Chapter 7

"Stark, what's going on?" Bucky asked when the team were finally all together back at the tower. Tony was standing in the kitchen, arms crossed in front of his chest as he paced around the room. Peter was sitting on the back of the couch, while the others were at the dining table.

"She was there."

"Who was- no way." Clint said, leaning back in his seat.

"I saw her sitting near the civilians after the portal closed. Looked like she was injured…which come to think of it, I totally forgot about til now. Shit."

"Are you sure it was her?" Steve asked.

"I forgot to turn off the face scan and my suit HUD identified her. Well, you know, not her name but her face. It's given me some details but…I haven't looked because, this is kind of weird. She was in the alleyway earlier, Lang checked his cameras."

"So, what do we do?" Clint asked.

"Maybe we follow her? Or get a tracker on her? It all feel so…weird, we have no proof as to her doing anything." Tony said, leaning against the kitchen counter and sighing.

"…We don't follow, we watch." Steve said. "Monitor the alley, if she enters any buildings nearby then we can investigate. If there is something sinister going on, she may not be a willing participant, so we can't risk harming her."

"We watch, with Loki. He might be able to sense…whatever it is that keeps…helping us? Now, how do we convince Loki to help?" Tony wondered aloud.

"No need." Loki said, alerting the team to the fact he was already in the room. "I am actually curious about what…has been assisting you. How many times has it happened?"

"From what we can tell…maybe three? Four?" Clint said, trying to recall the previous missions. "Who do we put on vantage?"

"I think Bucky." Tony said. "Sorry, been thinking about it. Since Clint was there in the building, it might be possibly that it would…recognize him somehow? And Peter found Cassie, so we don't know if he encountered whatever it is without realizing."

"I'll go in the morning." Bucky said. "Hopefully the ghost doesn't mind visitors."

Apparently, it didn't. This was mostly because the ghost was never around to mind the visitor. Bucky spent four days on a rooftop doing shifts to watch the alley.

"Does this ghost fucking exist or what?" He grumbled, packing up his gear to head home. "Stupid fucking ghos- what the fuck?"

Someone was in the alley. He could hear them talking…to someone. He moved back to position without his gear and watched carefully from the ledge; a young woman wearing a deep red cardigan was standing in the alley. Well truthfully, she was pacing, walking from one end to another, talking to herself.

"I can't believe you!" She half shouted, waving her arms in front of herself. "You are actively trying to get found! Stop getting involved. Stay home while I'm at work! Why can't you just do that?!"

Bucky quickly grabbed the camera Stark had given him when he noticed a logo on the girl's backpack. He zoomed in and took as many shots as he could, before pressing the button to alert Loki.

The god appeared behind Bucky after a few seconds and stepped to the edge of the roof, watching the girl as she walked back to the main street.

"She was talking a moment ago, telling someone off for getting involved." Bucky said, getting to his feet and watching after her.

"I don't feel any magic here. If there was something, it's gone now."

"I got some photos for Stark, see if he can figure out what the logo on her bag is."

Tony could.

"Barnes!" He shouted, finding Bucky and Steve sparring in the gym. "You brilliant piece of shit!"

"What the fuck? And thank you." Bucky said, ducking under Steve's fist and stepping back out of the sparring ring.

"It's a logo for some…society building? I have no idea BUT I checked their website and they have two restoration specialists listed." Tony said, grinning at the soldiers. "I had Pepper call them to arrange a meeting with both restorers…only I have no idea what the hell to talk to them about."

"What do they restore?" Steve asked.

"Books, apparently. They do a few different things but their main area of work is book restoration."

"Well, we'll have to look into books then…but…none of us can go see her, that won't help."

"So who goes?" Bucky asked.

"That's the issue, who do we send without raising suspicion?"