I eventually found Bucky in one of the "interview" rooms on the second floor. Interview was what the door said, anyways, and I didn't know why my dad wouldn't just call them interrogation because none of us were dumb enough to think they were anything else.

Bucky's sitting quietly in the chair facing the door, elbows propped on the table and his hands folded as if he were praying, with his eyes closed and a slight frown on his face.

"Hey there," I greet softly as I put down the cup of coffee I had picked up between Bruce's room and here, tossing a bunch of cream and sugar packets next to it. "I didn't know how you took it."

He cracks open an eye and, upon seeing the steaming cup, gives me a small grin. "Thanks, kid."

I roll my eyes as he fixes his coffee – two creams, no sugar – and takes a sip.

"Not bad," he nods. "I've had worse." His eyes fall on my sling-harness. "Glad to see you got that fixed."

"Yeah, I'm on medical leave, I guess you could call it, for the next week and a half, and then I've got to work back up to field duty. I'm under strict orders to adhere to that," I sigh, then shake my head. "So what were you doing while I was under the knife?"

"I was given the third degree by your father – who can be seriously scary, by the way – and an Air Force guy that I'm pretty sure outranks me by at least double, probably more."

"Don't you have seventy years of back pay?" I wonder aloud. "Or does that not count?"

"Eh," he shrugs. "I'm not really Army material anymore. Anyways, apparently they've determined I'm not a threat, and then left without another word."

"That might be my fault," I grimace. "I've, ah, irked them a bit. But – as far as where to go from here, I can answer that." I slide something across the table, a black disk about the size of a half dollar with a red light in the middle.

Unsurprisingly, Bucky doesn't pick it up right away. "What's that?"

"A tracker," I explain simply. "I am now your handler, and you're my charge, assistant, whatever you want to call it. I'm in charge of you now, so please try your best not to make my life a living hell."

"Aye, aye, ma'am!" he gives me a mock salute, and I chuckle lightly. "This a part of your punishment?"

I shrug. "Yeah, but it's also probably the best thing that could happen to you, so I don't mind so much."

Bucky side-eyes me for a moment before tucking the tracker into his pocket. "That's probably true. So…where to now?"

"I think I'm supposed to meet with Darcy," I sigh, pushing back from the table and using my free hand to stabilize myself. "Come on."

"Not your dog," Bucky grumbles as he, too, stands, tossing his coffee cup in the trash as we left the room. I lead him into the elevator and down to the ground level, stepping out into the living room, seeing Darcy seated at the breakfast bar with one laptop open, another lying dormant next to her.

I rush over. "Hey, you wanted to see me?"

"Yeah," she nods, taking a moment before looking up at me. "I found some weird stuff, wanted you to take a look-see."

"Nobody says look-see anymore, Darce," I complain good-naturedly as I maneuver myself onto a barstool with a bit of grunting and hopping. "Nobody but Cap and pediatricians."

She rolls her eyes at me as I open up the laptop, accessing the phone logs for the Avengers. "What am I looking for?"

"A phone call between Rogers and Romanoff at about 5:30 this morning."

I glance at her. "That would've been about an hour after my – our escape. They would've noticed us missing by then."

"I know," she nods cryptically. "Just…there's the transcript."

I click on the file she was pointing to, opening up a file with the usual call information. Scrolling down slightly, I can see the first line of the call itself.

Steve Rogers: Any sign of him?

Natasha Romanoff: None, not a peep. Steve, please, give it a rest.

Steve Rogers: No, I – I can't. He wouldn't do this to me. He wouldn't!

Natasha Romanoff: Why not?

Steve Rogers: He's my best friend.

"Well, we know who they're talking about," I muse, and Darcy nods in agreement.

"That's not it though. Keep reading."

Natasha Romanoff: You mean he was your best friend. A lot can change in seventy years.

Steve Rogers: Please believe me on this, Tash.

"Wow." I let out a low whistle. "Nobody calls her Tash. The most Hawkeye or I could ever get away with is 'Nat' or 'Tasha'."

"Do you think there's something else going on there?" Darcy questions.

"Maybe," I shrug. "That, or he's got a lot of myachi."

I can hear Bucky barely holding back his laughter behind us, and I kick up a smirk as I continue scanning the file.

Natasha Romanoff: I can't do that, Steve. There's not enough-

Steve Rogers: Enough what?

Natasha Romanoff: Evidence. Trust. Time. Pick one.

Steve Rogers: I…I can't…wasn't he your friend too?

Natasha Romanoff: He was…my…colleague. But you can't trust anyone who's been brainwashed recently, Steve. Maybe this is what he needs to get his feet on the ground.

Steve Rogers: And it might just get him killed in the process. But…alright, we've got limited time to make up now. Get to the bridge.

Natasha Romanoff: On my way.

"That's it," Darcy reveals. "What do you think?"

I give the laptop a thoughtful look. "Well, I think our enemies are friendlier than expected with each other."

"Can we use that?"

"Against them?" I raise an eyebrow, and Darcy just gives a questioning look. "That would mean not only finding who has a relationship with whom, but then finding wherever they are, kidnapping that loved one, and bringing them here to use as leverage. And given that we're currently a man down…"

"Right, that's not going to work. But I'll keep looking to see if they've entangled themselves." She waggles her eyebrows at me. "Anything else?"

"Well, let's start with the basics. Come on, who can share the basics with the class?"

"Pick me! Pick me!" Bucky is practically bouncing on the couch.

I have to bite my cheek to keep from laughing as I look at him expectantly.

"Who, what, when, where, and why."

I reward him with a sarcastic slow clap. "Very good, gold star. So, now, we have a who: Cap and Widow discussing Bucky."

