As Time Goes By

by BouncingKappa

Sequel to Songbirds and Bombshells! Sadie Reid disappeared in 1949, never to be seen again until she resurfaces in 2016 with no memory of how she got there and one clue: the dog tags of her supposedly dead fiance, Bucky Barnes. Bucky is in Wakanda hoping for a chance at the freshest start he can get. Love found them once in the unlikeliest place, can it bring them together again?

15. I Have Dreamed

A/N: Oh hi! This chapter's excuse for my absence is two-fold. First, I am about halfway through the first draft of my first novel! I've been focusing more heavily on original fiction lately and am looking to finish the draft sometime this summer. Second, writer's block is a real bitch. I struggled mightily with this chapter and I'm still not super happy with it but alas, if I mess with it much more I'm just going to make it worse lol.

Also, if you notice more typos or errors, that is because I'm writing without a beta for the foreseeable future. I'm doing the best that I can but these chapters are dense and I absolutely won't catch everything. Please be kind! Thank you so much for all of the reviews, favorites and follows!

The title for this chapter is based off the song from The King and I but is a very specific arrangement – the instrumental version from the movie The American President which is one of my favorites!

Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, if I did we would be getting a second season of Moon Knight…because…Oscar Isaac.

Chapter 15 – I Have Dreamed

Beams of sunlight broke through the clouds, scattering watery rays over the white marble sarcophagus atop a set of shallow stairs. Rows of perfectly aligned soldiers cascaded down the stairs, each man dressed in an impeccable dress uniform and bearing a shining rifle on his or her shoulder. Off to one side on the main landing, an attachment of the Dora Milaje stood in similarly perfect formation, their engraved ceremonial spears glinting in the early autumn sun. Okoye stood at their front, a proud figure that took Sadie's breath away as she stood just in front of the black rope line separating the official delegation from the crowd of politicians and other important American political figureheads amassed to observe the solemn occasion. A white metal stand held a handsome green wreath dotted with blooming red and white roses. It stood between the tombs and the black rubber mat that the tomb's guards so meticulously walked day in and day out. Out of the corner of her eye, Sadie observed King T'Challa and Princess Shuri, straight-backed and solemn-faced where they stood with the President and First Lady.

Directly behind her, Sadie felt Tony Stark's larger-than-life presence. She didn't need to ask him why he'd skulked down from New York for the occasion. He certainly wouldn't deign to make an appearance just because he'd become the President's favorite poster boy for international cooperation in the wake of the Accords, but he would take any and every opportunity to interact with the Wakandans and the chance to meet Shuri face-to-face was too good to pass up. If he so happened to gain a little access and insight into Shuri's advances in nanotechnology or weasel any information on Sadie's powers then that was just the cherry on top. Sadie might have been annoyed by Tony's cheeky grin had he not brought another, infinitely more welcome sight.

Rhodey's status as a still-active Colonel in the Air Force granted him privileges that even Tony lacked and he stood directly to her right, tall and proud in his latest walking apparatus. Though they hadn't spoken prior to the start of the ceremony, Sadie felt better standing next to him. His uniform held an even more impressive array of service ribbons than hers and his bolstering presence made her feel like less of an anomaly. All morning long she'd been acutely aware of the attention bestowed upon her, especially because she looked like she'd stepped directly out of a time machine. Even Bucky and Steve seemed incapable of conjuring the right words upon seeing her at breakfast, dressed in the full pomp and circumstance.

Still, despite the heads turning in her direction, she did her best to maintain a low profile, choosing to speak quietly with Rhodey and Tony before the ceremony and avoiding as many of the cameras as she could. The wreath-laying ceremony was an opportunity for T'Challa to honor the fallen and continue to strengthen the diplomatic ties between both countries. He was playing an intricate chess match, doing his best to manage the world's collective shock over the extent of Wakanda's secrets, the ire at Wakanda withholding its bounty from the world and trying to maneuver himself into the best negotiating position possible. Wakanda didn't need anything from anyone, but it did need international cooperation to expand its outreach efforts. One bad move could see the door shut in his face, torpedoing all of Nakia's hard work and leaving Wakanda utterly alone on the world stage. Sadie was aware that she was nothing more than a pawn on the larger board. Her status as Wakanda's first state guest allowed her to talk about the generosity of her host, and the warmth of the Wakandan people, and deflect too much curiosity about all that vibranium. So, she stood still at Rhodey's side, glinting into the sun and holding the line while T'Challa and Shuri stepped forward with the President and First Lady to pay their respects to the tomb and all it represented.

While she watched, she tried not to think about the tomb and the hundreds of thousands of graves that lay beyond the memorial. In the years that followed the war, she'd struggled with nightmares, with strange sounds that conjured painful memories, and the stark holes in her life created by the absence of too many loved ones. She'd mourned her friends and family as much as she mourned the memories that would never be and her peace had been hard-won, only to be shattered nearly a century later. Sadie too often felt the burden of loneliness and the pain of being the last of her friends and family left standing. Steve and Bucky were welcome balms to the sting, but not even their presence could fully quell the grief that came upon her in intermittent waves. After all, nobody could replace her mother or father. Steve was a wonderful friend but he couldn't replicate Betty's wit or Evelyn's supportive, giving spirit. Bucky's unbelievable return to her life served to patch the holes he left behind but their precarious circumstances, existing in the odd limbo between friends and lovers left him ill-equipped to be the brother to her that Dum Dum was or the mentors that Ian Holmes and Howard Stark were. Standing before the tomb reminded her of all the funerals that came and went without her. Mourning the magnitude of her losses felt almost impossible; how could one person really process that much death all at once?

Sadie blinked as multiple camera flashes went off again, capturing the moment that T'Challa and Shuri raised their arms into an 'x' across their chests, a Wakandan gesture that seemed to hold too many meanings to count. The sharp staccato of a snare drum filled the air and slowly, the honor guard of soldiers began to march out, followed by Okoye and the Dora Milaje. The ceremony drew to a close and the President turned to shake hands with T'Challa, breaking the formal air. Sadie released a soft exhale and smiled up at Rhodey when he gave her shoulder a hearty pat.

"Well, Tony you surv-" Rhodey had started to speak only to discover that Tony was already gone, having snuck past the rope line. Already he was at the First Lady's side, painting on a charming smile, though he kept a sharp eye on the true person of his interest. Shuri glanced at him once, then twice, before responding to the President. "Yeah, I should have expected that."

Sadie rolled her eyes. "He's a bit like a dog with a bone, isn't he?"

"Worse." Rhodey shook his long-suffering head. "I hope your princess is good at hiding her secrets."

Sadie considered the fact that Shuri had been successfully, covertly treating the world's most wanted war criminal for the better part of four months now. She bit back an indelicate snort of laughter. "I wouldn't worry about Princess Shuri."

"I'll take your word for it. Wakanda still treating you well?"

Sadie nodded. "I couldn't ask for a better host. Though it's nice to be back in the country, even for a few days."

Rhodey tipped his chin towards the ribbons on her jacket, including the ones for the European and Pacific theaters. "So, did they dust some old ones off or fire up the sewing machine to make a couple fresh for you?"

"Hah, hah," she rolled her eyes and he shoved his hands in his pockets, grinning in the face of her embarrassment. "Let's all laugh at Sadie because she's ancient. That joke never gets old."

His smile, if possible, widened. "Don't get me wrong, it's an impressive collection. And I know you earned each one the hard way."

Sadie stared out over the brilliant green lawn, so meticulously clipped she wondered if the caretakers cut it with a slide rule. The beauty and formality of Arlington bothered her in a way she couldn't quite describe. Almost as though it was all just a front, covering the horrific way so many of its occupants died. Perhaps, though, that was just the bitter voice in her mind talking. After all, the men and women resting there deserved just as much peace and tranquility as anyone else, and maybe it was fitting that their final resting place be amidst the towering trees and sloping lawns.

Rhodey's smile faded. He checked his watch, then tipped his head towards the stairs that would lead them down to the main body of the cemetery.

"We've got some time before your next engagement." He held his elbow out for her. "Let's go for a walk."

Ignoring the wave of camera flashes that went off, she took his arm, and together they turned away from the crowd. They walked in comfortable silence and for that, she was glad as they came upon the first section of headstones. Rhodey obliged her shock and stopped to let her drink it all in. Evenly spaced down to the centimeter and each one snow-white, the identical headstones crested the shallow hill and sloped gently downwards. She could make out the insignia for religious preference, the neatly carved names, ranks, birth and death dates on each small column, and how there were so many she could never hope to count them all.

"There are so many," she breathed.

"We've been in a lot of fights," Rhodey reasoned and Sadie nodded, swallowing hard. "This way."

