Still at the Damned Task Force HQ, Berlin, German

Who the hell thought see-through walls were a good idea in the headquarters of an intelligence agency? Sharon mused, watching Stark prowl around Steve.

The answer, once she'd articulated the question, was obvious. Spies. Spies were used to being watched and wanted to watch everyone in return. This whole place was a spy palace.

She glanced over at Romanov, who was watching the two men.

Neither of them could hear anything, of course, but the body language was all but shouting. Steve was, putatively, the criminal. But he sat at the head of the table, calm and certain. Stark, in his $10,000 suit and red power tie, was nominally in charge, acting as a proxy for Secretary Ross. But he looked, frankly, like he was on the ass end of a four-day bender. If his tie got any more limp, sad, or wrinkly, Sharon thought she might slip him some Viagra out of mercy.

Stark stalked around the room, jittery almost, coxing, cajoling, pleading, for Steve to come in from the cold. And Steve was… thinking about it.

Well, shit.

"Pepper left him, you know?"

Sharon managed not to whip around at the sound of the voice near her ear, but it was a close thing. She took a deep breath to calm her rabbitting heart and turned to Romanov.

"Pepper Potts? She left Stark?"

"It's why he's in a such a state. He wouldn't have agreed to this Accords nonsense if she hadn't. But she did and he did and here we are."

Sharon didn't say anything.

"After New York, Pepper and I tried to get him into therapy, you know?" Romanov's smile was completely without humor. "He always swore to her that he was going to but somehow he never did. He made these little half-assed attempts, to try and placate her. He talked to Bruce, once, so he could tell Pepper he'd spoken to a doctor. Then he built this ridiculous toy that let him 'hack his hippocampus.' But in the end, he didn't want to do the work and Pepper couldn't do it for him anymore."

Sharon glanced past the two heroes in the glass box to where Ross and Ross were chewing over the details of what came next. The Lesser Ross seemed to feel her eyes on him and shot her a withering glare.

"You ever feel like all you do all day is manage some man's emotions so that you can turn around and get his job done for him?" Sharon mused, then startled as she realized she had spoken out loud.

"That's the job, Sharon," Romanov laughed, a throaty chuckle that sounded, mostly, sincerely amused.

"Managing men's emotions?"

"When you're a woman and a spy? Yes. That's the job. Hell, that was Pepper's job and she wasn't even a spy."

Sharon gave Romanov a searching look. Romanov wasn't looking at her though. She was looking at Steve and Stark and she did not look happy.

Neither did Steve. He stood up, finally, and put down a pen in a gesture that spoke volumes.

"Shit," Romanov muttered.

Yes! Sharon thought.

"I've got Tony," Romanov started to move off, following Stark. She paused at the door and tossed her red hair in Steve's direction. The unspoken instructions were clear: You go and manage Steve's emotions.

Sharon nodded at Romanov but didn't move. She simply sat, watching everyone else scurry through the glass-walled maze. Everyone was rushing somewhere, doing something, talking, arguing, fighting. The past 24 hours felt like acid-tinged blur and she was exhausted. She was going to take some damned time to think.

Certainly, it didn't look like anyone else was going to.

Steve retreated to a conference room where he and Wilson were having a taciturn conversation. She didn't need to hear him to know it was taciturn. They were speaking in Guy Code and that was always taciturn. Steve caught her looking at him and offered her a smile that lit up his face. She smiled back on reflex. How could you not? He was so damned beautiful. And kind. And generous. Even exhausted, angry, upset from his conversation with Stark, he still managed to give her a smile that felt warm and genuine. He was sincerely happy to see her.

Why? The voice in her head sounded a like Romanov's. Why the hell would he be happy to see me?

She'd flirted with him, very gently, for a few weeks on assignment, three years ago. Then he found out that she was undercover, lying to him. She'd been lying to the most honest man in America.

It didn't bother her – that was her job.

But it should bother him.

On the way back from the funeral that morning, they'd flirted and talked in the cab, nearly somethinged in the hotel. They didn't have much of a connection at all. Well, she had gotten him the lead on Bucky and smuggled him to Buchrest.

Did he ever ask why? Romanov's voice again.

She knew why she'd done it – orders from Bob. She was doing her job. But, unless he was a lot more devious than she imagined, he had no inkling of that. She'd risked her life, her career, her reputation, to help him and he just accepted it like it was his… due. As if, of course, she would help him. It never dawned on him to ask why.

The answer came when he smiled at her again, that big, beautiful, beaming smile full of warmth and affection and … attraction.

Peg.

She'd shown up in his life literally the day after he lost Peggy Carter – a competent woman who helped him out when he needed it. He had simply slotted her into a Peggy-shaped hole in his life. Hell, her last name was Carter, even. He just assumed she'd be his new Peggy – be on his side, break rules for him, and ….

Kiss him as he headed off for his mission.

Well shit.

"Ma'am? The psychologist is here."

Sharon turned to see Lulić standing in the door.

"I'm sorry?"

"Doctor Broussard, the psychologist to interview Mr. Barnes? He's down in the lobby waiting to be checked in."

"Thank you, Lulić. Could you inform the lesser… Could you please inform Deputy Ross?"

