THROUGH TIME

Prologue Part 1

Brooklyn, 1940

Smog filled streets and growling car engines are a staple of my everyday life. Routine isn't exactly my thing, but barely a day goes by when I don't walk down the roads of Brooklyn. Steve always says to be home before dark, so when I notice the burgeoning night sky on the horizon, I add a skip to my step.

Bucky'd have a heart attack if he knew I were out alone at night.

A brightly-lit candy store catches my eye and I stop in my tracks. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, I figure and bound across the street.

I have a few pennies left over from the money Steve gave me for new shoes. Against my better judgement, I take my time in the candy store, examining each colourful, sugary treat before picking out a lollipop and heading on my way. It's well and truly dark by the time I arrive home, sneaking through the door in the hopes that Steve won't notice.

"Flo, is that you?"

Dammit.

"Yeah, it's me!" I call out, dropping my new shoes onto the floor. They hit the floorboards with a dull thud.

Steve and Bucky emerge from the lounge room of our small apartment, wearing matching disapproving looks.

"The moon's barely out," I protest before they can even get a word in.

"We were worried," Steve says. He has the disappointed big brother voice down pat. It makes a knot of guilt twist my stomach.

"How many times do we gotta tell you to be home before dark?" Bucky questions, reaching out to pick up my new shoes. I snatch them back before he can. "What are those?" His blue eyes sharpen.

"They're my new shoes," I say proudly.

Steve's narrow face pales, his bony shoulders hunching into his small frame. "Flo, please tell me you didn't spend the money I gave you on a pair of unwearable heels."

"They're so pretty!" My voice goes high. "Look, they're all red and grown-up!"

"You're eleven, you can't wear those," Bucky is exasperated, as he often is with me. "You needed to get sensible shoes. We'll have to take them back in the morning."

I pull the shoes close to my chest, hugging them tightly. "No! No way! They're mine!"

Bucky reaches for them and I duck past him, vaulting over the couch. But he gets an arm around my waist, pulling me back toward him and plucking the shoes from my grip. I struggle against him, my elbow catching his firm chest.

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. He is in a constant state of exasperation at our ongoing shenanigans.

"Stop!" I screech, trying to get the shoes back from Buck, who holds them high above his head, where I have no chance of reaching.

"Ok, enough," Steve steps in, as he inevitably always does, to put an end to our squabble.

I'm not a girl of routine, but I do like the consistency of Steve and Bucky, always worrying, always nagging, always there.

~O~

Brooklyn, 1942

"I don't want you to go." A tear slips down my cheek and my bottom lip wobbles like jelly. Bucky reaches out and brushes the stray tear away with his thumb.

"I know. Hey," he cups my cheek and puts on a brave smile. "I'm gonna be back before you know it, ok? Gonna duck over there, win the war, and I'll be home in time for Christmas."

I manage a watery laugh, holding onto the sleeve of his army uniform.

"Besides, you'll have my sister and my parents and you'll have Steve. Speaking of which, you take care of Stevie while I'm gone, yeah? Try and keep him from getting himself beaten in a back alley," Bucky adds, with a chuckle of his own. His eyes are heavy though. This is more serious than he's letting on. This might be the last time I see him.

Bucky's been in my life for as long as I can remember. Forever, really. When mama or Steve were sick, Buck was always there. And when we had to bury mama in a grave, Buck carried me home from the cemetery and stayed with me all night. I don't know a Brooklyn without my Bucky. It just won't be the same.

"Can't you tell them you changed your mind and you don't want to go anymore?" I ask hopefully.

His mouth flattens, lips pursing. "Not really an option, sweetheart. Listen, you'll be fine and I'll be home soon. I promise."

"Don't make promises you can't keep," I immediately say and then feel bad. It makes him look sadder.

He stands up, moving back from my bed and toward the door that leads to the lounge room. "Look, Steve and I gotta go. We're going to that world expo downtown."

"Can I come?" My eyes widen hopefully.

"Not this time, we're goin' with some girls. But don't tell Steve that. He'll chicken out before we even get there."

I giggle, knowing he's right. Steve's a big baby around girls his age. But that's just because they so often shun him.

"It'll be our secret," I say. Bucky smiles, big and true, and gives me a wink before heading out the door.

It's a long time before I see him again.

~O~

Unknown Location, 1946

Dark, damp and cold, the prison cell I'm trapped in is a small hell. My stomach aches, starvation making me weak. I lift my hand and feebly bang on the door, desperate for something, anything, to come and save me.