He had a specific destination in mind and she followed him, too overwhelmed by the sight to ask questions or argue. Each step they took revealed more and more of the cemetery and its unfathomable beauty. They passed one section of headstones, moved beyond a thin band of trees, and came to another. Here Rhodey led her down a sidewalk between the graves and stopped at an aisle where they diverted to a large section. A small wreath lay at the base of the headstones in this section.

"I hope you don't mind, I had them placed this morning. I thought maybe you'd like to visit."

Sadie paused at the first headstone and gripped the inside of Rhodey's forearm to steady herself. Her eyes darted from the first to the next and then the next.

Timothy A.C. Dugan.

Gabriel Jones.

James Morita.

"After Falsworth and Dernier died, Tony's father got the President to issue a special request to have them interred here. He said that the boys would have wanted to stay together."

Sure enough, there were headstones for James Falsworth and Jaques Dernier among the row. Taking care in her skirt, she crouched down and brushed her fingers past Dum Dum's name, a wry smile tugging at her lips. If there was one thing Sadie knew for certain, it was that he would have hated seeing 'Timothy' on his gravestone instead of Dum Dum.

"Hello old friend," she murmured, wishing with all her might that she would turn around to see him pop up from behind another grave, shouting 'boo!' before dissolving into hysterics. "I'm sorry I missed so much. I promise when I have time, I'll come back and catch you up. It's a hell of a story."

Acutely aware that Rhodey was still next to her, listening to her every word, she straightened and glanced at each of the other headstones, reading the names of her friends, skipping from one to the next until–she clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her surprise. Rhodey snorted.

"Yeah, nobody really knew what to do about Steve when he came back. Bucky either," he explained as she knelt before Steve and Bucky's headstones side-by-side. "The last I heard the brass are still fighting over what to do about it. I assume your name will be added to that list if it hasn't already."

"My–" she straightened to ask him to repeat himself but he pointed to the grave next to Bucky's.

Sarah Grace Reid.

Sadie's jaw dropped. She wanted to pinch the back of her hand to ensure she wasn't hallucinating. Still, there was no denying the headstone before her now. Her name took up three neat rows beneath the cross engraved at the top. Then at the bottom, her birth and alleged death date - the date of her disappearance. Of all the things she'd seen since waking up in a brand new millennium, from computers to Bucky's incredible prosthetic arm to wild fashions and sixteen-year-old geniuses, this was by far the most surreal. Up until three months ago, she'd been dead. A figure lost to history and now occasionally served as the subject of a high school history project and listed as a footnote in the dozens of books written about the Howling Commandos. She'd been nothing more than a topic for history dissertations, a picture hanging in the halls of every IHAP regional branch and lumped together with other famous women as the mothers of feminism: Peggy Carter, Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan, Janet VanDyne, and the list went on and on. Until a random group of British backpackers cracked open her cryostasis tube, she'd just been a tiny corner exhibit in a museum and a handful of words on a snow-white headstone set above an empty grave.

The sound originated in her lungs, bubbling up her throat and popping free of her lips before she could stop it. Sadie didn't even bother clapping a hand over her mouth. Uncontrollable laughter poured out of her, ringing clear in the air, startling Rhodey who stared at her wide-eyed in surprise.

"I'm sorry," she said, wiping tears of mirth from beneath her eyes. "I know it's inappropriate but I can't help myself–this is too funny!"

She was sure not many people got the opportunity to stand at their own headstone. There was a grim accuracy that belied the existence of her grave. In many ways that version of her was long dead, replaced by this new self, a stranger wandering an even stranger world and there were times when she felt so far from who she'd been that it was easy to believe she was living two separate lives. But even that didn't prepare her for how ridiculous the sight of her empty grave really was. And so she laughed until her stomach hurt.

"No, it's pretty funny," Rhodey agreed after a moment, laughing a little with her.

"It's something from Shakespeare or Dickens." She wiped away another few tears of mirth. "Oh, I hope they don't remove it. After I'm gone they can just cross the death date out and put the new one in permanent marker!"

As one, she and Rhodey cracked up again. She gripped his shoulder for support and he held onto her elbow. When at last her laughter receded, she let go of Rhodey and gave her headstone a fond pat.

"I haven't laughed that hard in a long, long time," she admitted.

"Glad I could help."

Sadie smiled up at Rhodey and thought she saw the same glimmer of wicked humor in his eye as Dum Dum. She remembered her old friend cajoling her into sitting with him at the piano and occasionally walking her home from the hospital, having her in fits of laughter by the time they reached her quarters. Dum Dum would have found her grave funny too, but then it occurred to her that her friend had likely been here before, perhaps even present for her sham of a burial. The idea of her friends standing around her pointless grave twisted her stomach into a knot. Suddenly, the whole thing wasn't so funny anymore.

"Sadie?"

She felt her face twitching towards a frown that she fought. "I hate that they never knew the truth - that Steve, Bucky, and I were–" she drew in a shuddering breath. "They all thought we were dead and if they'd known, I just know that they would have–"

"Hey, hey," Rhodey took her shoulders, turning her square to him. "My grandma used to say there's no point in could've, would've, should've."

Rhodey held her in his steady estimation. Beneath the weight of his gaze, she felt calm again, and back in her usual rational headspace. Hadn't she told Steve the same thing a few weeks earlier? Dwelling on 'what ifs' was a recipe for disaster; she'd learned that the hard way with Bucky.

"You're right. I know you are," she said and sighed. "I just miss them. I miss everyone."

X X X

Bucky pushed his hair away from his face before sliding his baseball cap back on. He regretted not grabbing a hair elastic before he left the Embassy that morning. Although he couldn't reasonably explain why he found his long hair to be infinitely more annoying now than when he was under HYDRA's control. There was probably some deep scientific explanation having to do with HYDRA's programming and being trained not to notice little irritations. Bucky didn't know and it didn't matter but every time he did something requiring even the slightest physical activity he found himself constantly shoving the offending locks out of the way and wondering how stupid he'd look with a short haircut after all these years.

"You know, you could try and look a little more natural."

Bucky rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses. There wasn't anything he wouldn't give to get Natasha Romanoff and Sam Wilson out of his ear. All morning long they'd felt obligated to eat up the silence with their color commentary. From the moment Bucky slid his earpiece in, they'd been a constant presence, whether it was necessary communication announcing their positions or just needling anyone and everyone about one thing or another. Steve took the ribbing in stride, even laughing a couple of times at their jokes but Bucky could feel his patience wearing more and more thin.

"And you know the point of a covert op is to be covert, right?"

"Which is why I'm pointing out that you look like someone shoved a two by four down your shirt," Natasha replied. Bucky's scowl, if possible, deepened. Without really thinking about it, he rubbed his left forearm.

It wasn't just the baseball cap and the sunglasses part of his disguise that made Bucky feel uncomfortable and ridiculous. That morning, Shuri swept into the conference room wearing a smug look and bearing a tablet. Bucky barely understood half the things she said as she popped open one of the panels on the underside of Bucky's arm. What he did get from her technical ramble was she had created a handful of new programs for his arm, calling them system updates and upgrades. He'd watched with mild interest as she placed one of her Kimoyo beads in a port specifically designed for it, transmitting the data and then using her tablet to monitor the upload until it finished. When she replaced the panel on his arm, he assumed that was the end of it until she showed him how to use a new mode that nearly sent him out of his chair in shock.

Even now he had to work hard not to look down at his left hand. She explained that a thin layer of nano receptors was embedded in the surface of the arm, designed to accept certain programs to change the appearance of the arm. Shuri had his full-body scans on file, taken for his deprogramming, and she'd taken it upon herself to make a digital model of his right arm and hand, changing the orientation to the left. He'd jumped in surprise when she engaged the mode and he watched as the receptors turned on, rippling down from his shoulder in a wave-like motion, changing from cobalt vibranium to look like an exact mirror image of his right arm and hand.

"Now, obviously, this is still a work in progress. When we get back to Wakanda I can start tinkering with the sensitivity of the program to help create a better sense of depth and smoothness. If anyone gets too close they'll see the difference. But, from a distance? You shouldn't have any problems."

Bucky took her explanation in stride, unable to stop staring at his 'flesh' hand. Just when he thought things couldn't get any more bizarre, Shuri always found a way to prove him dead wrong.

Turning his attention back to the present and the view of the street he had from his park bench, Bucky did his best to relax his tense body. In his ear, he heard Natasha poorly conceal her snort of amusement and the tips of his fingers twitched, just begging to tug the earpiece out and crush it beneath his boot.

"Give him a break, Nat."

Oh great. That was just what he needed, Steve intervening, sounding eerily like his mother. Ignoring the sniping, he checked his watch.

