Five days earlier.

A man with close cut brown hair landed back on the pavement, closing his bag as he did so. For a moment, metal glinted within, through the dark of the evening. He hung night vision goggles from a loop inside his leather jacket, then did the jacket up. He started walking.

He pulled a phone from his pocket and dialled a number.

It rang for a moment then

"This is 37th Florists. We are currently closed. If you would like to place or cancel an order, please speak after the tone."

"Hi." The man said. "I spoke to Nicola earlier. I would like to add one red rose, that's One. Red. Rose. To my order." He enunciated. "And not a petal out of place." He added, with a definite note of pride.

The man hung up. He tossed the phone in to a trash can as he passed it.

Only then did a grin split his face.

"God, I hope she never finds out it was me." He breathed.


The behaviour of The Winter Soldier, as he appears in this fic, was heavily influenced by the 2015-18 work of Elliot Rosewater, most of which she's sadly now deleted. A more 'schematic' demonstration of how The Soldier works in my fics exists in my fic 'Hard as Nails'.

Solo Dei Gloria