summary: "captain." felicity remembered natasha well as the russian slid forth a folder, "we have news for you that you'll be interested in." after going into hiding after the battle of new york, felicity rogers took the name smoak and tries to forget her past when natasha romanoff returns with news of james buchanon barnes. wintersmoak; past romangers and howard/felicity


Chapter Two

The lights were on in her three bedroom-two bathroom condo. Stepping into the expensive, Stark-bought, house, she set down her purse and kicked off her heels, silently grabbing a bottle of vodka from her cupboard. It was a quarter full, reflecting her lonely nights, and felt light in her palm as she stepped through the living room and into her hallway.

Her heart stopped at seeing a shadow of someone in her weapons chamber. Guarded possessively by three codes, a voice recognition and face recognition, not just anyone could get into the room, especially when Tony always had a StarkBOT watching her home protectively in case of attack.

"You are, technically, my mother." Tony shrugged. "That means I gotta take care of you, especially since we can't place you in an old person's home, where you belong." His voice was teasing. Her scowl was not.

Her breathing stilled when the shadow started to move towards the open door after not finding what he came for. Eyes narrowed and cold, Felicity lifted the bottle and as the person came into view...CRASH! The bottle and vodka came down on his head, long hair soaked with a surprised look on his face.

Bucky Barnes. Jesus Christ, she was gonna kill him. The long hair, once styled weakly, was dripping down his handsome face and past the bright blue eyes she remembered so fondly. A tight t-shirt molded against his chest and revealed the metal arm everyone was so scared of and while that was a nice picture, she silently wondered about the delectable ass that his tight jeans hid.

"You broke into my house?" Felicity demanded.

"I put away my weapons!" Bucky spluttered, "You got my favorite jacket wet." He whined, shaking a black leather jacket he had been hanging onto. "I need somewhere to hide out. Whose place better than Cap' 'Merica?" He asked.

Feeling rage shift into her body, Felicity cracked a slap across his face. "You son of a bitch." She hissed. "It took you two YEARS to find me. YEARS, BUCKY. What the fuck? Where-God. Where have you been?"

"Around." Bucky scratched the back of his head, sheepish and sad. He followed her angry form into the living room where she cracked open a bottle of expensive whiskey and poured it into a glass. "I wanted to figure out who I was and who I was going to be before I saw my best girl."

"Best girl my left nipple." Felicity muttered. With one quick drink, her glass was gone and she was refilling it again. "HYDRA will be on our asses. Tony is going to be so pissed at me. My team-fuck. My team is going to be furious at me."

"Tony? Tony Stark?" Bucky asked in confusion.

Felicity whirled around. "Yeah. Anthony James Stark. Howard and I's son." Bucky looked shocked. "Yeah, I know."

"How? WHEN?" Anger flashed in his cerulean blues but Felicity knew better. That was jealousy. "I was with you every single moment until, of course, the fall." Felicity felt herself nearly choke with sadness. That had to be the worst day of her life. That was the night Tony was conceived, Howard had been positive. That night she had the hardest, the roughest, the saddest sex of her life.

The next nine months were even harder, staying behind the scenes and guiding her friends. When Tony was born, she got two months with him and she was back on the job, fighting HYDRA and shutting down the HYDRA bases whilst little Anthony (named for Howard's diseased father) James (named for Bucky, of course) Stark stayed in America with Jarvis, Howard and new nanny, Maria Bianchi.

When she crashed, her final words to Howard were: "I love you. Take care of Tony." And then silence and darkness and cold. God, so much cold.

"What's he like?" Bucky asked but she could hear the steady hurt in his voice.

"Brilliant like his father." Felicity sighed, a soft smile on her lips. "Brave. Loyal. And so strong. Like us. He's got a bit of the serum so his aging process is slowed." At his confused look, she continued, "Physically, he's in his mid-forties but realistically, he's nearly seventy. He has an increased metabolism, so he heals faster, he's stronger than the average human and faster too. He's my son."

"He should've been ours." Felicity flinched at Bucky's tone. "He never should've been Tony Stark. He should've been Tony Barnes or George Barnes or hell, even Felix Barnes." She snorted at the male version of her name, a name she wanted for her firstborn son. (It didn't happen.)

Silence brewed in the room. Bucky was upset at what had happened. Back in the forties, before the world, he promised her everything: the world, protection, safety. She just wanted him. And then she wanted Howard. Howard fudged their plans, in Bucky's eyes. In Felicity's, she just saw the handsome man she fell for...hard.

"We can still have our happily ever after, doll." Bucky muttered. "Elope with me."

She laughed. She legit laughed.

Felicity's short, bitter laugh disappeared as soon as it came and she looked at him. "We are in the public's eye or we will be soon because, Bucky...I will not go on the run with you. I will not hide when we can clear your name."

"How?" Bucky asked. "How the hell are we going to clear my name after it's been dragged through the sewer."

A smirk slid on her lips. "Well, darlin'," Her Brooklyn drawl, long since disappeared, came out fully as she grinned. "I have Tony Stark and his army of lawyers on speed dial."