"Five minutes to go."

Fortunately, that shut everyone up. He recrossed his legs and draped his arm over the back of the bench, moving to pull the stupid smartphone out of his pocket so he could pretend to scroll through the news. As he dragged his thumb over the screen, he watched the building across the street, looking for the first sign of his mark.

Having Steve, Natasha, and Sam in his ear was an unfortunate necessity for the mission. While Sadie, T'Challa, and the rest of the Wakandan delegation rubbed elbows with D.C.'s political elite and engaged in photo ops and negotiations, Bucky was in D.C. primarily to carry out his first mission as a Wakandan intelligence asset. His knowledge of D.C., having learned it for several HYDRA missions, was invaluable when it came to moving through the city. The twofold heart of his job with Wakanda was simple enough: first, use his HYDRA connections to chase down and recover stolen Wakandan vibranium and valuables, and second, keep a close ear to the ground for any threat to T'Challa's latest investment and protect Sadie as necessary. Both of these were noble uses of his time, even if he valued one infinitely more than the other. But protecting Sadie had to take a backseat to chase down a mark almost as untouchable as he was elusive.

Like he had when he was assigned to capture and interrogate prisoners with the SSR, Bucky memorized Hunter Carrington III's dossier and his photo image was all but burned into his brain. Hunter looked exactly like every other average white man on the planet: blonde, fit, friendly, and unassuming enough but his looks were deceiving. Coming from a wealthy family that happened to be a part of HYDRA's enduring generational legacy, Hunter had been raised on the three-headed serpent from a shamefully young age. After HYDRA fell, he managed to parlay his old wealthy connections into a network for the rich and famous to obtain some of the world's most elusive items, in particular, vibranium and, to Steve's intense interest, Chitauri weapons.

If Hunter Carrington III also happened to have heard any rumors about Brock Rumlow's mysterious return from the dead? Well, that was just the cherry on top.

The timing of the Wakandan state visit turned out to be a boon for the operation. T'Challa's appearance in the city raised a lot of commotion and brought a slew of lobbyists, high-profile political figures, and celebrities to town. Some of the visitors were in town for the state dinner at the White House or the performance of the Pan-African Symphony at the Kennedy Center and some were in town just hoping for the chance to get close and gain clout by association. Whatever the reason, D.C. was currently a cesspool of notable names which was too tempting for a man like Hunter to ignore.

Natasha managed to find a backdoor into Hunter's assistant's digital calendar and now they had his schedule down to the minute. The Carringtons owned a legitimate media company that acted as the front for their illegal operations and any moment now, Hunter would be leaving the Carrington Media Corp's D.C. branch, headed to an appointment with one of D.C.'s most renowned art dealers. The gallery was a short drive from the office building and the nice weather afforded a unique opportunity. Where Bucky sat, he kept a close eye on the town car out front and the driver standing several feet away, smoking a cigarette and staring at several women as they walked past.

It was Bucky's job to make the calls, stay out of direct trouble and let the others do the hard work of neutralizing the driver, allowing Sam to slip unnoticed into the driver's seat. Though Bucky was certain he could manage all of it on his own, there was an unassailable logic to keeping his profile as low as possible. Wakanda's head of intelligence had spent the last several weeks carefully putting out feelers into the intelligence community, planting little clues to suggest Bucky was somewhere in East Asia. All of that painstaking work would be for nothing if he was caught cavorting around D.C., chasing wealthy arms dealers.

"What do you see?"

"Nothing yet."

Bucky checked his watch again. It was almost noon. If Sadie wasn't already on her way from Arlington to her next engagement she would be soon. While he watched the building for signs of Hunter's emergence, he tried and failed, not to think about Sadie. He'd be a flat-out liar if he said he wasn't affected by the sight of her that morning, dressed to textbook perfection in her Class A's. Even Steve had been rendered speechless because seeing her that way was like falling through the looking glass. Bucky knew she'd earned a promotion and built an impressive collection of commendations but seeing her standing straight with shining captain's bars on her shoulders and so many ribbons was something else altogether. Sometimes the haze clouding his memories left him questioning whether everything he thought was real actually happened. Facing Sadie wearing her history on her jacket was confirmation that the war wasn't a fever dream. He'd lived it and so had she.

He ached for that time when the sight of her coming to the bunker dressed in her Class A's for meetings was normal. He missed opening his closet to find her jacket hanging next to his and the handful of times they accidentally switched their dog tags. There was something about the softness of her hair, the olive drab against her skin, and the way she automatically carried herself differently that took him back to a time when she would stop his lips mere inches from hers, beseeching him not to ruin her lipstick and her playful smiles at him from across the table during mission briefings. What wouldn't Bucky give to brave the London drizzle just to make the walk to the hospital to pick her up at the end of her shift?

Those days were long gone. Instead, his ass was halfway numb while he continued to wait, doing his best to keep his profile low to the sparse trickle of pedestrians that passed by. Just when he was about to suggest that maybe there'd been a change of schedule, a figure appeared in the lobby.

"He's on the move."

Hunter Carrington III looked like every other self-important jerkface that Bucky had ever met. But, like most self-important men, he was also too self-absorbed to notice the shift in personnel around him. In the twenty seconds that Hunter had between the glass doors and his town car, Natasha appeared seemingly out of thin air, tripping on her high heels and falling straight into Hunter's driver. Starstruck by Natasha's beauty and her obliging hands clasped onto his biceps, the driver didn't even notice as she stumbled, holding onto his arms and turning his back to the town car. Steve, dressed in a dark suit, opened the door for Hunter who didn't even look up from his phone to slide into the backseat. Sam was already in the driver's seat and then the car was gone.

It took a total of fifteen seconds. Steve melted into the crowd as easily as he appeared and in the split second it took for the driver to realize his mistake, Natasha was already gone, a ghost in the wind. Bucky turned the page of his paper to the crossword. While he began to work through the clues, he watched Hunter's driver start to panic and within minutes a small crowd of people was amassed in the lobby, all in a panic to figure out what had happened.

"Sam, did you start the device to scramble his phone?"

"Yup," said Sam.

With no way of reaching Hunter, there was very little his staffers could do except panic. Bucky, for his part, enjoyed watching the chaos for a few minutes longer until he felt it was safe to move, not wanting to draw any attention to himself. Folding his paper beneath his arm he turned his back on the building and melted into the park, just another faceless body in the crowd.

X X X

The news of Hunter Carrington III's disappearance wasn't on the evening news. Bucky suspected and Natasha confirmed that his staff wouldn't reach out to the police or the press because too much scrutiny opened the door for more problems. Chances were, they were looking into a fixer or private investigator to hunt down their boss but Bucky also suspected they might be letting the situation ride. Rumor had it that it wasn't uncommon for Hunter to disappear for a couple of days every so often, turning up after a weekend-long bender with a handful of nameless internet models that he bought off with a handful of luxury items.

Even if his staff had hired someone to track him down, they'd have a hell of a time. Natasha wasn't just good at her job, she was practically a savant. Though they hadn't talked about their prior interaction, Bucky possessed the unfortunate memories of having to track her down, a task that had been almost as impossible as completing the heart of the mission itself. Absently, he wondered if she had a scar from where he'd shot her; he assumed she did but could live his entire life without confirmation.

With Hunter Carrington III safely absconded away to a safe house that maybe only God himself could find, Bucky returned to the Embassy to debrief and then help prepare for the state dinner. There was a good deal of activity throughout the Embassy when he returned. No other president had hosted a state dinner for Wakanda and the inclusion of the dinner in T'Challa's official trip had been expected but was still seen as an honor, a sign that the president was ready to recognize Wakanda as a world player and give it a seat at the table. To say that a lot was riding on a successful dinner was saying the bare minimum. Bucky felt the tense atmosphere from the second he walked into the Embassy and it followed him through his debriefing where he'd been warned in no uncertain terms that any incident with Hunger Carrington III that might detract from the dinner or the trip as a whole would be catastrophic.

He was relieved to see his debriefing end but that wasn't the end of his duties. After that, he spent several hours reviewing and memorizing the contingency plans in case of any disaster at the dinner along with the necessary security protocols. Armed with the information, he marched upstairs to take on his next task, which was to brief Sadie.

In the spare minutes they'd had since arriving in D.C. she hadn't indicated any nerves about the dinner. She'd cracked a couple of jokes about all those years of deportment lessons and cotillions finally paying off though there was a lot more to the state dinner than a Little Rock dance. He kept those thoughts to himself, however, and figured that if she needed to express concern or even anxiety she would find a quiet way to do so. Bucky knocked on her door and waited for a response that never came. Frowning, he knocked once more before he tried the door handle to discover it unlocked. Bracing himself, he cracked the door open just a sliver.

