A/N: The real action starts next chapter. Buckle up.
"The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery."
~Anaïs Nin
The ride home was not entirely pleasant, as Avery's mom had been forced to leave her job at the hospital early to come pick her daughter up. Avery sat silently in the passenger seat as she ranted, still thinking about her encounter with the odd stranger in the street. She said nothing to her mom, who was too preoccupied with chewing her out to notice how quiet she was being.
Their car pulled up to the small apartment Avery called home. She wasted no time in running upstairs. Taking a hot shower always helped her clear her head, so she cranked on the water and waited for it to warm up. While she waited, she looked in her bathroom mirror. She ways greeted by the familiar sight of green eyes and wild hair. She was tall for a girl, and not as skinny as she wished, but she wasn't unattractive. She poked at her nose, examining her faint freckles. With a small shrug, Avery sighed and jumped into the shower, relishing how the water melted the day's anxiety from her frame.
She emerged some moments later, hair dripping, and turned on the TV in her room. The pink walls and cluttered atmosphere put her at ease as she flopped on the bed and disinterestedly flipped through the channels.
Her eyelids were just getting heavy when a familiar figure flickered briefly on the screen.
Avery quickly went back. There, on the TV, was a news clip of Captain America fighting someone in the street earlier that day- someone with a gleaming metal arm.
She shuffled closer to the TV, eyes wide, and cranked up the volume.
"...still unsure exactly who or what this masked stranger is. At least twenty-six bystanders were injured or killed during the fight, and several people are still missing. S.H.I.E.L.D. has refused to speak about the matter, and Captain America is nowhere to be found. We will keep you posted on updates as they happen. Back to you, Jim."
Avery's eyes were glued to the screen. As she watched the video, the man with the metal arm flipped his knife in mid-air and continued his flurry of attacks on Cap. Punches and kicks flew with such a fury that Avery could barely tell whose limbs were whose. During the struggle, the man's mask was pulled off. The quality was grainy- it was probably from someone's cell phone camera- but Avery could see just enough to recognize the empty blue eyes she had seen earlier that day.
She stopped breathing. She had been that close to someone who could hold his own with Captain America, the world's greatest soldier, without batting an eye.
In the video, Captain America gave pause as he saw the man's face, and the two exchanged words that could not be heard. Someone offscreen fired at the man, and he sprinted off. A bunch of black vans screeched into the shot, and men dressed like S.W.A.T. agents poured out. Captain America and a man with- metal wings?- dropped to their knees.
The video clip switched to one that seemed to have been shot from a helicopter. Avery watched as a man in black held a gun to the Captain's head, but, noticing the news chopper, instead ushered the captives into a nearby van. They drove away, and the clip was over.
Head still reeling, Avery realized that she must have seen the man with the metal arm right after the video had been shot.
She turned the TV off, and ran a hand through her hair. She sat on her bed in thought for a long time. An idea struck her, making her vacate her spot on the creaky mattress and go to the wicker chair in front of her computer.
"Man with metal arm, Captain America," she mumbled as she typed the words into her search engine. She hit enter. Immediately, hundreds of articles about the day's events showed up on the screen. She scrolled and scrolled, painstakingly reading through every one. But none of the articles offered anything further than what the news had said.
She was just about to turn the computer off, when a blog title caught her attention.
"The Winter Soldier: Fact or Fiction?" Avery read. She clicked on the link, and instantly she was met with an onslaught of grainy photos and crackpot conspiracy theories.
By chance, the last post caught her attention.
"The Winter Soldier has been present at the edges of human history for the last fifty years. Many believe that he is an assassin controlled by the Soviets, while other believe he is more of a mercenary figure, working for whatever country bids the highest. He is known for his bionic arm and deadly accuracy. If you are on the Soldier's list, you will not live to make it off."
That was all the post said. Avery sat back in her chair and stared out her window, watching the night life buzzing on the streets below. Not bothering to get up from her place at the computer, she eventually fell asleep on the keyboard just as the sun was beginning to shine out over the horizon.