Illuminated by the porch light, Bucky could clearly see Natasha looking disheveled from head to toe. Her hair was wild and falling out of their pigtail buns. Clothes, mismatched and sloppy, looked hastily put on; her shoes were just barely shoved on her feet and left untied. On her back was her backpack and overnight duffel, a sleeping bag and pillow stuffed under one arm, which was also holding the biggest first aid kit she had ever seen.

Natasha attempted to catch her breath. "I brought the med-kit."

"I see that..."

Bucky wasn't sure why she thought Natasha would have done anything different. Her best friend hated being unprepared. This resulted in Natasha bringing way more stuff than they ever needed to just about every get-together their group of friends had. Then she saw the Kroger bags in her friend's left hand.

"Oh! So you did bring the poptarts!" Taking the Kroger bags from her, Bucky headed for the kitchen.

"Oh just leave me to bring all this stuff in by myself, that's... Great." Struggling through the doorway, Natasha somehow managed to shut the door and plop down her stuff before following her friend to the kitchen with only her skull backpack in tow "So what's the emergency?" Natasha questioned, looking at Bucky for all the injuries she could be hiding. "...and why did you tell me to bring poptarts?"

"Oh, Sonny and I just wanted poptarts."

"...what?"

"Oh, you brought stuff for s'mores too," Bucky continued, rummaging through the shopping bags. "That's cool."

"...So, there isn't an emergency."

"Well..."

Natasha glared at the blonde. The distasteful thought that this was all just a ploy so her girlfriend could see her, entered her mind. (The two of them has been dating since Nat's sophmore year.) Since Bucky had moved to South Carolina they had barely seen each other over holidays but this was a bit far... and far out there. Nat's mind came up with crazy situations some times. She reasoned however that Bucky knew she worried about the blonde constantly. It only made sense the Winter Solider would use Natasha's weakness to get what she wanted. Honestly it sounded more like something she herself would do but...

"Don't fucking tell me I just dragged all this shit here... for nothing!"

Bucky was quick to explain. The more stressed Nat got, the more cuss words she used and a tired, angry, and stressed Black Widow is an assassin she would rather not deal with. "Calm down Nat, there really is an emergency, okay?"

"Well then, what's going on?" Natasha asked. "Bucky, I don't understand."

"Me neither..."

"Bucky!"

"Okay, okay," secretly smiling at her girlfriend's exasperation, she grabbed a cinnamon poptart. "Follow me..." As instructed, Natasha followed Bucky's lead through the kitchen and out the backdoor. "It's over there, you got a flashlight?"

"Yeah, I brought a few..." Nat began searching her bag as Bucky smilled in the darkness. She knew Nat would have one.

"Where's the-?" Natasha felt around for the button. "Oh, here it is!"

"Gah!" Bucky immediately recoiled as the flashlight beams hit her smack in the face.

"Sorry!" Nat pointed the beam away, bitting her lip in guilt.

Bucky rubbed her eyes, blinking them back into focus. "Ow."

"Sorry..." Nat mumbled. Knowing that her girlfriend would never trust her to wield a flashlight again, she pressed the cool metal handle into Bucky's palm.

Having recovered her eyesight, Bucky took the offered flashlight. Controlling the bright beam, she searched the yard until it illuminated Sonny, still kneeling in the grass where she had left him. Walking towards him, Nat followed, grumbling about flashlights and poptarts.

"Did anything change while I was gone?"

Sonny shook his head. "No, but now that the green lights have turned off, I can't see it so I don't know."

"Right..."

"I'm sorry, did I miss something here?" Nat looked between the siblings, confused.

"Something fell in our backyard, but the lights are off now, so we can't see it."

"Did you try the porch light?"

"Our power's off" Bucky explained.

"It's first contact from aliens!" Sonny jumped up excitedly.

"WHAT?!"

"You idiot!" Nat watched as her blonde friend slapped him upside the head. "We don't know that!"

"Wait a minute! You guys better start explaining. Right. NOW!" Nat yelled, beginning to freak out. Sure, Natasha worried about her girlfriend's safety constantly thanks to all the dangerous stuff she did, but aliens was never part of the plan. It was never even thought as possible.

So, Bucky began to patiently explain how the sky exploded.

When the story was done, Nat was shaking her head at her. "And you thought it wise to involve me, because... why?"

"Because you're my assassin?" Bucky shrugged like it was no big deal; like it was obvious that when aliens are invading your backyard, literally, the first thing to do was call Rose, the Black Rose Assassin.

"Assassins kill people! This is not in my job description, Jack! Alien-Control is not a part of my responsibilities!"

"I'm sure dealing with aliens is in your contract somewhere." Bucky shrugged.

"As Black Widow it is, what do you think Avengers was all about?" Sonny oh-so-helpfully pointed out.

Natasha glared at him until he shrunk back underneath her withering stare. He was not helping her case. Bucky had always said she was intimidating. Although she didn't understand it, she was glad to have the ability in her arsenal at the moment.

"Yeah, see? So, what do we do, Wise One?"

Natasha just tiredly shook her head, resigned to the fate that had been thrust upon her. What did they do next? The green light mentioned earlier had turned off so they couldn't even see the pod. It sounded like whatever was in there had already escaped, if the noise Bucky had described was any indication. 'Well, I guess you can't deal with anything unless you know what you're dealing with...'

"Well, lets see it it then." Grabbing Bucky's wrist, she re positioned the flashlight to shine on the foreign object.

There was a collective gasp from them all as they gazed at the inside of the pod. The pod had opened to reveal a... Well, in the simplest terms, an alien. The small extraterrestrial being was no larger than a bread box.

"She's tiny..." Natasha let out a breath in awe.

"How do you know it's a girl? It's an alien."

"Its got boobs you idiot!" Bucky slapped said idiot.

"Okay, okay," Nat chided them. "Why don't we focus on getting her out of there?" She crouched down in front of the tube. Now that the pod was open, there was a glass tube set inside the egg-shaped interior. Inside the glass tube was the little alien, comatose in the vial of glowing liquid and held in place by what seemed to be black wires attached to various parts of her body.

"How do we get her out?"

"The glass is already cracked, lets just break it!" Taking the flashlight from Bucky's hand, Sonny swung it over his head.

Immediately, Natasha ducked, trying her best to protect herself from the glass that was about to shatter right in front of her face. Luckily, Bucky stopped him in time.

"Don't!" grabbing his wrist, she prevented him from making contact with the tube. "Natasha was RIGHT THERE! She could have gotten hurt, not to mention the alien inside as well." Bucky scolded.

"And your hand." Nat added.

"Nobody cares about his hand."

Natasha just shrugged at her friend. She knew it was common for Bucky to act like she didn't care. Sometimes her tough exterior was hard to get through.

"The tube appears to be removable, so lets just eject it from the pod..." Natasha began feeling around for a button or switch.

"Over here..." Bucky grunted as she struggled to pull out the tube from an obvious handle like object.

"Let me." pushing his younger sibling out of the way, Sonny grasped the handle.

Suddenly, Natasha shrieked as the tube ejected itself from the pod and the glass shattered all over the ground.

"Nat! Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah..." she lied. Nat winced, as she could truthfully feel blood dripping down her legs.

Grabbing the flashlight from Bucky, Sonny crouched over the broken vial.

That's when the small creature opened its little hazel eyes and said...

"Bangarang!"