"Sade? You didn't escape out the window did you?"

"Bucky? Is that you?"

"Yeah, you got a minute?"

"I do, but first I need your help."

Interest piqued, he let himself into her suite. Her living area was larger than his, appointed with an elegant sofa and several pieces of artwork by Wakandan artists hung on the walls. The double doors to her bedroom were wide open, revealing her neatly made bed and a handful of odd items scattered across the cream bedspread. The light in her bathroom was on though he didn't see her shadow when he peered to the right, he found her closet wide open.

The exasperated look on her face was worth the hell he would get when he burst out laughing. Sadie stood in her closet, bent forward in a ridiculous position with her hands wound behind her back. The deep blue dress she wore barely stayed on her shoulders and the cowl neck hung down while she struggled. A sweep of rich brunette hair fell across her forehead and over her eyes but he caught the full force of her glare, highlighted by her winged eyeliner.

"You're really just gonna stand there and laugh?"

"Sorry! This was the last thing I was expecting."

Bucky's shoulders were still shaking even as he let himself into her bedroom. She had to hold the front of her dress against her chest with one hand and the skirt up with the other as she met him in the middle.

"My zipper got stuck and I can't–" she huffed out a sigh and dropped her head back, venting her frustration towards the ceiling. When she met Bucky's eyes his heart tripped over a beat and then down an entire staircase into his stomach. Her gray eyes popped against her skin and her full mouth was the most becoming shade of red he'd ever seen. Even more than seeing her in her uniform earlier that day, her makeup took him back to some of the best times of his life. "Do you mind helping?"

Bucky wouldn't have denied her little pout for the entire world. Her shoulders sagged a little in relief when he motioned for her to turn around.

His mind dropped straight out of his head and into the muck somewhere beneath the gutter. The dress was unzipped down to just above her lower back, revealing a column of smooth, peaches and cream skin. Swallowing hard, he hesitated before gently taking the zipper pull between his fingers and giving it an experimental tug. When it didn't budge he was forced to get a better look, leaning over to try and find the source of the problem.

"Did you need to talk to me about something?"

She might as well have been speaking in a different language. Bucky was so distracted by her bare back, the subtle floral scent coming off her skin and the long line of her neck, revealed by her elegant hairstyle that he could barely think straight.

"Uh–" he hoped she would blame his idiotic response on trying to fix the zipper. He did isolate the problem easily enough. A small amount of fabric was caught in the zipper pull. Working the fabric free, he pulled on the zipper with no resistance and smiled when Sadie exhaled in relief.

"Oh thank God."

As Bucky zipped her in, his knuckles brushed along her skin and he felt her draw in and hold a breath of surprise. Bucky wondered whether she was thinking about the way she used to lay on his chest, eyes closed and breath soft while he traced formless patterns along her spine. He loved how her body vibrated against his when he made her laugh and he could still recall her whispering kisses along his jaw. It would be so easy, he thought with longing, to turn her around and take her in his arms. The zipper stopped at the top and she didn't exhale until he did the tiny hook and eye closure, sealing her into the dress.

"Perfect, now stand there just one second."

And then she was gone, holding the dress up while she padded barefoot back into her closet and then returned, carrying a pair of delicate high heels. Bucky dutifully stood still while she held his shoulder, keeping her balance while she stepped into the shoes and then smoothed her dress out. With one last little huff, she looked down at herself and, satisfied that everything was in place, raised her face to Bucky.

"Okay, now you have my full and undivided attention. What did you need to talk about?"

Bucky's entire grasp of the English language evaporated like a splash of water in the desert. His mouth moved but no sound rose from his throat. Sadie's dress clung to her curves before gently opening up at the bottom. Traveling from the cowl neck that scooped across her chest, Bucky drank in her shining hair and the elegant side knot that revealed the line of her neck. He wanted to press his face there, to feel the comforting warmth of her body against his and inhale her sweet scent. Every detail beckoned to him, but none more powerful than her wide, piercing gaze.

"Is something wrong?" She asked, surprised by his speechlessness. Glancing down once more at her dress, her lips turned towards a frown. "I know it's a little ridiculous but the designer said the shape worked well for me and –"

"You don't look ridiculous, you look beautiful," he corrected her.

Her lips softened into a tiny 'o' that was almost unbearable. Every single impulse told him to close his hands over her hips, back her against the dresser, and not let go until her dress was a heap on the floor and she was a breathless, quivering mess in his arms.

"Thank you."

Sadie didn't quite meet his eye and that struck Bucky as odd. She was nothing if not direct, it was one of his favorite things about her. Her chest rose in a deep breath and when she exhaled he caught the slightest tremble. Thin bands of tension wound around him, slipping through the air to slither around her too, constricting around them with every passing second and tremulous breath she took. Their chemistry had always been palpable, a potent combination of firecrackers and honey in hot tea. He felt it now, that inescapable draw to be close, to skim the tip of his nose over her hair and let his fingertips ghost down her neck, just barely touching her to feel the energy crackle off her skin. Sadie took another deep breath and dared to raise her eyes to peer at him through her long lashes, telegraphing that she was thinking the same thing he was. Bucky thought his knees might give out.

Sensing they were straying into dangerous territory, Sadie blinked a few times, stopping short of shaking her head to rid herself of her thoughts. Even then, her mouth softened and the tiny sigh that escaped with her exhale threatened to undo Bucky where he stood.

"You needed to talk to me?"

"Huh?" He asked rather stupidly.

The bluntness of his response broke the trance holding them. Sadie covered her mouth but that didn't do much to muffle her giggle. Blood rushed to his cheeks and seared down the back of his neck. But the flash of embarrassment did the trick, shocking Bucky back to reality.

"Yeah, I need to go over the security protocols for tonight. Plans A, B, and C for evacuation in case anything goes wrong, that type of stuff."

She arched an eyebrow. "Are we expecting things to go off the rails?"

"No," he shrugged. "But that doesn't mean it won't."

"How optimistic," she teased and left him to go to her bed where she took up a small beaded bag. While Bucky did his best to brief Sadie, she collected a handful of items including her ID, a tube of lipstick, and her phone, and stowed them in the tiny bag. He had to look anywhere but at her, while she checked her reflection in the mirror, examining her hair and makeup, ensuring that every last strand was in place and she hadn't missed any details.

"So, the bottom line is that if anything goes wrong tonight, look for Bishara," she confirmed.

Bucky frowned. He wished she wouldn't distill all the details down so heavily but she wasn't wrong. "Please take this seriously."

"I am taking it seriously," but she was smiling even as she put in her glittering earrings, on loan to her with T'Challa's compliments. Bucky frowned. A glance at his blue jeans reminded him that they were still worlds apart. The gulf between them was probably actually wider now than it had been during the war. "But you have to admit, the chances of anyone trying to crash a state dinner at the White House are pretty low."

"Regardless–" he started to argue but stopped when she laid a hand on his chest. It was amazing to him how she could quiet him with a single, simple move.

"Bucky, I've already told Steve this, but I'll kindly remind you that I survived a world war in two theaters. I don't think I'm so weak that a dinner party is going to be the death of me." Bucky didn't like thinking in those terms. She read his frown like he'd painted the words across his forehead. The playful smile slipped off her face, replaced by a tiny scowl. "I promise that I will be careful and keep a sharp eye for trouble or Bishara, whichever comes first.

"Thank you."

"Do I even want to know what you're doing this evening?"

Bucky considered Hunter Carrington III, being held under Natasha and Sam's watchful eyes, waiting for Steve and him to return. There was a lot of information they intended to get out of him and although Bucky hoped that their soft-handed captive would be cooperative, he wasn't optimistic. But there was vibranium to recover, Chitauri weapons to track down, and ghosts to reveal and he'd learned the hard way that answers were seldom easy won. Sadie's general awareness of his set of skills was already more than he preferred and he didn't think going into detail was going to improve her opinion of his decision to join Wakanda's intelligence department.

"Probably not."

She pursed her lips but wisely kept any disparaging comment to herself. "I suppose asking you to be careful too is probably pointless. Especially since you'll be with Steve."

Bucky laughed. There was more than a grain of truth to her sentiment. Though he never sought out trouble, it typically found him and that was usually because Steve was a magnet for trouble. All he had to do was step out of the house and he could wind up in a back alley fight or, as of late, battling aliens and running from the CIA. Trouble was the hazard of being Steve's friend and as much as he wanted a quiet life away from all of it, Bucky had debts to pay and sins to atone for. He wasn't sure he would ever be able to walk away from the fight.

"I'll do my best. Come on, I'll walk down with you."

