Bucky was armed and waiting. The sun had him cooking in his Kevlar but next to the cold he'd be forced to endure for years, he welcomed the heat. He stared at the simple looking building, waiting.

HYDRA still had sleeper cells across the globe and they were taking them out as they found them. These missions were his favorite. He wanted to obliterate all that was left of HYDRA, punish them for what they'd done to him and Stevie, both robbed of a life at the time that was theirs.

And what they'd done to Marley.

Marley. Bucky loved her. He couldn't deny that. When she was in his arms, when they were together, things were perfect. He was happy. She was beautiful, kind, not demanding at all. And that was a good thing because he was limited in what he could offer her. She just seemed to want him and that he could give. He'd be hers long as she wanted him. He knew one day she'd figure out that she could do so much better than him. Until then…

The last day had been one hell of an emotional roller coast ride.

Loki wouldn't leave his girl alone and he'd had to take care of her after that scene. Later that night, it had devastated him to think that he could have really hurt her, lost in the nightmares of his past. She hadn't told him exactly how she'd bitten her tongue, and he didn't ask. She'd just pleaded with him that everything was okay, and he wanted that so bad. For everything to be okay. With her.

Marley hadn't been hurt bad. Steve thought she was okay. Then the mission happened.

And then…

Clint had been the first one to catch him with the video that Tony had sent them all, laughing so hard he could hardly breathe as they watched Marley back at the compound, taking Loki down. Well, Clint had laughed until he saw that his apartment had been destroyed. That only had Nat and the rest laughing even harder as they prepped for their mission.

Everyone but him and Steve.

There'd been no audio with the video, so Bucky had no what idea Loki had said to set his girl off like that. He just knew there was a reason it had been cut out.

Steve's steely expression told him he understood why Bucky hadn't enjoyed it as the others had. Bucky was afraid. Not that Marley would ever hurt him. He knew she'd never want to.

He was afraid for her. Marley was growing stronger by the day. What happened when her powers became more than she could control? The people she'd accidentally killed before had her hiding away from the world. What would happen now if she hurt more innocent people, even by accident?

Part of him was afraid it would destroy her.

Another part of him was afraid that maybe that with all fire would burn out her heart, make her stop caring at all.

The emotionless expression she'd worn when she'd glared down at a badly burned Loki made him pause. He'd seen what power could do to men many times, so many times when he'd been a prisoner of HYDRA. Men who became his handlers, humane at first but by the third and fourth assignments, drunk on perceived power they had committed horrible atrocities against their enemies, each other, him…

As much as he fucking hated it, HYDRA had created her. If the pitiful privileges granted men could make the ones he'd known do what they did, what could a woman who'd been through what Marley had become with all that power?

"Okay, Buck?" Steve's voice whispered into his hear from the comm.

"Yep." Bucky kept his eye on the target. Ready. Always ready.

When he got home, he wanted to talk to Marley more about visiting Wakanda, talking to Shuri. If Marley truly didn't want those powers and they could be taken from her… She could just be Marley. She could just be his.

She'd be safe.

A lone soldier made his way out of the back of the building. Bucky was already in position, the HYDRA soldier already in his sites.

"Take him."

At Steve's command, he squeezed the trigger and took the soldier out.

"Cолдат?"

Bucky swore under his breath at that familiar voice.

"You must be preoccupied, soldier, for me to be able to sneak up on you," Sokolov stood above him. Allowing Bucky to climb to his feet, he waited, not even holding a weapon on him. He'd been second in command to Rumlow before S.H.I.E.L.D. fell and was just as violent.

Yet Sokolov was smarter. He'd always been smarter.

"So, it's true then," Sokolov said, looking over Bucky. "Word reached us that you are back in action, soldier."

Bucky nodded.

"But you've lost your edge," Sokolov pointed out. "When you were the Fist of HYDRA, I could never have caught you off guard."

The fucker was right.

"Oh, don't worry," the Russian man went on. "I understand why."

"Yeah," Bucky was quickly losing patience with the conversation. "What is it you think you know?"

"I know where your mind is, солдат," Sokolov grinned. "I understand. She's quite beautiful."

Bucky raised his rifle, aimed it at Sokolov's head.

"That's more like it." The man chuckled. "That's the soldier I remember."

When Bucky said nothing, the bastard kept talking.

"I haven't seen little Marishka in person since 1994. She was a child with golden ringlets and big blue eyes." Sokolov took a step closer. "I've seen pictures of her since. We searched for her for years after she was smuggled out of St. Petersburg. I'm sure you remember that mission. They brought you in too late to find her."

"Since you want to talk about it," Bucky held his aim, "tell me what happened before I got there. How did a little girl get away from you assholes?"

