So I just found out what Groot said to Rocket at the end of Infinity War...
WWWAAAHHHHH! Sob...
Okay, I'm good (said no one after seeing Infinity War ever...)
Thank you to fangtastic21, winterhail, kendramann, animelover78861 and Angi Marie for favouriting/following :)
xo
Chapter 6
Suit Up
Bucky sat in the back seat of an old, beat up VW beetle beside Lex, as they watched Steve meet with the pretty blonde woman he had seen Steve talking to at the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre. Imagine his surprise when Steve told him that she was Agent Carter's niece.
It was a tight fit for him in the back seat. Sam had his seat back, leaving Bucky with very little leg room. He fidgeted in an effort to get comfortable.
They watched as Sharon looked back at the car, eyeing off the occupants.
He wasn't sure if Sam and Lex could hear the two talking, but his heightened hearing meant that he could.
"Not sure you understand the concept of a getaway car," she commented, looking slightly amused.
"It's low profile," Steve replied.
"Good, because this stuff tends to draw a crowd," she said pointedly, opening the trunk of her car. Bucky couldn't see what was inside, but he had a pretty good idea when he saw Steve give a small smile.
"So... those two... together...?" Lex piped up, leaning forward to rest her chin on the back of the driver's seat.
"Should be," Sam answered, not looking away from the pair in front of them. Lex frowned and raised her eyebrows at Sam's response before shaking her head.
Bucky tried to get comfortable again. "Can you move your seat up?"
"No," Sam answered bluntly
Bucky heard Lex try and stifle a laugh next to him, as he narrowed his eyes at the back of Sam's head. He slid sideways, so he was now sat in the middle of the back seat, and closer to Lex. He turned his attention back to the couple in front of them.
"I owe you again," Steve said, looking gratefully at Sharon.
"Keeping a list," she joked lightly, before glancing back at Bucky. He recognised the look of apprehension in her eyes. "You know, he kinda tried to kill me."
"Sorry. I'll put it on the list, too," Steve replied with a sigh.
"You've really got to try and work on your people skills, Bucky," Lex teased, with an off centre grin as she glanced sideways at him. He didn't answer her, looking ruefully at the blonde agent. Putting a face to a victim always hurt.
Steve broke the silence. "They're going to come looking for you."
"I know."
"Thank you, Sharon." They all watched on as Steve leaned in and embraced Sharon, taking her lips in his.
Bucky and Sam grinned, Steve feeling his chest swelling with a strange sense of pride at his friend. He almost forgot this was the same guy that had trouble talking to girls in their younger days.
"Blegh!" Lex exclaimed loudly, making Bucky and Sam both look at her in exasperation. She looked back at them and shrugged. "What?"
When they all eventually looked back to Sharon and Steve, they had pulled apart.
"Smooth, Lex," Sam muttered under his breath as he shook his head. Bucky was just happy to see his pal moving on in the world.
"Why are you guys acting like him kissing someone is a big deal?"
"Because it IS, a big deal," Sam retorted as Steve began to gather the contents of Sharon's trunk. It was his uniform, shield and Sam's wings.
"It is?"
"Like you, he's a hundred years old, except he's been on ice for seventy of those years. Have you been living under a rock?" Sam asked looking back at her in wonder.
"Yes, it's called Romania," she replied, pulling a face. "I don't generally pay any attention unless the words HYDRA come up in conversation," she replied in an offhand manner as Sam rolled his eyes and got out of the car to help Steve.
"Before he became Captain America, he was terrible with girls," Bucky explained with the slightest of grins as he recalled the many failed attempts to get Steve a girl. Bucky gave a little laugh, gaining full Lex's attention. "You know, when we were growing up together, I spent so much time trying to help get him a girl. He was the most awkward guy around girls."
Lex raised her eyebrows. "Really, that guy? Terrible with girls? Look at him, wouldn't he be like a magnet, with those biceps?"
Bucky turned to look at Lex, furrowing his brow. "You know, he didn't always look like that, right?"
"He didn't?" she asked, as she glanced to the back of the car to look at Steve, Bucky looking too. Bucky realised that she had probably been locked away in The Red Room from a very young age, to graduate at sixteen, and had not learnt anything about Captain America. He looked away for a moment, considering what kind of childhood that must have been like for her.
He looked back at Lex to see her looking at him with mild interest. "Your boy is all grown up, huh?"
Bucky laughed quietly, again. "Yeah, I guess."
Lex looked thoughtfully at Bucky for a moment, before turning her attention back to the front as Steve and Sam got back in the car.
Steve parked the car on the sixth level of a parking garage at the Leipzig/Halle airport. He parked by a beaten up, off white, utility van and got out, Sam, Bucky and Lex following suit.
A man climbed out of the driver's seat of the van, he was dressed all in black, and moved to greet Steve. "Cap."
"You know I wouldn't have called if I had any other choice," Steve greeted him apologetically, as they shook hands.
"Hey man, you're doing me a favour. Besides, I owe a debt." He nodded to Sam and looked past Steve to Bucky and Lex, furrowing his brow when he looked at her.
"Thanks for having my back," Steve said gratefully, looking past Clint to Wanda as she appeared from the other side of the van.
Wanda shrugged nonchalantly. "It was time to get off my ass," she replied, glancing meaningfully at Clint.
Steve looked to Clint. "How about our other recruit?"
Clint raised his eyebrows and grinned. "He's rarin' to go." Bucky detected some sarcasm in his voice. "Had to put a little coffee in him, but... he should be good." He turned and walked back to the van, pulling open the sliding door roughly.