He liked the way the corners of her eyes still crinkled when she smiled at him. She took the elbow he offered. Bucky thought they must have looked like quite a pair, him in blue jeans and a henley, and Sadie dressed like she'd stepped out of the pages of a glossy magazine. Feeling bold and brave, he covered her hand on his elbow, giving it a little squeeze. Sadie bowed her head but he caught the flash of her pleased expression and together they left the quiet sanctuary of her room. They didn't even make it halfway down the hall when Nakia appeared, resplendent in a vivid shade of green.

"There you are! I need you. The Secretary of Housing and Urban Development is going to be at the cocktail hour and I want to talk to her about our plans for expanding our outreach. Can we go over my talking points in the limo? It would help to get my thoughts in order."

Sadie didn't even get a chance to respond. Nakia, completely ignoring Bucky's presence, reached for Sadie's free arm to guide her away. Left with little choice but to follow, she turned back and gave Bucky a helpless, disappointed look. He shrugged but found a little grin when she mouthed 'sorry!' And then she was gone, down the stairs towards the atrium and the waiting town cars that would take them to the White House, to glitz and glamor, more cameras and pressure than he cared to imagine.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, almost sending him out of his skin. Since when had he let his guard down so much? Had he been so lost in his thoughts he didn't hear Steve lumber up behind him? The man wasn't exactly the king of subtlety.

"C'mon, Nat and Sam are waiting for us."

X X X

Nakia reviewed her talking points from the time the motorcade left the Embassy to the portico of the White House and then during the excruciating minutes they had to wait while T'Challa and Shuri posed for photographs with the President and First Lady. All she needed was a little encouragement and reassurance that she was on the right track. Sadie did not doubt that the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development was going to eat up her proposal with a silver spoon if the rest of the trip's successful negotiations were anything to go off. Still, she understood Nakia's need to be perfect, to have every detail lined up and every question answered. She'd done much of the same fretting when it came to pitching IHAP to Howard's wealthy philanthropist friends. So, Sadie did the best she could to help tweak the fine details and assure her friend that she was going to be great.

The task proved to be a welcome distraction such that Sadie had forgotten entirely about Bucky by the time she was in the Yellow Oval Room with a glass of champagne in hand. She'd barely raised the glass to her lips when a familiar face appeared in her line of sight.

"Toto, you clean up well."

She fought a grimace which only goaded Tony's general amusement. He stopped a passing waiter to pluck a salmon canape from a tray. "I can accept the fact that I can't stop you from calling me that ridiculous nickname everywhere else, but maybe not here? In the White House of all places?"

Tony grinned at her from around his bite. Exasperation drew a long-suffering sigh out of her lungs and she felt her shoulders round in mild defeat. Who was she kidding? Tony's level of respect for hallowed places and institutions was practically non-existent. He was also determined to be his typical, casual, 'I-do-what-I-want' self no matter where he went and was all too happy to fold his friends or friendly acquaintances into the chaos, unwitting and unwilling victims for his amusement.

"You should lighten up a little," he mused from where he took up his post next to her. "This many egos and stuffed shirts in one room? It's nice to have someone here who's a little more down to earth."

Sadie snorted into her glass. Tony raised an eyebrow, seeking an explanation. "I'm sorry, Tony, but the notion of you criticizing anyone else for having a large ego is awfully rich."

He rewarded her cheek with a bark of a laugh. "See, the difference is, I know I'm an egomaniacal bastard and I don't pretend to be anything to the contrary. But all of these guys?" He flickered his fingers towards the array of party guests, many of whom were middle-aged men in sharp tuxedos "-they all genuinely think they're doing the right thing and if that happens to serve their best interests on top of it? Well, all the better." Sadie couldn't argue with that. "Besides, as far as nicknames go, Toto is pretty tame."

"You nicknamed me after a dog," she deadpanned.

"I nicknamed you after the famous quote," he corrected her as if that distinction carried any weight with her. "I'm surprised you haven't been subjected to the mob. I would have figured you would be the center of attention here."

Sadie sipped her champagne. "I'm sure the attention will eventually trickle back to me but for now, King T'Challa is the star of the show, as he should be."

That was true enough. At that moment, most of the buzz surrounded T'Challa and the President, the two men shaking hands and going through what amounted to a receiving line of important guests. Everyone in the Yellow Oval Room was the elite of the elite, ambassadors, Congressmen, Cabinet members, and, according to the guest list Sadie reviewed, even a couple of movie stars.

"Honestly, I don't even know why I'm here. I could have just as easily skipped the reception and just gone to the main dinner."

"And miss all this?"

Sadie lifted her skirt an inch off the floor. "Careful there, you're getting sarcasm all over the carpet."

Several people glanced over when Tony threw his head back and laughed loudly. Blood stained her cheeks and she started to turn away from him, determined to be anywhere else but next to him when a figure cut through the crowd. Sadie privately thanked any deity listening for placing Rhodey in her path. He made walking in his new apparatus look so easy and he was far more relaxed with a glass of wine in his hand than he had been at Arlington. Sadie took his hand when he offered it and they exchanged brief kisses on the cheek.

"You look beautiful, Sadie," he remarked and then nodded to Tony. "I'm surprised you bothered to show up."

"Yeah, well I don't get the chance to dust this off very often. It's a custom Tom Ford and all–" he joked, straightening out his sharp black jacket. Rhodey rolled his eyes and placed the full force of his attention on Sadie.

"I was just speaking with one of the President's deputies and it turns out we're seated together. I thought I'd ask if you'd mind some company walking in."

"Yes," she said immediately. She dreaded the idea of facing all those cameras alone, trying to find a smile when she would prefer to be anywhere else. Though she understood the novelty surrounding her emergence into the modern world, the attention still frustrated and overwhelmed her easily, leaving her irritable which wasn't the most ideal mood for socializing. Sadie could work a room with the best of them, but she would be happier doing it on the arm of a friend rather than alone. The benefit of walking together was twofold because this way Rhodey would also have a buffer when it came to the attention his new walking apparatus garnered.

As the cocktail hour went on, Sadie's prediction eventually came to pass. As senators and representatives, ambassadors and diplomats all took their turns meeting T'Challa and exchanging a handful of words, they eventually filtered out to the room's other objects of interest, Sadie included. At some point, Tony managed to pluck the empty champagne glass from her hand and she never got a chance to replace it, she was so busy shaking hands and traded general niceties with the cream of the crop of Washington. Turning on her charm was as easy as drumming up a pretty smile and blowing the dust off all those deportment lessons her mother gave her growing up. Ultimately, being the belle of the ball wasn't all that hard, a solid handshake, the right amount of eye contact, a graceful greeting, and a few well-chosen compliments were all it took to put others at ease.

By the time she and Rhodey followed the rest of the party to join the receiving line, she'd forgotten to be nervous. Stepping into the role of a southern lady was just as easy as stepping into the role of Captain Reid. After all, that was what her life felt like these days, jumping between roles and never knowing exactly where she fit. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Because while she was glad for Rhodey's company, she would have preferred to be on Bucky's arm, trying not to laugh at a joke he might have whispered in her ear. A slight shiver slipped down her spine; she felt the phantom of his touch, gliding light over her back when he'd zipped her into her dress.

"You're doing great," Rhodey muttered, misinterpreting her to be nervous. "I think I saw the French Ambassador swoon when you walked away."

Sadie raised her hand to delicately muffle her snort of laughter. "I'm old enough to be his mother, maybe even his grandmother."

"How many grandmothers do you think are out there who can wear that dress?"

He had a point. Perhaps Sadie felt her age in her heart but when she caught her reflection in the mirror, even she struggled to find fault. The Wakandan designers brought in to help create her wardrobe had outdone themselves, finding ways to blend modern silhouettes with classic details so she didn't feel quite so bereft, even if she still felt practically naked without stockings. Far from the gaunt, bedraggled ghost she'd been upon waking, she looked like her old self, filling the curves of her dress in all the right places if Bucky's earlier reaction had been any indication.

Oh, how she'd wanted him to throw caution to the wind and kiss her! Since mending their fractured relationship after their fight they'd spent days toeing the line, blurring it just a little more every time they shared a private joke or found some excuse to touch each other. And tonight, when he'd zipped her up she'd had half a mind to turn him around and pin him into her mattress. They were unequivocally and completely still attracted to each other after all these years and tonight, with a single longing look, Bucky telegraphed what she'd suspected. That he wanted her just as desperately as she wanted him. It was just a matter of finding a way to just break the ice they were dancing on.