But no one is coming.

After my brother was recruited into the army and underwent a life-changing procedure, I lived with Bucky's parents and his sister, Rebecca. But then Bucky died. And then my brother died too. In a desperate attempt at closure, I convinced some of the Howling Commandoes to take me back into enemy territory, to the spot where Bucky fell to his death, trying to find his body.

Instead, we were attacked and I was taken. The war may be over, but the danger clearly persists.

Four days of no food and very little water has left me weak, near death. My chest rattles, my head feels heavy and every part of me aches.

I close my eyes and I see everyone I love. Rebecca, my best friend, always smiling a secret, knowing smile. Bucky's parents, warm and safe and ever-reliable. Bucky and my brother. Gone, but still there in my heart. Always there.

Abruptly, the door to my cell is yanked open and light floods in. I squint as a shadowy figure looms over me.

"Get up," the figure barks. My legs are too weak; there's no way I can stand. He reaches down and roughly yanks me up, dragging me through the dimly lit corridors of this shadowy facility. I am tossed into an observation room like a sack of potatoes, my head bouncing off the cement floor. The door slams shut, locking me inside.

For awhile, I just sit there, alone and bleeding. The white dress they put me in is dirty and thin. I don't even have the energy to cry.

I'll be with Steve and Buck soon, I think. It is a small consolation, but a consolation nonetheless.

I'm nearly asleep when fine mist begins seeping into the room through a vent. It fills the space, making me cough. Then, I watch in horror as my fingers begin to turn to stone, then my arms, my shoulders. I scream and cry out, but it's useless. Nothing can stop this. My body turns to stone and my mind empties.

I wake up in the middle of a busy street to the sound of a car horn.

"Lady, get off the road!" The driver yells out the window. Completely disoriented, I look around. It's broad daylight and people are staring at me like I'm crazy - probably because I'm lying in the middle of the road, barefoot and dressed only in a thin white dress. I notice the scrapes on my knees are gone and I don't feel as weak or hungry. In fact, I feel fine, other than a slight ache in my head. I stumble to my feet and onto the footpath and the car takes off at a high speed. It's an odd car, with a short front end and a less rounded shape than I'm used to seeing. I lean against the brick wall of a store front and stare at the people who pass me by.

The women wear short, brightly coloured dresses. Everything is different in small ways, like someone tweaked the world whilst I was out.

How did I get here?

I reach out and grab the arm of a woman passing by, who looks at me like I'm crazy.

"Excuse me, where am I?" I ask. She tries to pull away, but I hold tight.

"You're in Flatbush, miss," she says and rips her arm from my grip. She doesn't walk away though, concern flooding her features.

"Flatbush…in Brooklyn?" My eyes go wide.

"Yeah, in Brooklyn. Are you alright? Do I need to call someone?"

I quickly shake my head. "No, no. I'm fine, I just…got lost."

I hurry away, before she calls the police. But in the pit of my stomach, I know I'm not fine. This is not the Brooklyn I know and love. There is something very, very wrong.

Questions racing through my head - how did I get here? Was being captured a dream? Am I hallucinating or going absolutely bonkers? - I hurry down semi-familiar streets. The shop fronts have changed and the people are different, but I can see that it is still Brooklyn. It's still home.

My feet start to ache on the cement footpath and a chilly breeze nips at my exposed skin, so I duck into a diner. It's warm, music playing softly off a jukebox, the smell of food filling the air.

Still feeling alienated and confused, I stand, looking around the place. Red, leather booths, checkered floor and stools lining the counter. It's nice.

"Can I help you, ma'am? You wanna order something?" The waitress asks me, but something behind her catches my eye. I move forward, my mouth slowly dropping open. It's a calendar, each day of the month crossed off accordingly.

It reads: October, 1966.

~O~

Brooklyn, 1967

"I still don't really understand it," Rebecca says. "I'm just sorry you had to go through all that."

"It's ok. Everything's alright now." I force a smile, but it turns genuine when she reaches out to hold my hand.

It took me months to find her after I somehow landed in 1966. She's older now, all grown up and with a family of her own. The shock on her face when she saw me for the first time; it was like an alien had turned up on her doorstep.

"I don't understand it either, not at all," I admit, shaking my head. "I don't understand what happened to me or how I got here or who took me prisoner in the first place. But I'm here now. I suppose that's what matters."

She smiles and sighs wearily, the lines of her face crinkling. "Oh, Flo. Ever the optimist."

