"No Mac, I'm fine I promise… Yeah, it's just for today… Yeah, I'll tell Gavin, we both own you. Ha! Fine, I'll admit you were right about him. Thanks for covering for me…"

He heard a woman's voice distant and quiet, almost whispering words to a phone. James tried to take a deep breath but the injury to his side remained him of the last night's adventures; and of that chair. Shit, it was too early for memories and he had been avoiding them like the plague, they were mostly bad and use to come back to him every night. Lately, if he went about his day and kept his mind in other things they would mostly be gone by the middle of the day; that kept him together enough to keep throwing hits at Hydra or keeping his distance when he needed. He was surviving, sure, but he was no closer to figure out who he was then he'd been three weeks ago when he heard Steve's pled in the helicarrier.

He opened his eyes and tried to look around the girl was behind the counter in the kitchen in front of him; the small girl had hair up on a ponytail while talking in her cellphone looking out a window above the kitchen table. "Bye, love you." She practically whispered to someone in the other side, hanging up and turning to the coffee maker

"Good morning! How you feeling?" She called pouring her coffee.

Dragging himself up from the couch was as a laborious work, as it usually was in the morning. If he wasn't sure alcohol didn't work on him, he'd think he had a monster hang over. She came to the room with a cup of coffee and her notebook, taking seat in the armchair at his side. She tried not to pry as he struggled to pull himself from the seat.

"You think we can start?" She said putting her mug in the coffee table in front of him and opening her notebook.

"Now?"

"Yeah, I was up late last night and... well I didn't find much." She pointed a remote at the celling, she didn't have a TV but there was a projector there, turned to the entrance door. "I decided to start with the name you gave me, got nothing. No registers, civil or amongst the people arrested following the fall of shield, I'm working with the idea that he is free and working with the men we saw last night. The book you spoke about, I assumed it was Hydra's during the fall so my two theories are; It's either with the stolen items from the convoy we were looking for or those guys bosses have it hidden somewhere. Anyways, we go back to the guys from last night."

"Is that all you found?"

"Have a little faith," The projector came alive, and she stared typing in a notebook three blurred surveillance like pictures were projected in the wall with names and a few lines of information on each. "Those three men were there last night, alright." it wasn't a question but he agreed anyway. "Two of them had no records. I found, however, records on the middle one in an organization we know. You said his name was Russell." She pointed at the blue-eyed guy James had talked to last night. "He was SHIELD. No convictions for any crimes according to police records. You sounded like you knew him."

"How did you get their pictures? Or the SHIELD files?"

"My contact, when the SHIELD files were dumped online it gave access governmental computers for a split of seconds. which meant that he and a few members of the Rising Tide were able to gain accesses to SHIELD's network; he was able to save the files before government secured their systems again, Gavin, the hacker and my friend, got interested in you in particular he has information that can be useful. I want to ask him to come later, if that's ok."

"You trying to impress me?" She let out a rich laugh and continued.

"I thought you may want to change your mind. What do you say do we have a deal?" she lifted her hand for shake and he just regarded her. "I'm Nina, by the way."

"We have a deal." he said but didn't move to touch her and she let her hand drop.

"And what should I call you?" He looked at her like it was the first time anyone had asked him that and he didn't have an answer. "I will never call you Winter Soldier, ever. You better make something up." he tried to think, Bucky didn't sound like a real name, so maybe the next best thing could be…

"James. It's James."

"It's great making business with you James. Now, what should I know about this Anton Vasliev and his book?" He told her the indispensable. Anton was colonel in the Russian base he was kept, he told her that Anton and another general where responsible for knowing everything about him, all of Zola's research. He never mentioned been kept froze or that Anton was the third colonel he met thru those years, that those men were the responsible for his discipline to keep him in the line, or that Zola's research was made mostly while he was awake.

Those details were in his mind though, making his voice go quitter and his eyes to hit the ground every time he hit another land mine planted in the back of his mind, somewhere near where he was pushing these memories to.

"This is gonna take a little longer than I expected. We'll start with the former Hydra colonel, anyone connected to him, lest known locations, anything we can learn about him and... I called my friend about half an hour ago." He gave her a condoning look. "I still got the spare room you ignored last night, if you don't want him to see you just go there he won't bother you." She got even more of the deadly steer but just rolled her eyes at it. "You should be hungry, there's coffee and bread in the kitchen." She went back to her research but smile a little when he took her word and walked to the kitchen.

