million."

"Where are they even getting this money?"

"No idea…" Mary replied "I doubt the Rineharts, the Packers and the Murdochs are here. Reckon Russell Crowe is, though. And I don't think the Australian government would waste this much money on something outright. So I'm reckoning that CSRIO might be bidding, as would international competitors."

"Sensing anything yet?"

"No, just using intuition." She answered, she was feeling more nervous than she ever had in her life.

"500 million." Bucky bid. Mary nodded in agreement, scrunching her gloves up into a compact ball, resisting the urge to burst into tears from the pressure.

"550 million." Mary almost shouted in relief, the bidding had begun to slow down. 550, then 560, then 570. They continued to slow until the figure had reached 600 million.

"640." Bucky bid, together they listened as the figure continued to increase only slowly. "We're only going to get one."

"Fine, I can cope with that." The answer escaped her lips before her mind registered it. The taste of victory was getting ever closer, she could almost see herself place either circlet or necklace inside the safe. Well, she believed that until someone bid something beyond belief.

"10 billion, for both necklace and circlet." Mary dropped her purse in shock, turning around to face the man dressed as Oberon. He reached out for the woman dressed as Titania, walking together they collected

"Of course it wasn't going to come that easily to us." She remarked bitterly.

"No." Bucky protested, but they both knew well that the fight was over. In one way, she supposed, her goal now was to find Puck.


"So what makes you think the child is staying here?"

"I don't think it's their child." Mary replied simply "I can sense emotions again, and the sense isn't like parent-child, it's more… niece and nephew. Their niece or nephew is probably the child of the host, they're overly familiar with them, but not familiar enough."

"No parental love?"

"Something like that." Bucky nodded, quietly pushing against the wall as she turned the corner as a man approached. She glared at him, mouthing that she wanted to get caught. He glared back at her harder and what ensued could be described as an infantile staring-contest, though he gave up, deciding to let her make her move. He watched from the shadows as she caught up with the man, her posture shifted and he watched her place a hand on her hip. It would've been comical, had it not been so serious, watching his friend flirt her away around this man. It wasn't entirely seductive, no, it was cheeky and innocent, the sort of innocence that wicked men would try to desperately corrupt. She knew that, that idiot with sparkling, warm doe-eyes. So it wasn't much of a surprise to him when she delivered a calculated and paralysing blow to the neck as he moved in on her. Not a single kiss or caress wasted.

"Done, now, get in the room."

"They're hiding the gem in there?" She smiled at him in excitement, he guessed it meant she could sense emotions again.

"It's not where they're hiding it, but with who. I'm going to emotionally manipulate a child." Mary stated with the grace of a blunt axe.

"Aren't you cheerful." She snorted in agreement opening the door carefully, inside a small boy sat curled up on his bed. Her smile turned sympathetic, closing the door quietly behind both of them.

"Get away!" the boy pulled his sheets up towards his chin, he removed his mask and so did she.

"We heard your crying. And all I can say is, I'm sorry." The boy seemed to soften a little. Her observations about the Puck costume were right, as they sat discarded on the floor. Bucky decided to move slowly towards the boy and sit beside him in order to try and comfort him. "This is about your parents going away, isn't it?"

"They've got another- Why do they never!?" Bucky held the boy as he angrily pounding the mattress. Mary seemed to be ebbing along with the boy's mood, whenever he said something she'd nod and agree and incite his hate further.

"I know! And they just left you here all alone!?" Mary was almost over-the-top with her acting, but it worked, subtlety never worked on children when they were too angry to be fooled.

"Yes, it's all because of that!" he pointed to a piggy bank. Bucky raised a brow as the boy snuggled closer to him, Mary answered with a nod.

"If it were to go away, would it make your parents stay?"

"Yes." The boy answered. It all hung in the balance now. If she moved too quickly and eagerly, she could give the game away, yet if she was too slow the boy might have time to rethink he choices and their game would be over. She seemed to understand this and Mary continued to play the guise of a worried older-sister figure, holding the piggy bank in her hands. "Take it away! I never want to see it again!"


"Did we just?" Mary was feeling her heart pounding hard in her chest, it certainly wasn't helping wearing such a tight bodice. They had to sneak out through the boy's window as he curled up under his sheets. And like that they'd vanished, like ghosts or memories.

"Yes, which one is it?"

"It'll have to be the necklace, there's no way that they'd have the tools to dismantle an entire circlet. They'd have to take it to a specialist."

"So where would they be?"

"Well, I wouldn't trust the forgers of men-"

"Again,ye olde timey language." She laughed yet felt like there was still something there.

"I'm a nerd, deal with it. Okay, well, I know of specialists- BUCK!" Bucky noticed only too late that the small boy from previously had followed the, blanket trailing behind him. Before he could react, a man stepped from behind a tree, a gun held aloft. The first bullet missed him, she'd pushed him out of the way, in her adrenaline stronger than she usually would. The second bullet missed her by centimetres, still clutching the bank as tight as she could, curled up in a ball on the ground. The man fired another shot and it made impact, yet it had hit neither of them. The small boy, hiding behind some scrub, screamed in pain. Things were a blur from there as he tried to get up from the floor, trying to make his way to the boy. He felt separated from his body, hearing her shout innumerable curses as he attacked her. What felt like hours later, she ran to the boy, looking at him, her curled hair all over the place.

"FUCK! He's got it!" he noticed the piggy-bank missing from her arms as she cradled the small boy. "Go after him. GO!"

Bucky kept running towards the man, avoiding all sources of light, It wasn't that hard to scale the side of the building with all the convenient bannisters and window ledges. Eventually he found himself staring down the man who dared shoot a child, he slowly removed the balaclava, dropping it to the floor.

"One word, and I swear-"

"A child. You shot a child." Bucky said slowly, angrily glaring at the man. "It's your son, isn't it."

"Did you take him?"

"No, he was just tired of watching you and your wife travel without him. He was alone and you shot him." Bucky knew he was going to have to negotiate his way out of this. "Right now, my partner's working on saving him but-"

"I… I shot my…" Bucky had the sudden idea to lie his way out of it, however it meant… it meant removing this bastard the guilt of shooting his son.

"It's not your fault… the stone in the circlet was poisoning your mind…" It sounded very legitimate to him, it could work. "We can help…"

"If I give you the stone-"

"I can promise you, we will save him. Get rid of the stone, I know it'll get rid of your guilt." He wasn't like her, he couldn't sense emotions, but he wasn't a heartless person, this man had to be good, even if it was just for his son.

"You'll save-"

"Him, yes, just please give us the stone." He sounded cruel, unsympathetic even, but it needed to be done, and it was worth it, watching him hand over the piggy bank with trembling hands. Bucky didn't need telling twice to exit the room as swiftly as he could, leaving through the window and jumping down from the first-floor balcony.

Running away in the cool night air, he could hear the chaos ensuing inside. They'd stolen the second of the infinity gems and was to be auctioned somewhere else. He thought they'd had it. He thought they'd be able to get them both. He never thought they'd be this naïve and truly believe that. It was all too-familiar, he'd complete a mission but there'd be innocent blood staining his hands. He just hoped she'd be coping.


I hope you enjoyed that, I swear it's not always going to be this depressing, there'll be fun stuff, like I don't know... convincing Bucky to eat vegemite or something. Please do review and I love hearing back from you all and replying to you all, it's really very awesome. Once again, thanks so much to all of you for reading this, it really motivates me with my writing :)