I kiss her on the cheek. "I have to get to work, but I'll come by for dinner. I'll bring some ice cream home for the kids." I work at an ice cream shop near my apartment, run by an older man and his wife.

"Not too much ice cream. They go crazy on sugar," she says warmly, squeezing my hand. She is my one familiarity here, my one comfort.

And in a new, terrifying world, that comfort means everything.

~O~

Brooklyn, 1974

I wake up in the lobby of a very nice hotel, surrounded by concerned-looking businessmen. A mere moment ago, I was in the ice cream shop, closing up for the day. Now…

"Oh god, not again."

~O~

Washington, 1983

Mission: Eliminate the Senator, retrieve the Carter files.

Minimal security inside the house, but four Secret Service Agents stationed outside.

It isn't a problem for the Winter Soldier. The SS Agents are trained, but their bones still snap so easily beneath his metal hand. He walks into the Senator's study to find him with his wife. There is no hesitation; the Winter Soldier kills them both, a single bullet each sending them to their graves.

He grabs the appropriate files, then burns the house to the ground. Fire cleanses all. No evidence will survive it.

The Soldier is due to meet his handler in forty-eight hours in Newark. He plans to drive straight there and wait at a Hydra safe-house, but he's not gone far when his motorcycle breaks down on the side of the road. He checks it and sees a stray bullet has hit it, puncturing the gas line. Must be from his short tussle with the SS Agents.

He pushes it without complaint to the nearest gas station, even when the clouds overhead open wide and rain begins to pour down. He has a leather jacket in the storage compartment of his vehicle that he puts on to cover his arm. Blending in isn't the Soldier's forte, but he can do it - more or less. It's nearing dawn, the sun just starting to rise, when the worker at the gas station calls a mechanic. If the Soldier had somewhere pressing to be, he would simply kill the gas worker and steal his vehicle. But he has time and no need to drop any more bodies, lest he raise suspicion.

He waits for the mechanic beside the motorcycle, unmoving, unblinking, unthinking.

The gentle rumble of a car approaching doesn't alarm him in the slightest. It may be early in the morning, but this isn't a particularly quiet road.

The car drives up, past the gas station and past the Soldier. And, for a single moment, time seems to slow.

Looking out of the window of the car, in the passenger seat, is a girl. Long, blonde hair, warm skin and red lips. Her eyes lock onto the Soldier and go wide with shock, like she's staring at a ghost.

His heart jolts in his chest, a sudden pounding headache nearly blinding him.

Her face, younger and blurry, streaks through his mind like the flash of a camera. There one moment, gone the next.

He doesn't know how or from where, but the Soldier knows that face.

~O~

"…Best thing he'd ever read, that's what my professor said. Thinks I'm going to revolutionise Biochemistry. Of course, he's probably being a bit dramatic," Andrew's been speaking for the past half hour straight. I haven't managed to get a single word in.

When I met him on campus at Barnard, I thought he was great. Funny, smart, charming, handsome.

Turns out all those words are just synonyms for arrogant.

I thought going away for the weekend with him sounded like a brilliant idea. Now I'm thinking it sounds more like a one-way road to a suicide attempt.

"…And, I mean, I know I'm the smartest one in my class - that's obvious - but I feel like my professor doesn't really need to say it, you know? At least, not in front of everyone else."

I think I could be asleep and he would just keep yapping away without even noticing.

I press my forehead against the glass of the car window, watching the trees speed past us in a blur of mottled greens and browns.

It was pouring down with rain a bit ago, but it's let up slightly to a steady drizzle.

Andrew continues, "It wasn't even my best work, I don't think. I literally threw it together the night before. Well, I worked on it a bit the days leading up but really…"

We round a bend in the road and I see a gas station up ahead. Maybe I should tell him to pull into it so I can go to the toilet. I just need a few minutes away from his constant bragging.

But as we near the gas station, any possible words dry up in my throat.

A lone figure stands resolutely next to a motorcycle, tall and imposing, dark hair wet and clinging to the sides of his face.

It's that face that shocks me to my core.

It's Bucky.

I am frozen as we zoom past him, Andrew talking away beside me. I can scarcely believe my eyes. But it's Bucky. I would know him anywhere, in any time, any place.

"Turn the car around," I manage to croak out.

"What?" Andrew sounds affronted that I interrupted him.