…

Nina read thru old and new files Gavin either left in her computer or thought her to access. Every time she stumbled on a new SHEILD related file she didn't know was hidden in her drive or didn't find something she needed she thought of punching Gavin, James had been right she was putting up a show for him earlier that wasn't her expertise and she would need that hacker if she wanted out of this.

And yet, all this was his fault, she wouldn't be stuck having to harbor a fugitive if it wasn't for him. Hydra was an old obsession of hers; history of the WWII was more interesting to study when you make everything about heroes and villains, Hydra was her big bad wolf growing up and if any of the stories she'd seen were right; she knew there were no prisoners within Hydra, they get to her it was over. If the if the ghost known as the fist of hydra had really switched sides, she'd ride it with him, see where it take her.

After another twenty minutes looking for anything interesting. She heard a sound from the front door's lock. James heard it too and stared to walk carefully to the living room but she waved urgently for him to go hide back in kitchen. She put her computer aside and walked to the front door; the door opened and she pained the men that came out in the desk beside the door.

"Convoy of evidence was from the Washington fiasco, hum? Care to explain yourself jackass?" She said holding the red-haired to the table.

"Nina I…" He struggled against the table but she let him go. "I was reckless. I'm sorry, you know I needed the money, I didn't think it would be a problem…" he said moving into the room but stopped when he noticed they weren't alone. He looked wild eyed to the other man standing there like tower with his metal arm, looking him like he could end Gavin before he could think of saying anything.

"It was a problem. We almost died; Men how could you do that?" He looked like a prey frozen in front of a wild predator and Nina didn't have the time to feel bad for the guy. "The people that were shooting at us last night, they might still be after us I need you to find them." He swallowed hard and had the good sense of keeping his questions for a better time; he got his own note book from the backpack he brought with him and stared looking into both his and Nina's data's all at once.

Nina walked past James; the angry man stood in the living room for a moment longer but followed her back to the kitchen.

"Gavin shouldn't take too long to have a location in one of those men, I can't find then as fast as him." She said running a hand thru the tense muscles in her back.

"You told me you were gonna wait to get him here. You said he didn't need to see me." He said using his size to trap her in one of the corners, but she answered him with an angry look.

"I want this over! And so do you, we need help finding those men and he is the best chance to do it fast..." she said it all at once, it was all true and she hoped James would get used to have the boy around. His anger didn't eased and she tried again slower. "The night we met, you said if they want you dead there isn't much they need to do. Are you...?"

"I don't know, I don't feel worse but I don't feel better ether. Even if I'm not dying; I'm not the kind of guy that lasts, not anymore. I need this done." She observed him carefully; he looked tired far beyond the loss of blood and the poorly slept night at the sofa. But he was being honest, and giving her as much true as she thought he could at that point. Nina knew that if he trusted her enough to give her his truth, she could show him she'd listen and try to understand; that way she could not only get close to him easier but maybe she could trust him too. Anyway, she wanted to decide about him for herself and not for the humors.

"If it's hydra; they are dirties. Couldn't they just be trying to play you? Twisting the truth isn't what they do? When I was looking into SHEILD/HYDRA after it fell, I read-"

"Guys I found something." Gavin called from the other room before she finished. "Maybe a base where they were located; I found the Russell guy you talked about. He's been in and out this real state building for a few days."

"Hydra doesn't have bases in California." James said checking what the boy was looking in his computer. "The best they would have here are safe houses or cover companies."

"You recognize any of these men?" Gavin asked turning the scream to James. There were surveillance videos of a business building where Russell walked in with five other men, James looked but didn't recognize any of them.

"What about the name I was looking at you found anything?" Nina asked if she was still mad her voice didn't show.

"He's Russian, I found an ID in the name Anton Vasliev, seems real. I can't look into official documents from the Kremlin from here, I'm asking another girl from the European Rising Tide to do it for me, she'll contact when she finds something. In the mean time I keep recording the surveillance from this outside building and the red book, if it was lost evidence, I would have found something in it by now, there were only two recovered files about you and neither with that description. What do you want to do next?"

"I don't know, really"

"Dude, I was asking her." Nina smiled a 'sorry' at James; Gavin had no filter.

"We can wait until you friend turn up with something on Anton but until then see what you can tell me about the building where Russell is hiding; there might be way we can go in it and maybe bug the place, after that we wait till we know more, good?" she asked James who just gave her a quick head shake. "Okay why don't you actually go check that bedroom a told you about, you just got shot I'll order some food if something else comes up we call you."

"You were shot?" James didn't answer just got up and went to the room.