"What is whether or not they can find me or should stop looking," the aforementioned man offers.

"The when is obvious," Darcy figures, "5:30 this morning, about an hour after your escape."

"That would have put us…" I do some quick math. "About 350 miles out of where we were."

"Which brings us to where," Bucky sighs. "Sadly, not even I know this."

"Wait!" Darcy sits bolt upright on her stool. "Taylor, I need you to do your genius thing."

I tilt my head. "Go on."

"Can you use your flight time to create an estimated distance radius around the compound?"

"Right!" I exclaim, pouncing on the keyboard and typing furiously. "A flight at about 350 miles per hour for one hour twenty minutes ending in Providence…Okay, that gives us about 466 miles of the Northeastern US, Nova Scotia, and parts of Canada, including Montreal, Quebec City, and Toronto."

"That narrowed it down, at least," Darcy allows.

"And we were off the eastern seaboard, definitely in the water," Bucky remembers.

"So that gives us anywhere from the northern coastline of Virginia to New Brunswick to Nova Scotia," I sigh. "And let's not forget that they can fly. Can they still fly?"

"They can," Bucky answers morosely. "But hey, we got close."

"I'm not giving up on that yet," I decide. "I'll see if I can get someone to track energy usage near those places. I'd do it, but I can't because that requires the use of the lab." I sigh dramatically and walk over to bonelessly flop onto the couch.

"Hey, calm down." Bucky comes to lean over the back of the couch. "We just got farther in half an hour than everyone else has in almost three weeks."

"And it only took me disobeying a direct order, getting kidnapped, and you becoming hated everywhere," I scoff bitterly.

Bucky doesn't say anything, but a hand comes down lightly on top of my head, and when I don't object, he ruffles my hair like I'd imagine he'd once done to tiny-Cap. "Hey, cheer up, myshka. We've got this."

"Did you just call me mouse…?" I shake my head. "Don't want to know, forget I asked."

Darcy walks back over to us, leaning against an armchair. "I just called Bruce and Rhodey, they'll look into that for us." She pauses, as if she was deliberating something. "Do you…would it help if we heard the voices? I've got the audio tape, maybe you can hear things unsaid."

I begin to respond, but I'm cut off by my own mind as I'm thrown back to a scene from the previous October.

"I still don't see why we're doing this," I sigh, tugging my coat tighter against the autumn chill.

"Because we're showing our support, Taylor," the redhead beside me sighs, completely unbothered by the cold. Which was unsurprising, really, given that she grew up in Russia. "And the candles are pretty."

I glance over at a shop window we were passing, taking in the candles with light pink and/or blue ribbons wrapped around the bases. "I'll give you that. But, I mean, it's not like we were ever victims of this."

"True," she agrees, "but we'd be better at giving support on this than the guys. Or do you want Steve to give comfort on Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day?"

I give a shudder at the thought. "No thanks. I just don't see why we can't donate money and call it even."

"Because not every problem can be solved by throwing money at it, genius," she informs me, and I silently concede her point.

Silence falls as we enter a nearby park, the wind chasing dry brown and red leaves across our path.

My eyes fall on a young looking woman on a bench a few yards away, all of her attention focused solely on the baby carrier next to her. The look on her face is one of pure love and dedication, so strong that even from a distance it sends shivers down my spine.

"Taylor?"

"Do you think I'd be a good mother?" I blurt out suddenly, my eyes suddenly falling to the ground.

Natasha doesn't answer right away, and my heart slowly climbs into my throat.

"I think, given the right circumstances, you would be," she proclaims, and I look over at her. "You'd need to know that the kid had support beyond you, because of what your own mother did to you. You would need to know that your spouse wasn't going to leave the baby, and even if they did, that baby would have safety nets."

I tilt my head, vaguely considering her words. "Yeah, but I've heard pregnancy sucks," I comment offhandedly.

She shrugs. "Maybe. What about me?"

"What about you?"

"Do you think I'd be a good mother?" she asks softly, eyes finding the same mother-baby duo I'd seen earlier.

I take a moment to try and visualize Natasha with a little redhead, and it surprisingly isn't so hard.

"I think you would, given that someone could promise you, with absolute certainty, that he or she would be safe."

"Which isn't going to happen, not with the life we live," she decides bitterly. "So that's a 'no'."

"For the record…" I look over at her. "I think you make an awesome mother."

"-lor? Taylor?"

I jerk back into reality, nearly falling off the couch as I do so. "What?"

"We were talking about the audio tapes," Darcy reminds me. "And-"

"No!" I exclaim. "No audio tapes, I – I'm good. I, ah, need to go to the bathroom."

I bolt of the couch, numbly exiting the room and heading for the bedroom Darcy and I shared, sinking into an armchair in the corner.

In all the chaos and angst that had become my life, I had forgotten about the other spy-assassin that was at the tower.

Hawkeye and Black Widow had become extremely important people in my life; one had been my boyfriend, the other a motherly-ish figure that I had grown up without, helping me get ready for dates and comparing the different physiques of the men we worked with. She'd even held Clint in a chokehold the first time we fought.

And now she had stabbed me – which might be my fault, given that I had put an arrow in her thigh first, but still. Now my hand would ache like an old lady's hip when it got cold or rainy (both of which frequented New York) and that was with the improvements.

It was slowly becoming apparent that even if this war ended tomorrow, the ties that had been broken weeks ago were not going to heal that quickly, and a small, extremely realistic part of me knew that some of the wounds opened here – physical or psychological – would never heal.

My world was changing and it was waiting for no one.

The end result…that was currently unseen.

Thanks to RussianAssassin. candycrum, and TheGirlOfTooManyFandoms for reviewing the last chapter!