"Turn the car around, now. Turn the car around! Go back, go back!" I shout and shout at him until he does as I say, spinning the wheel around and heading back to the gas station. He stares at me like I'm clinically insane when I leap out of the car and stride over to the motorcycle.

But Bucky is gone.

~O~

"He was there, Rebecca," I stare at my friend, imploring her to believe me. "It was him."

Her mouth flattens - just like Bucky's used to - and she shakes her head. "Flo…"

"Please, you have to believe me. It was him."

"I believe you think it was him," she says carefully. Now in her fifties, her hair is starting to grey and she is more wise and knowing than me. She is becoming less of my equal and more of my senior. I am barely college-aged and she is going to have grandkids soon enough. I feel like she's leaving me behind.

"I saw him, it was Bucky. He looked…different. But it was him," I insist.

"It was early in the morning, it was dark and raining. I'm sure you saw someone who looked like Bucky, but—"

"No! It was him." Tears fill my eyes, choke my throat. "It was your brother. He was there."

"That's enough, Florence!" She bursts out, frustration seeping out of her. "He wasn't there, because he's dead! He's dead, Steve is dead. They're gone. You need to accept that and stop chasing ghosts."

~O~

Russia, 1999

Snow sweeps into the foyer of the small motel I'm staying in. I quickly shut the door behind me, clutching a manila folder beneath my coat. I jog up the stairs to my motel room, shaking stray pieces of ice from my hair as I go.

In my room, with the door locked, I open up the file and leaf through the pages. Crime scene photos, mostly. Pictures of dead bodies and shadowy figures in the distance. The police haven't managed to connect these crimes yet, but I have. They were all committed by the same person, the same man.

The Winter Soldier.

Rebecca told me to stop chasing ghosts, but I just can't. Ghosts and remnants of my old life are all I have left now.

For the world, the deaths of Steve Rogers and James Barnes were a lifetime ago. For me, they are fresh wounds. I have only gotten to live a handful of years since I first jumped through time. I can't control when I jump or how long I get to stay in a specific time period. I landed in 1988, but only got to stay a few weeks - not even enough time to find Rebecca - before I was thrown into the late 90s. I can't understand what's happening to me, I can't put down roots or make connections with people or have a life. All I can do is this; continue to follow the Winter Soldier and hope that my theory is correct.

I wait till nightfall, staring anxiously at the clock on the wall and watching each minute tick by. Earlier in the week, I had a dinner date with a Russian politician and I stole his mobile phone. High-tech little gadget, so useful. When I got to the 90s, I could hardly believe that something so small was capable of calling people.

I managed to decode a text he sent to a Hydra agent. Kill orders, for one of the politician's rivals, Nikolai Alferov. I believe the Winter Soldier is going to carry out that hit. And I'm going to be there to stop him, to remind him of who he is. To remind him he's Bucky.

When the clock hits midnight, I hurry out the door and into my car. It's a half hour drive to Alferov's mansion, which is surrounded by a large forest. I park down the street and creep up to the gates of the estate. My all-black outfit blends into the deep shadows of the night, my blonde hair tucked up into a black beanie. I feel a bit ridiculous, acting like a little girl playing spy. I was never trained in any way; I have no idea what I'm doing. All I know is that I need to find Bucky.

I wait by the gates for what feels like a long time, my teeth chattering from the cold. But the Winter Soldier never shows.

Maybe I got the intel wrong, maybe I didn't decrypt the message correctly.

Just as I'm preparing to call it a night and head back to my car, I see a flash of a dark shape in one of the upstairs windows of the house. No lights are on; Alferov and his family should be asleep.

I wait and after a few minutes the front door silently opens and a tall, dark shadow slips out into the night. It's Bucky; it has to be. He must've gotten into the house without me noticing, which means Alferov is likely already dead. I take off in a sprint, round the tall walls of the estate and in the direction I think I saw Bucky go. It's dark and I trip over branches and roots, my feet catching on everything. But I push on, seeing the flit of a figure up ahead.

"Bucky!" I call out, into the darkness. "Bucky, wait!"

I'm close, so close to finally reaching him…

My eyes close, my stomach tightens and then I'm not in the woods anymore. I'm in the middle of a highway and a truck is barrelling straight toward me.

~O~

A/N: Hello and welcome to my newest Bucky/OC story, Through Time. I really hope you enjoyed the first part of the Prologue. Second part will be out soon. After that, the first proper chapter of this story will pick up where first episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier does.

Thanks so much for reading! If you could leave a review, that would be amazing.

Lots of love x