But breaking the ice would have to wait. Rhodey led her through the receiving line where the camera flashes increased tenfold as she shook hands with the President, First Lady, T'Challa, and Shuri, who gave her a cheeky wink before she entered the East Room. Golden light poured over them from the enormous brass chandeliers, casting warm shadows and highlighting the details along the white walls. Golden curtains were drawn back to show the sun was long gone. Massive floral centerpieces commanded each round table, accented with three tall, tapered candles. Sadie remembered hearing about the details from Geteye, that the flowers were native to Eastern Africa and had been grown specifically for this occasion at a local greenhouse. The cream-colored presidential china was accented with deep green and gold details along the rim and the gold flatware made up an opulent place setting the likes of which Sadie had never seen before. She remembered beautiful events in Little Rock, but nothing quite like this. The sight stole her breath.

"I want to introduce you to the rest of our table," said Rhodey, distracting her from the general splendor. He led her away from the heart of the room where people were milling about or searching for their tables. A round table stood two away from the main tables and there a sextet of people convened. The three men were all dressed in military dress uniforms, two men middle-aged and the other elderly, slightly hunched in his wheelchair, trembling hands closed over what appeared to be a small picture frame. At the sight of Rhodey and Sadie, the younger gentlemen stood along with what she presumed were their wives.

Her tablemates turned out to be the Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"It's an honor to meet you, Ms. Reid," said General Bailey, the Chairman, shaking her hand. "We'd hoped to meet you at the cocktail reception but unfortunately we had business to attend to beforehand." He then laid a hand on the shoulder of the elderly gentleman who watched but was unable to rise from his seat. "I believe you already know our distinguished guest."

The elderly man held the photograph out for Sadie to take.

"Long time no see, Nurse. I'd stand but these old legs aren't what they were."

Burning with curiosity, she flipped the picture over.

Sadie's knees buckled. It happened so fast that nobody caught her in time and she sank to her knees, clutching the frame like it was made of priceless diamonds. The picture was one she'd never seen before but remembered the moment clear as day. She'd chased the photographer out of the First Ward tent in Azzano almost as soon as he took the picture, berating him for bothering her patients. But the final photo itself caught a particularly sweet moment of Sadie sitting on a camp stool, smiling while she broke a Hershey's bar in half to share with Douglas Lovitz while he went over the details of a letter from home.

Douglas Lovitz beamed at her and in his wrinkled face, she identified the features of the handsome soldier she'd known.

"Doug Lovitz, I should have known you'd still be kicking," she said through a teary laugh, setting the picture aside so she could gather up his gnarled hands in hers. "You always were too stubborn for your own good."

His laugh was a balm unlike any other. It soothed over the frayed nerves buried in the spider cracks covering her heart. "Too stubborn to die, that sounds about right. I always thought–" he gave her hands a tight squeeze. "I always thought we'd see each other again."

The sentiment was too much for Sadie and she dropped her forehead to rest on his knees. She did her best to collect her emotions, nearly losing the battle when he placed a brotherly hand on her head. Sadie didn't care that they'd caused a small scene with several onlookers pausing to take in the genuine emotion of their reunion. They would never understand; how could they? Sadie thought that everyone from her previous life was gone, reduced to nothing more than memory and regret. Lovitz took a handkerchief from his pocket and helped dab the tears from beneath her eyes. She laughed when he gave it a little flourish to return to his pocket.

"I don't think I've ever been so happy to see someone in my entire life," she claimed and he chuckled.

"Ain't that something? You and me stuck together again."

"Anything but stuck," she promised as she transitioned into the seat Rhodey pulled for her. Lovitz held his hands out again and she took them readily. "Now then, tell me everything I missed. I want to hear it all."

X X X

Sadie couldn't recall the last time she'd had such a pleasant dinner. Between listening to Lovitz regale her with tales of his life post-war, the Joint Chiefs and their wives being pleasant company and Rhodey having the table in stitches over a misadventure from basic training years earlier, their table was lively and the food incomparable. Sadie sipped her wine with relish, finally enjoying one thing about her powers: that she could indulge without worrying about drinking too much or the misery of the following morning. When the sumptuous dinner came to a close, a band struck up and the guests of honor opened the dancing. Sadie was impressed that Shuri managed to keep a straight face while she danced with President Ellis and T'Challa turned the First Lady around with enviable ease.

For a while, Sadie sat with Lovitz and his granddaughter, Chelsea, enjoying the music and conversation but at length, he grew tired. Sadie walked with them to the entrance where they traded contact information. She left Douglas with a kiss on the cheek and promised to stay in touch and visit the next time she was stateside. The whole interaction left her heart fuller than it had been and she returned to the ballroom in search of a glass of champagne. A handful of people waited for the bartender and she got in the line.

The man in front of her did a double-take. A strange sense of deja vu settled over Sadie, as though she'd met this particular stranger before. Perhaps he had a familiar face in the way some people tended to look like everyone. He was tall and svelte, his tuxedo fitting him with such precision it was a wonder he hadn't been sewn directly into it. Once more he glanced back at her and his handsome face melted into an apologetic smile that could get women far better than her in trouble.

"Forgive my staring. It's not every day I wind up in the drink line with a living legend, Ms. Reid."

"Living legend is being charitable," she quipped, tilting her head to the side as she tried to place his refined English accent. "Well, you know who I am, it's hardly fair I don't have your name–"

"Doctor Emmanuel Greyson." He had a strong handshake. "We actually met in Vienna a few weeks ago but I imagine you met so many people that you couldn't possibly remember them all."

"Then it's my turn to apologize, Doctor. I don't typically forget faces but you're right, that trip was a whirlwind, to say the least."

They moved up in line and Doctor Greyson paused, allowing her to come level with him. "I certainly didn't envy your position. These events always take it all out of me after I get home."

"Which is where?"

"Munich. I run the Weismann Institute for Genetic Research there but tonight, I'm here as a guest of the Austrian Ambassador. She and I are old friends."

Sadie had only scratched the surface of genetic study, skimming chapters in some of her books and trying to make sense of Shuri's technical babble when she took blood and tissue samples. Advancements in medicine had been so wide-ranging and profound in the decades of Sadie's absence that she couldn't possibly cover it all. Though that didn't diminish her interest in the subject and how the understanding of the human genome led to so many important discoveries in the intervening years. At her insistence, Doctor Greyson explained more about his role. They paused at the bar, where he ordered their drinks.

"I confess, ever since reading about your return I've been fascinated by your case. Have you found adjusting to the world difficult?"

"Yes and no," Sadie said as she accepted the champagne flute he offered. "What's that adage? The more things change, the more they stay the same? It's fairly accurate. I struggle with technology and trying to catch up on decades of history has been challenging."

"And yet you chose to go to one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world," he mused.

Sadie didn't have any reason to distrust Doctor Greyson and there was almost no possible way he could know why she'd gone to Wakanda but her hackles rose all the same. He'd done nothing more than make a simple statement but the question was there, embedded into his thoughts and he paused afterward, creating the silent expectation of a response or an explanation.

"Wakanda offers a great deal of privacy for someone trying to find their way in the world."

Doctor Greyson frowned. "I've offended you," he surmised. It wasn't that he'd offended her so much as tread a shade too close to topics better left alone. Sadie didn't want to say or do anything that might raise suspicion. Part of the goal of stepping into the public lens wasn't just to make Wakanda look good, it was also to perpetuate the narrative that her hands were clean of any association with the world's most wanted men. "Ms. Reid, I'm sorry."

"You didn't offend me," she reassured him, doing her best to come up with a reasonable reply off the top of her head. "I'm not used to people being so interested in my business. Before all of this," she gestured to the lively ballroom. "Nobody really cared much about what I did or where I went. Now it feels like I can't take five steps without needing to provide a detailed explanation for why."

"Ah, yes, that's the hazard of living in a modern society." He unbuttoned his jacket and produced his smartphone from the inner pocket. "I'm part of the slowly shrinking population of people who remember life before these. These days, if you want to know something about a person all you have to do, is Google their name, and voila! Everything you could possibly want at your fingertips, right down to the last meal they ate, put on Instagram for the world to see."

Sadie wrinkled her nose above the rim of her glass. "I think I'll pass."

"It's more than that, though. With this in my pocket, I'm never able to unplug. I'm nothing short of Pavlov's Dog with my email. We've all been trained to be always reachable, always on duty despite numerous studies showing the ill-effects of such behavior."

"Well, that's one thing that hasn't changed in eighty years. People will always ignore what's best for them."

Doctor Greyson chuckled and silently toasted her with his whiskey. "Will you permit me to ask another, marginally less personal question?" Her eyebrows rose but she relented. "You mentioned trying to catch up on history. I imagine, being a woman of medicine, that catching up includes reading about medical history. Have you given much thought to returning to practice?"