"She had help, of course. The poor bastard thought himself to be her father."

Bucky tried to keep his expression passive. Inside, he was sending up every prayer he knew that he didn't wrong Marley in any way before he ever met her.

"Do not worry, soldier. He is one person you didn't kill." The man's eyes were cold. "I had that honor. Years later when I found him. I tortured him for hours, but he never told me what he did with her. And you know how persuasive I can be."

Bucky knew what a sadistic bastard he could be.

"We've gotten pictures of her every year," Sokolov told him. "It always surprised me how she managed to stay hidden. Until that first fire. We had her for a brief period, but she managed to get away. She ran right into the arms of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Now he was getting to it. Bucky waited.

"I was there at the compound that day. Pretty little Marishka. She is a little phoenix, a bird of fire." Sokolov's smiled widened. "Are you in love with her soldier?"

Bucky's jaw tightened. He wouldn't speak. He wouldn't do anything to put her in more danger.

"You are." Sokolov shook his head. "But this love story has a tragic end."

Not real. Not real. Not real. He's screwing with me. Don't pay attention.

"Is she in your bed, soldier? Because you should know—"

Bucky didn't flinch when the bullet hit the man. He could only watch silently as the man dropped to the ground.

"Damn it, Clint!" Nat hissed into the comm. "He was about to give up something."

"I just wanted him to shut the hell up, already. I had the perfect diversion."

Bucky rolled his eyes. Clint's lack of patience made him an ineffective spy on rare occasions.

Doing a sweep of his area, Bucky sensed them before the first shot rang out.

"Barnes, on your right," Sam shouted into the coms and Bucky took out the HYDRA soldier coming up fast.

The fight was on then, with the entire team swarmed by HYDRA agents. It was ugly. Nat took a bullet to the thigh, but it went right through. Clint had nearly been choked out, his neck horribly bruised and his eyes bloody. The rest of them made it out with only minor scrapes and injuries. Toward the end Bucky followed Nat as she hobbled down the building he'd started out watching, following her in to sweep the building and for her to download intel from their servers.

Bucky made sure the building was cleared as she worked, trying to put pressure on her knee while she waited for the information to download. When Bucky made his way back into the control room where Nat was, he noticed how still she'd become.

"Nat, you okay?"

"Yeah, help me out of here."

Wrapping an arm around her waist, he took some of her weight and helped her back to the transport, so they could get back to base.

He helped her up into the back of the hummer before climbing in himself. Natasha leaned in close to him.

"I got intel about Marley," she explained. "Not much. They moved her files from one project to another the day of the attack on the compound."

"What projects?" he wanted to know.

"We'll take a look back at base," she told him. "He'd been about to say something when Clint took him down back there. Nothing we can do about that now."

They got back to base, got Nat and Clint medical care.

His mind was swimming in details. Sokolov's taunting, the details from the HYDRA files that Nat had managed to grab. Marley's file had actually been moved from a program they called ярость or rage back the program she'd originally been filed in дети сироты or orphans.

What did it mean? They'd moved her from a program where they wanted her for essentially a weapon of mass destruction back the program she'd originated from. Did it mean that they were backing off? That wasn't HYDRA's style. What did it mean? Natasha was determined to help him make sense of it.

They were traveling back up to Spain in the morning. Bucky found a cot and tried to get a couple hours of sleep.

He had a message from Marley on his phone. A picture of her, in his bed, wearing one of his shirts and the sweetest smile. The text simply read "I hope you're safe. I love you. Hurry back to me."

Bucky couldn't help but smile at that.

"Marley okay?" Steve asked, walking around him to take the cot next to his.

"Yeah, she seems to be."

"Heard from Tony. Loki will recover from his injuries but he's pretty weak. Tony's got him secured in a suite in the compound. He shouldn't be out to bother Marley. At least before we get back."

Bucky nodded, grateful.

"Nat told me about the intel. We'll get this figured out, Buck. You know we're not going to let HYDRA near her," Steve told him.

"I don't want her on missions involving HYDRA." Bucky meant it.

"Agreed."

He hoped that they could get Marley to Wakanda, to Shuri. But he wasn't ready to have that conversation with Steve. Not yet.

Taking a selfie, he'd seen Nat do it enough, Buckie sent it back to his girl.

"Love you. We'll finish what we started when I get home," was the text he sent.

[Marley] Promise?

[B] Promise.

But this love story has a tragic end. Surely your scientists have figured that out by now.

Sokolov's taunted replayed in his head, over and over. Worry ate at him. He wouldn't lose Marley. Shuri could fix it. He had faith in that.

They just needed to get his girl to Wakanda sooner rather than later.