Prologue :

He'd been in the lift, him Sam and Steve on their way back from their morning run, (or perhaps more accurately, Steve and Bucky's morning jog and Sam's morning sprint) when it had happened. He didn't know how far they were from the common room lounge. To be honest he hadn't really been thinking of much, maybe he was thinking about what he was gonna make Sam, Steve and eventually everyone else for breakfast (seriously does no one else in this goddamn tower cook?) or maybe he was planning what he was going to do with the rest of his day, get a quick training session in or bake something ? What he hadn't been expecting was for F.R.I.D.A.Y to announce, in her startlingly human tone, a Code Black and double the speed of the lifts ascent, ensuring the trio made it to the lounge in record time.

To be perfectly honest, Bucky was a bit dumbfounded, this wasn't the way he was expecting his day to go. He was going to bake, work out and just be. Taking down a HYDRA base was not on the agenda. So when he stumbled out of the lift towards the quickly assembling team he was in a way relived to see Steve dropping into his role as the teams captain, knowing that as long as he had Steve watching his six and Sam in the skies he could drop into his role as the Winter Soldier, he could trust his team, he could get the job done.

"Cap, there you are" Tony's voice beckoned them across the room to where Stark had F.R.I.D.A.Y. projecting an image of an appealingly abandoned warehouse, somewhere remote and from the looks of all the snow around it, somewhere cold. Taking in a quick glance of the place Bucky steeled himself for the inevitable fight that was to come. He never found it easy, going back to the places that held so many dark memories for him, regardless of if he'd ever been there or not. They were HYDRA property, infected, tainted, and he would destroy them. That was the thing for Bucky, as hard as he may find it to go into these bases and see the horrors of HYDRA and their work, he knew he had to be there, had to see for himself his past, had to reassure to himself that base by base, agent by agent, chair by chair, HYDRA were being eradicated from the world. He seamlessly caught his gear off of Natasha, his black tactical jacket, with the Avengers emblem proudly emblazoned on the sleeve and threw it over grey t-shirt he was wearing and walked to the panelling at the back of the room and placing his hand on the exact area of the wall he knew would scan his prints and open up the secretly placed weapons cases. Tony had installed it in the early days, claiming it avoided everyone "running around like headless chickens" before a mission as they tried to find their gear. Inside were a spare pair of wings for Sam, a high-tech bow and quiver of arrows for Clint, something Thor called a Skofnung that Thor had brought back months ago during one of his trips to Midgard (even though to Bucky it just looked like a fancy sword), a whole spare set of everything Nat could need (plus a few extra 'toys' as Nat called them, all of which looked deadly in their own right). It had spare nanotech versions of both Rhodey and Tonys suits and a back-up shield for Steve made from some left over vibranium T'Challa had given to Tony during one of his and Shuri's visits. Essentially, it had anything anyone on the team could need in a last minute run to leave for a mission. Bucky smiled and walked to his 'section' of the storage room and he picked up his M249 SAW and a back up Block 17, just incase.

He was turning to head back when he caught Sam's eye just as the other man was picking up his wings.

"You feeling okay about this one Barnes? You know you don't have to keep coming on these missions if it's messing with you" spoke his friend, a look of slight concern that would've been imperceptible to anyone who hadn't been trained as a super assassin for years on end.

"What you worrying about me now Birdman? Pretty sure it was you trying to keep up with me this morning, or did I forget something?" Bucky jokes, trying to come across as calm about the situation as possible.

"Yeah I know old man," Sam says in reply, adding on a quiet "but just remember I'm here if you need to talk about anything" as he reaches up and grabs Bucky's shoulder in an act of comfort, and to be truthful, it does make Bucky feel a bit better. Some tension drops out of his shoulders and his breathing evens out a little. Knowing better than to trust his voice as his nerves rage on, although quietened a little by Sam's words, Bucky looks up at Sam and smiles gratefully, nodding his head in gratitude to his friend.

Breaking away from his friend, Bucky makes quick work of getting himself to the quinjet as Nat catches up with him, with her signature smirk asking him "готов идти ?" (Ready to go?). The quick response of "ты знаешь это" (you know it) was all Bucky had time to say before Steve, in full Captain mode called a team briefing as everyone settled into their regular seats on the jet.

"Okay guys, intel says this abandoned warehouse Kazakhstan is actually a HYDRA base, known hostiles inside, as far as we're aware they should only be your average agent, but that doesn't mean you can let your guard down. Now the terrains snowy, so that means …". It was at that point Bucky tuned out to what Steve was saying, nothing about snow or hills was going to change his role on this mission, his job was always the same. Detain (if possible) any HYDRA agents for questioning, see if there was anything the team could learn from anything in the bases and then burn that shit to the ground as soon as possible. Knowing they were still a few hours out from the base and that he wasn't going to be needed to take a piloting shift on the quinjet Bucky relaxed into the seat that had slowly become his own space on the quinjet, and tried to sleep, ignoring the waves of nerves and bad feeling that were crashing around in the pit of his stomach.

-Authors Note-

Hi there ! thanks so much for reading the first ever chapter to my first ever story ! i'd absolutely love any comments or advice you may have for me so just leave it below ! and the best bit... we haven't even met luna yet !

See you next chapter,

ERS x