He'd unintentionally hit on the question that continued to plague Sadie. Every so often, Nakia needled her with the question and lately, even Shuri was beginning to get in on the act, recognizing that she couldn't lock Sadie in her lab forever. What was Sadie going to do with her life? There was still a lot left and much of it uncertain, except for the certainty that she was free to pursue what she wanted. Only the week before she'd caught herself looking into the requirements to get her nursing license again only to begin clicking extra links that dragged her down the rabbit hole ending with the website for Wakanda's medical school.

"I've considered it," she admitted. If she was going to talk about her options, it couldn't hurt to talk to an actual doctor, someone who had been to modern medical school. "But I don't know what it would look like. So much has changed since I last worked in the field or a hospital that I honestly don't even know where to begin."

She blinked rather stupidly at him when he gently took the white cocktail napkin from her hand. He traded his phone for a pen from inside his jacket. "My father was always full of odd advice. One such gem was to always have a pen. You never know when it will come in handy."

Doctor Greyson flattened the napkin out and wrote in big, all capital letters to accommodate the ink that immediately bled all over the paper. Sadie read the first line, which she recognized as a title, A Survey of Modern Medicine.

"Books?" She surmised and Doctor Greyson nodded.

"Genetics is, to a large extent, the study of history. It's simply the history of one individual or that individual's family line. Over time that interest in history has spread to other avenues of study, including medical history. I'm something of an amateur historian on the subject of the evolution of medical practice and technique. These books are all excellent primers on the subject, not only on the fine details but several of them also address the gradual changes in ethics, patient care, and how medicine and politics often collide with disastrous results."

None of the eight titles on his list were familiar to her.

"Thank you, this is - I appreciate this! Maybe there will be something in here that will help me decide what to do."

Doctor Greyson tipped his head to her, a humble acceptance of her thanks. "Please take my opinion with as large a grain of salt as you like, but from everything I've read of you, I believe you would flourish in medical school. So much has changed and there are so many opportunities available to you now. The world could always use more compassionate doctors, Ms. Reid."

His assessment, though not entirely incorrect, still struck Sadie as odd. They were strangers, two people who met in passing while waiting for a drink. She couldn't imagine that Doctor Greyson had read enough about her life to get a fair read of who she was as a person and a practitioner. Was he making assumptions based on their single conversation or on his preconceived notions based on her career as a nurse and the fact that she was a woman? And then there was the fact that he was so familiar to her, a face she wanted to place but the answer eluded her.

Not wanting to seem rude, she folded the napkin into a neat square and held it in her hand with her champagne. "I'll take that into consideration."

"Sadie! There you are! I've been looking all over for you. Come with me, my brother says you need to dance with him."

Shuri looked just about as grumpy as Sadie had ever seen her. It was a toss-up as to whether she was upset about her fancy dress, the fact that she was stuck in a room full of people over twice her age, or that there was no way she could weasel her way into a quick escape. Relegated to serving as T'Challa's errand girl she offered Doctor Greyson a curt smile and he did his best to respond with as much grace as possible in the face of royalty. They said their goodbye and Shuri took Sadie by the elbow, pulling her away.

"Who was that?"

Sadie glanced once more over her shoulder but when she looked back, Doctor Greyson's back was already turned towards her, cutting through the party. A frown tugged her lips downward and a strange, uncomfortable feeling prickled the lining of her stomach.

"I have no idea."

X X X

With the delegation away drinking and dancing the night away at the White House, Steve corralled Bucky and they retreated from the Embassy to the safe house. It wasn't a safe house so much as the incredibly depressing abandoned dentist's office near the outskirts of the city. How Natasha found it was beyond Steve; she had a strange and uncanny ability to weasel out the best hiding spots and this was no different. The vast majority of the equipment had been left behind, including the large patient chairs still drilled into the floor.

"This isn't depressing at all." Bucky made a face when they ducked inside to discover Sam sitting behind the front desk, his feet propped up on the counter while he flipped through a magazine.

Steve didn't want to waste the precious time they had with small talk. He came around the desk to see the tablet Sam had set up, connected to a camera in another room of the office. "Has he said anything?"

"Nothing useful," said Sam, sitting up straight. "Mostly some blabbering about how people will be looking for him. Nat let him stew in silence for a while and then he tried to offer money for his release."

"I'll bet he did," Steve muttered, leaning forward for a better look.

Hunter sat in one of the patient chairs, tied down with knots that Sam tied to military precision. There was no wiggling out of his bindings and even if he did, he would have to contend with Natasha. She sat across from him, leaning back in a chair with her feet propped up on the foot of his, one booted ankle crossed over the other. While she relaxed, she toyed with an apple, passing it lightly between her hands. If Steve didn't know any better, he would have said it looked like Nat was enjoying herself. These types of interrogation were part of her bread and butter, though in the past she'd been tasked with much more difficult marks than Hunter.

"She's been waiting for you to come back to get started though."

Steve nodded. In his seat, Hunter tried to shift his weight, face-pulling into an ugly grimace. He almost snorted in laughter; their prisoner was used to living in the lap of luxury so a hard, rusting dentist's chair had to be the ultimate insult to injury. He fixed Natasha with a petulant glare that caused the corners of Steve's mouth to twitch.

"Would it kill you to get me a bottle of water?"

Natasha stopped toying with her apple. She waited for a painfully long ten or so seconds before she raised the apple to her lips and took a bite. Hunter groaned and dropped his head against the chair, muttering towards the discolored ceiling tiles.

"We should get through this, the less time he's gone the better," Bucky muttered, crossing his arms over his chest. Steve eyed his metal arm, ignoring the tiny prickle of anxiety in his stomach. They'd interrogated prisoners before but that was different. Back then he didn't mind it a handful of Nazis spilled their blood on the bunker floor. Hunter Carrington was no less repulsive but the rules of engagement had changed, he didn't like the idea of Bucky or Natasha employing their considerable skills to get answers.

Bucky, however, was right. They did need to get through this interrogation and get as much as they could before putting the fear of God into Hunter. If they were lucky, he would crack at the mere threat of violence. Steve had come to learn some men were far more concerned with preserving their pretty faces than their integrity. He just hoped Hunter was as vain as the rumors made out to be. Sam moved out from behind the desk. From the depths of the bag on the floor just beneath the desk, he retrieved a handgun. Checking that the safety was on, he slid it into the back waistband of his jeans.

"I'm gonna go check the perimeter. Good luck in there."

Steve jerked his head towards the hallway that would take them to their prisoner. As they passed out of the waiting room, Bucky paused to grab a bottle of water from the open package near the doorway. Steve raised his eyebrows at the bottle and Bucky shrugged.

"I'm thirsty."

"You're just as bad as she is."

Steve paused outside of the door, taking one final breath to steady himself before he opened the door. Hunter did his best to perk up in his condition and a hopeful light crossed his face when he identified Steve only for the blood to drain out of his cheeks when Bucky appeared from behind him.

"You're fucking me." Steve swore he heard the man's voice crack.

"Oh, you two haven't met?" Natasha wagged her finger between Hunter and Bucky. "I thought you might have crossed paths, being old co-workers and all."

Bucky scowled in the face of her mild smirk. Natasha had a penchant for pushing buttons and she'd made Bucky almost as soon as they were reintroduced. Steve raised a hand to call them both off before they strayed too far off the task at hand. Bucky opened the bottle and took a long sip. Hunter watched him with wide, reproachful eyes before he noticed the gunmetal shade of Bucky's arm. Realization dawned on him like someone pulling away the shades from a window to lighten a dark room. He shed his fear for snarky, knowing curiosity.

"I heard a rumor that Stark blew the last one off. Nice hardware."

For a moment, Bucky's smirk was so reminiscent of his attitude during Nazi POW interrogations, Steve had to do a double-take. Though Steve was no stranger to prisoner interrogations and the battle of wits it took to get answers, he was never totally comfortable with the process. Bucky, however, was just as loose and relaxed as Natasha, to the point that it was unnerving. Anyone watching the two of them would think this was a normal evening activity and not a long list of felonies piling up one after the other.

"Alright boys, if you'll excuse me. I'm going to find the powder room."

Natasha sauntered out of the room. Rather than jump right into things, Steve decided to let the silence stretch out. Sometimes silence was more effective than any question. It allowed Hunter to stew in his thoughts. Although it had to be fairly obvious to all three of them why he was being held prisoner, Steve hoped that the passing seconds would serve to ratchet up his fear that he was in deeper trouble than he actually was. Plus, Steve never liked saying more than he had to. Every word could be a tell, inadvertently revealing more of himself and his intentions than was wanted.

"You know I have an entire team of people that will be looking for me." Well, Hunter was nothing if not completely unoriginal.

