It didn't take me long to have Andre by the hand and drag him to the back where Bucky would be waiting. And because he was drunk no one seemed to care that some girl was dragging him out back.

"You … hot," Andre grumbled, his hands roaming over my back as we stepped out into the alley. His hands were going lower as his lips descended onto my neck leaving a wet trail. I turned to face him the same time Bucky pushed him against the wall, smacking his head against the brick, knocking him out.

"Was that necessary?" I asked, glancing at Bucky as he looked down at the young Hydra agent. His eyes snapped to me as he looked over my dress, his nose scrunching in disgust.

"He was touching you," he grumbled leaning down and throwing him over his shoulder. "Come on."

"You're an animal," I muttered following him down the alley.

Was it wrong for me to think he looked kind of hot knocking Andre out?

Bucky wasn't keen on the idea of bringing Andre back to the apartment in case he was being tracked. Hence the old abandoned warehouse we found ourselves in on the outskirts of Paris.

While he was busy tying Andre to the rusted chair he found. I was busy setting up my laptops in the corner of the room, my back to Bucky and the Hydra agent.

That was Bucky's idea. Having my back to him so I couldn't see him beating someone up.

I don't think he took into account that I could hear him.

Flesh against flesh. Metal against flesh.

Yeah. It wasn't nice.

"Hey, Nat," I said cheerily to her as she picked up her phone for the video call.

"Where are you, Effie?" I didn't know if she was asking because she wanted to hunt me down and bring me back to the Avengers tower, or because she could see the warehouse we were in.

"In a warehouse," I told her, going with the obvious.

From the glare on her face, I knew that wasn't what she meant.

"What's that noise?"

Glancing over my shoulder at the man crying in pain, I grimaced as I turned to look back at Nat.

"What noise?"

"Don't play dumb with me." My god. Nat was almost as scary as Pepper. If I didn't have a fantastic mother out of Pepper, I would have gained a marvellous one from Nat.

"Is that Effie?" Oh great. Steve was here. Here comes dad number two.

"Hey Stevie," I muttered, shooting another glance over my shoulder.

Just as I expected. Bucky was glaring at me. I knew he would be. As soon as I mentioned Steve's name I could feel his eyes on me.

"Is someone hurt?" Ever the caring soul Steve was.

I scratched my chin nervously. What was I meant to say? 'Oh, yeah, that's just your tortured best friend torturing a Hydra agent'? Did that work?.

"Is Bucky hurting someone?" Nat asked, shifting in the video as she tried to glance over my shoulder.

"Hmm?" I asked distractedly as I felt Bucky shift closer from behind.

"What's going on, Effie?" I could hear the threatening tone in Nat's voice. I would have been scared if she was here, but considering she had no clue where I was, it didn't bother me.

"I've got to go, Nat. Sorry, Steve," I said as I felt Bucky's hand rest on my shoulder. I glanced up at him, my heart fluttering at the look on his face.

He was looking at my laptop screen, his eyes no doubt taking in the face of his lifelong best friend.

"Bucky," Steve said, the begging tone to his voice very clear and primal. There was pure pain in his voice and when I glanced at the screen, it was clear to see in his face.

Bucky's hand flipped the screen shut, effectively cutting off the call.

I felt his fingers run across the back of my neck and I couldn't hold in the shiver as I tipped my head back to look at him.

I realised that this was very sensual. Him towering over me, one hand caressing my neck while the other slid up my hand on the desk until it rested lightly on my wrist.

Had his eyes always been such a bright blue?

"What are you doing?" He grunted, his eyes flashing over the laptop which had previously had Nat and Steve's face planted on it.

"Umm, nothing?" Why did I have to make it seem like a question? It definitely had something to do with his hands being on me. It was distracting. "I know you don't like it but we need to keep them off our backs. The best way to do that is with regular check ups where they can see I'm okay, alright."

"We'll talk about this," he grumbled, moving away from me and back over to Andre.

Of course we were going to talk about it and I was going to get what I wanted.

If he didn't want me making calls to them, then perhaps I could send a weekly photo update.

I was going to have to work on Bucky.

Twenty minutes later I was able to hack into the Paris division of Hydra using Andre's information.

I also pretended I didn't see the way Bucky easily broke his neck once we had the information we needed.

"So, if you take this path here," I said, running ym finger along the highlighted path I'd made on the map. "You'd be able to get to the centre of the base within an hour, depending on how many agents you have to face."

"Can Frankie tell us how many agents are in there?" he asked, his hands cleaning a gun without even looking down at it.

" I cannot give an accurate number, Sergeant Barnes but I can alert you to agents coming within your field," she said, moving the map and highlighting areas in red. " These will be the busier areas with more agents."

"Thank you Frankie," he muttered, his eyes flickering over the danger zones.

"Are you going to let me come this time?" I asked him, knowing he'd say no. As he went to open his mouth I sighed and cut over him. "Yeah, I know, I'll stay in the car."

"I can't be distracted with you there," he said as if that was reason enough for me not to go in with him.

And I guess in a way,I would become a distraction for him. I was no way up to his standard with fighting skills and while I was good with a gun, I was a liability.

"If I'm staying in the car you better not cut me off on the comms." I gave him a pointed look reminding him of the time in Canada when he had Frankie cut off our communication. "And you're not knocking me out and tying me up again."

He snorted and I noted the smile on his face that he was trying to hide.

It caused butterflies to bubble in my stomach because it reminded me of the videos in the Smithsonian of him and Steve when they had playful moments in the war.

It was as if Bucky was slowly coming back and remembering.

I could only hope so.