"Certainly, ma'am," Lulić smirked at her 'mistake.' Sharon smiled to herself as she headed for the elevator. The morale on the task force was rocky, thanks to Ross. She couldn't be seen to actively undermine his authority, but she could let them know that she had their backs and sympathized with them. Lulić was the biggest gossip in the place and the story of her 'slip' would circulate faster than Starks's 2006 sex tape.

It would also reinforce his position as an outsider on the task force. The fall out on this was going to be epic and Sharon didn't imagine she could dodge it all but she hoped Ross would take the brunt.

"Guten tag, Herr Doctor," Sharon shook the hand of the tidy little man in glasses.

"Good evening, Ms. Carter," his English was flawless and only slightly accented.

"Thank you for coming on such short notice."

"I am happy to help in any way possible, of course."

While she did the little dance with IDs and security checks, Sharon watched Broussard out of the corner of her eye. He was a white man, about her height and clean shaven, pleasant looking and maybe even handsome in an understated way. But something about him itched at her.

"Have you worked for the task force before?" she tried some small talk as they made their way to the elevator.

"No, I have not."

Okay, no small talk.

Sharon rode the slow elevator down five levels to the sub-basement, watching the psychologist's reflection in the polished metal of the door. He didn't fidget, just stood still and contained. Calm.

Maybe that's what was scratching at the back of her brain. His perfect calm. Civilians had a lot of reactions when faced with an international terrorist who had just blown up the U.N., but "calm" was rarely one of them.

Then again he was the shrink that the task force called in when they needed to evaluate a brain-washed super-soldier from WWII. He probably had some background dealing with dangerous men. She made a mental note to double check his credentials and experience. Also to find out who had vetted him. If it was Ross, she'd try to find another doctor for a second opinion.

What would Barnes think of him? Barnes had gone MIA just a few years after Sigmund Freud himself died, when psychology was still in its infancy. Since then, he'd been tortured in a way designed to make him both wary of authority figures and uncertain of his own reality.

The doc had his work cut out for him.

Ding.

"This way, Herr Doctor," she gestured, her heart sinking as she looked up and saw Ross waiting for them.

"Doctor, thank you for coming!" Ross's voice practically boomed in the enclosed space.

"I am happy to help in anyway, of course."

Sharon blinked. The same words he had said to her, in the same inflection.

She looked at the man out of the corner of her eye, her itch growing.

Ross ignored her, of course.

"For security reasons, we'll have the video feed on and five guards in the room— "

"I would prefer to be alone in the room, please," Broussard said.

"Well, of course he'll be restrained," Ross glanced over at Sharon sharply, "but I'd feel more comfortable if you—"

"I would prefer to be alone in the room, please," Broussard's voice was quiet, implacable.

Ross blinked and looked at Sharon for reinforcement. She kept her face smooth as glass.

"He's a killer, Doctor. You could be in danger."

"You will have video, da? Then I would prefer to be alone in the room, please. It will help my process and begin to build trust."

Ross looked at the doctor, frustrated and flummoxed.

Sharon stared at the doctor, her unease growing.

A gut feeling was not actionable. She needed proof.

"Sir, why don't we station troops outside the door and give them live access to the video feed? They will be just a few feet further away than if they were in the room and it will give the doctor the privacy that he wants."

"Fine," Ross spat the word before turning on his heel and stomping away.

Sharon gave the doctor a small, tight smile that acknowledged her boss's bad behavior without apologizing for it.

The guards nodded at her in recognition while still insisting on checking her ID and the doctor's ID. That's why they were chosen for this assignment. They were by-the-book. Sharon loved by-the-book types.

They were much easier to work around.

The squad leader was unthrilled with the new set up but since all the guards just heard Ross agree to it, no one argued.

Sharon swiped her ID and the door opened revealing The Winter Soldier.

He was clamped in the Box and Sharon tried hard not to stare. Peg had had words to say about Bucky Barnes and not all of them were kind, though most were at least grudgingly respectful. He sat in the box with the same sort of internal stillness that she'd seen in Buddhist monks. She looked closer at the angle of his head and his hooded eyes. Maybe it was less monk-like and more tiger-like.

His famously square jaw was blurred by a three-day beard and his hair needed a good wash and trim, but she could still see the beautiful boy that Peg spoke about. He looked harder and bulkier than he did in his uniformed file photo and his eyes looked … hunted. But not feral, not like she remembered from the D.C. incident. He was caged but not afraid.

Sharon wasn't quite sure what to think of that and tucked it into her "worry about later" mental file. It was getting crowded in there.

That thought made her pause for a minute. Was she being deliberately rushed? It felt like she was being deliberately rushed. Damnit. Something hinky was going on here.

She looked over at the doctor again. He was standing by the door of the room, his eyes fixed on Barnes. That unease stirred again but again, she clamped down. She needed proof.

Sharon took a minute on the computers to arrange the video and audio feeds, piping them to the screens just outside the door as well as the conference rooms upstairs. She sent a mental plea up to the universe that Steve hadn't moved and "accidentally" clicked the audio live stream so that it would play in one particular conference room, saved the settings and backed out before anyone could glance over to see what was taking so long.

She needn't have worried. The squad leader – Brühl, she thought his name was – was watching the doctor. Broussard and the other guards were all staring at Barnes. Barnes was gazing off into the middle distance.

No one was looking at her.

It's good to be taken for granted, she thought, with a small private smile.