There was a man lying in the back, who was shaken from his slumber in surprise. He looked around, before sleepily climbing out of the van. "What time zone is this?"
"Come on, come on," Clint muttered, ushering him towards the others.
He looked around until he saw Steve, quickly moving to greet him. He offered his hand to Steve, looking at him in awe. "Captain America."
"Mr. Lang." Steve looked at him in amusement as he continued to shake his hand over-enthusiastically.
"It's an honour. I'm shaking your hand too long. Wow! This is awesome! Captain America." He looked around and his eyes finally fell on Wanda. "I know you, too. You're great!" He turned back to look at Steve again, before finally letting go of Steve's hand and reaching up to squeeze his shoulder. "Jeez. Ah, look, I wanna say, I know you know a lot of super people, so... Thinks for thanking of me."
Lex was leaning on the car next to Bucky, with her hands resting on the roof and her chin on top of her hands. She leaned sideways slightly and glanced at Bucky. "THAT is the Scott Lang he was telling us about? Where does he find these people?"
Bucky shrugged, this guy was weird, and that in itself was saying something, coming from a one hundred year old man with a titanium arm.
Scott looked to Sam, smiling and pointing. "Hey man!"
"What's up, Tic Tac?" Sam greeted with a nod in his direction.
"Uh, good to see you," Scott said, before he began to look a little nervously at Sam. "Look, about what happened last time when I..."
Sam gave a small laugh before cutting him off. "It was a great audition, but it'll... it'll never happen again." Sam looked at him pointedly.
Scott raised his eyebrows and looked away awkwardly.
"They tell you what we're up against?" Steve asked him.
"Something about some... psycho-assassins?"
"Is that what they're calling us now?" Lex scoffed loudly, drawing everyone's attention to her as she smirked menacingly. Bucky frowned and looked at her meaningfully, nudging her with his elbow, but she rolled her eyes in response. He turned back to see everyone was looking at her warily.
"We're outside the law on this one. So, if you come with us, you're a wanted man," Steve explained, looking around at everyone before him.
"Yeah, well, what else is new?" Scott said nonchalantly, shrugging. Steve gave him a grateful smile before looking around at the gathered individuals.
Bucky looked around as well. He looked at Lex, she had her lips pursed, appearing thoughtful. "What are you going to do?"
She turned to look at him in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"You don't have to do this, you can go back into hiding, this isn't your fight."
Both her eyebrows raised in surprise and she cocked her head to one side. "Really? You...weren't just expecting me to help?"
"No, you've already done too much. I never meant to get you involved." Bucky looked at her apologetically. He had enjoyed her friendship in Bucharest, but this was never supposed to happen. Even if she was like him, she had left that life behind long before he had even come along to take her place.
She shook her head and sighed. "Well, Bucky, if anything, I owe you." Bucky looked at her in confusion. She sighed and continued. "It's my fault you're like this. If I had stuck around, you wouldn't have been the one to take my place, or at the very least, if I had taken down the WINTER project instead of going into hiding, maybe none of this would have happened either."
She looked sympathetically at Bucky and it was the first time he felt like he saw the real Alexia. Her deep brown eyes seemed to darken slightly, and for a moment, he thought he could see the sixteen year old that had escaped HYDRA and spent her whole life on the run. "You and Steve seem like nice guys, I bet you were a great team back in your day, but because of me, that was stolen from you."
"No, Lex. This sucks, but if it hadn't have happened to me, I would probably be dead anyway, and it would have been someone else. At least if it's me, I can stop it from happening again." She looked up at him, and a small smile graced her lips. "Besides, I wouldn't have met you if anything was different."
She froze and staring up at him, seeming mildly perturbed. "Well, I guess that's one way to look at it."
Bucky smiled at her, lifting his normal hand up slowly, and placed it on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "You weren't supposed to get involved, Lex, but I'm glad you did."
She gave a light laugh then, smiling bashfully. "Right." She looked back to the others who were talking quietly amongst themselves. "Well, we should get moving," she called out loudly, drawing their attention to her.
"We got a chopper lined up," Clint said, nodding towards the airport hangars across the tarmac from them.
As they began to move, there was an announcement over the PA system in German. "This is an emergency. All passengers must evacuate the airport immediately."
"They're evacuating the airport," Bucky translated, moving to grab his backpack containing his uniform. They had stopped to grab it from his safe spot on their way to the airport, sending Lex in to retrieve it, because at this point in time, she was the least wanted of the four. He was glad he had put into place contingency plans as he had been on the run. They were coming in handy in recent times.
Sam looked to Steve meaningfully. "Stark."
"Stark?" Scott squeaked in awe.
Steve looked back to Bucky and Lex, as Bucky moved around Lex to change into his uniform, before looking back to Clint. "Did you manage to grab what I asked for?"
"Yep, hope it fits," Clint said, motioning to Wanda, who turned and used her powers to summon a backpack from inside the van. She dropped it in Steve's hands.
"It should, I grabbed something close to the vague specifications you gave," Wanda commented certainly.
Steve turned to look at Lex, catching her eye before throwing the backpack to her. "Suit up."
Bucky watched as she caught the bag easily, screwing up her face in annoyance, before sighing and opening the bag to peer inside. She raised her eyebrows, a small smirk appearing on her lips before she glanced back at Steve. Her small smirk became a grin, as she moved to change.
xo
Krayzee