"Good for them," said Bucky. He slouched slightly against the wall.

Hunter's frown deepened. Whatever he was hoping to accomplish, he wasn't going to get particularly far and he seemed to realize now that even if his people had called the police, he was in the room with the two people least likely to be intimidated or even injured by a handful of cops. Steve had fought aliens and robots, what were a few police officers?

"We know you're dealing Chitauri weapons and stolen vibranium." Steve cut straight to the chase. Hunter was smart enough to manage his business and wealthy enough to operate without interference but he wasn't exactly Mensa material, which worked to their advantage.

Hunter scoffed. "Yeah, and?" Steve hadn't expected that. The couple of other operations he'd shut down in the months since going on the run involved a lot more questioning and arm-twisting to get those kinds of admissions. Hunter raised his eyebrow at Steve and then rolled his eyes. "In the last four months, you've shut down two international operations twice as big as mine. You don't honestly think you could do that and people in my circle weren't going to talk?" He let out a humorless chuckle. "Come on man, every arms dealer in the world is scrambling to dump their stock or bury their operations even deeper, scared that you're coming for them."

"And you?"

Somehow, he managed to shrug. "I sold off a few weeks back. Figured eventually you'd come calling."

"And your vibranium?" Bucky inquired.

"Who's asking?"

Hunter didn't miss the way Bucky flexed his left hand before balling it into a fist. The plates on his forearm shifted, like muscles contracting and relaxing, a subtle reminder that he was just as dextrous and dangerous with his left hand as his right.

"I am."

"You know I thought the rumors about you being back in Eastern Europe were bullshit. You contracting for the Wakandans or something? I know you didn't just get that arm out of thin air."

Bucky remained unfazed. Steve was almost uncertain as to whether Bucky even heard him because he didn't move at all.

"The vibranium?"

"I don't have that anymore either. Sold it just last week to an anonymous buyer and offloaded it twenty-four hours later."

"Who's the buyer?"

"What part of 'anonymous' don't you get?" Bucky shifted off the wall, taking Nat's chair. He spun it around and sat down, resting his arms over the back. Hunter had to crane his neck to look at him. "Look, you can not believe me all you want but it doesn't change the facts. I was approached by a black market broker with an offer well above the going rate. I figured for that kind of money, I didn't give a fuck if it was Satan himself."

"Charming," muttered Steve. Hunter's moral compass wasn't just broken, it was smashed beneath his five thousand dollar boots. "So, the reason you're being so forthcoming is–"

"Because I have nothing to hide," he admitted. "Look, in the two years since you two brought SHIELD to its knees and broke HYDRA–thank you so much for that–" he snapped angrily "-I had to find other ways to stay afloat." Bucky snorted and Steve mirrored his disgusted sentiment. Hunter's idea of 'staying afloat' meant ensuring he could still afford his drug-fueled parties in Ibiza and his Fifth Avenue penthouse. "I started paying more attention to our legitimate businesses. A couple of shrewd moves later and we're raking in more than we ever have. At this point, all the rest is just for fun."

That almost got Steve's temper. Just for fun? Did he consider selling illegal, alien weapons to the world's most dangerous and depraved criminals to be fun? It took a special kind of asshole to find joy in stripping other nations of their cultural heritage by selling priceless artifacts to crooked collectors. Steve didn't even want to know how many lives he'd indirectly ended through his business dealings. To say he wasn't impressed with Hunter's cavalier turn towards legitimacy while he had a laugh supplying the criminal underworld was a massive understatement.

"So, what? You're just going to go on the straight and narrow?"

Hunter shrugged again. "Why not? The market is crowded and quite frankly, I'm not interested in devoting the time and energy into whatever's next."

Bucky's brow furrowed. "What is next?"

"The kind of valuables you can't just collect from the ruins of New York, I can tell you that fucking much," he said. Bucky stretched his left hand again and Hunter tilted his head to the side, watching the neat, almost otherworldly natural movement of his fingers. "Look, I only sold to private buyers. Drug dealers and rich morons who liked fucking around with their friends. But the real money isn't in small-time cartels. It's in extremist groups and countries looking to pay top dollar to finance their plans for regional domination. A bunch of fancy guns don't do shit against guys like you or the Maximoff girl."

This was technically true. Most of the people Steve worked with weren't even remotely afraid of Chitauri weapons anymore and they certainly were well-trained and well-equipped such that they could take a hit if they were hit at all. They'd fought gods and demons, monsters of all making and he couldn't imagine finding any nation's army particularly frightening even armed to the teeth with those guns.

"Another weapon?"

"Not in the traditional sense. World leaders are less interested in physical weapons and more interested in people."

"DNA," said Bucky suddenly and quietly. Something was sharpening his voice, a dangerous edge that cut over the letters. "Genetic engineering the DNA of enhanced people to make more."

Hunter nodded slowly. "Used to be there was nobody out there like good 'ol Cap," he smirked in Steve's direction. "But those days are long gone. The ability to harness DNA, to distill it down and use it to do things like creating invulnerable fighters or bioweapons is the next frontier. But obviously, that's a rare resource and I don't traffic in people, so I'm out."

"Yeah, you're a real saint," Steve snapped, his Brooklyn accent coming on strong.

Hunter started to laugh but stopped at Bucky's next question. "Who's on the list?"

"The what now?"

Bucky was on his feet in a flash. Standing at Hunter's side, he towered over the man and for the first time since they began talking, Steve saw the flicker of fear dance across his face. "Don't play dumb. If other countries or private buyers are looking for DNA samples or entire people, there's bound to be a list of high-value targets floating around. So who's on it?"

"I don't know. It probably changes all the time!" Hunter squirmed against his bindings, trying to move further away from Bucky. Darkness clouded his face as he stared down at Hunter, body rigid and unyielding. Jagged strips of his hair framed either side of his face and he was less Bucky and more Winter Soldier, ruthless in pursuit of his objective. It didn't take a genius to figure out what he was fishing for. Bucky didn't care about whether his name was on a list or even Steve's. There was only one person Steve could think of who would prompt such a sudden, instant shift in his demeanor. "For a while, there was an eight-figure contract for anyone who could recover Pietro Maximoff's body from the rubble in Sokovia. A vial of Bruce Banner's blood would go seven figures, maybe more. There's been a couple of rumors about your old girlfriend."

Bucky's hand closed over Hunter's throat in the blink of an eye. He didn't tighten his grip but Hunter panicked, all the same, thrashing slightly in a futile attempt to escape. "What about Sadie?"

Steve reached across, closing his hand over Bucky's wrist. "Bucky! Stop!"

"What about her?" His fingers twitched, when Hunter didn't immediately answer, he clenched down.

"I don't know!" Hunter choked out.

"Don't do this, it's not worth it!" Steve snapped.

"He's lying," Bucky growled and squeezed just a tiny bit harder. Hunter's legs started to twitch and kick as he fought for air.

"He's turning purple!" Steve tugged on his wrist but Bucky couldn't be moved, not without using real force and that could risk injuring or even killing Hunter.

"Okay!" Bucky released and Hunter let out a few deep, hollow coughs, struggling for air. His breath was raspy as he tried to collect himself. "There's been a couple of leaks from the representatives for the Accords nations, about reports submitted by Wakanda's princess about Sadie Reid. Turns out she's got enhanced healing." This was, of course, no secret to them but Hunter didn't know that they'd been in contact with Sadie. When neither of them said anything, he took it as permission to keep rambling. He coughed again. "She's not Wanda Maximoff but that kind of ability is unheard of. The reports allude to a lot of untapped potential. The kind of potential that could cure diseases, make chemical weapons, or render soldiers invincible."

"Sounds pretty valuable," Steve remarked.

Hunter became an afterthought. Bucky raked a shaking hand through his hair. Implications both probable and terrible were embedded in those rumors. After all, getting DNA could be as simple as a swab of the cheek or a blood draw but it would also be as horrific as selling off parts piecemeal. Steve's stomach flopped over uncomfortably. The idea of that happening to anyone threatened to send his lunch back up but adding Sadie's face to the equation made things ten times worse. And if he was taking the revelation poorly, it was nothing compared to how he suspected Bucky felt. The last time Steve could even remember seeing Bucky so worked up was when they'd returned from a mission to discover Sadie had been buried alive in the wreckage of an ancient farmhouse.

"Not just valuable," Bucky replied, his voice hollow and far away. "Priceless."

A/N: Fun fact, I have been planning for Doug Lovitz to appear in the sequel since before I finished Songbirds. Were you happy to see Rhodey? I love his friendship with Sadie.

Liked it? Loved it? Think that someone just needs to lock Bucky and Sadie in a closet already? I'd love to know any and all thoughts! Much love – Kappa.