[OOM] Franche-Comté

[from_the_outside]

There is a small town near the river Loue.

It is notable largely for it's museum (quite a collection of Courbet, for those who enjoy the Realist movement of the 19th century) and its situation near the river Loue: a small village, out of the way of modern-day life and all its hustle and bustle. It's a quiet town, ideal for a few days away from the city, perfect for a mini-break for any homesick American away from the ocean, kept from the slow shuffle of the ocean.

It's the eighth town like it in almost as many months. Small, quiet, out of the way. Perfect for a mini-break.

Or a hideout.

In the clear morning light, it seems impossible to think of this town as anything other than wholesome, friendly: Sharon walks through a small market and smiles at the vendor who sells her a small loaf of fresh bread and some cheese to eat it with, and imagines his stall burning, his wife screaming. She walks along the river, and pictures a town leveled, cars flung on their sides, smoking craters where the road should be.

He hasn't resurfaced. Not yet. No one has been hurt.

That doesn't mean no one will.

Her purview is not to hunt down and apprehend the Winter Soldier, of course.

But that doesn't mean she can't travel, on her free weekends. It's only natural: she's young, single, at a dream posting in Europe.

And it's only natural to ask around the towns she visits, around the museums and markets, for any other Americans who might be in town.

Ex-pats have to stick together, after all.

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[from_the_outside]

The Kahr is in her hands now, as she softly pushes the door open, and enters the cottage, all trappings of the tourist dropping away, tension strung high in her shoulders, eyes narrowing as they adjust to the darker room.

Her voice is as quiet as her steps, as she makes her way in, to the left of the door, eyes tracking to the partly open door across the room, and to the overgrown window.

"I bet this is where you take all the girls, huh?"

Before she gets more than a few steps in, her eyes are drawn to something on the floor –– a shining, wet mark by the open door that sends goosebumps crawling up her spine, even as she shifts her attention from door to where they lead.

Which is, inevitably, irrevocably, to the man standing in the shadows only a few feet away.

And now, in the sights of her Kahr. Blood bumping in her temples, the room narrowing down to his chest, face, where his hands are, waiting for the telltale shift of muscle and balance that would be her only warning before he moves.

"But do you always play this hard to get?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He remains perfectly still, his breathing steady and even. Water drips from his hair to his shoulder, where a dark jacket covers his left arm. His hands are at his sides.

His glance flicks to the barrel of the gun and then back to her face, seemingly dismissing it.

"You never were a nurse."

Cool and level, neutral and as flat as his gaze, locked on hers.

"Am I your mission?"

[from_the_outside]

"No."

Kate had been useful. Kate had been a precisely calibrated cover, chosen for her unthreatening nature, with a job close enough to that of Sarah Rogers that Sarah's son would have a natural inclination to trust and like her.

There are days when Sharon almost misses Kate. The most Kate ever had to worry about was accidentally putting a red shirt in the laundry with her white sheets. "I wasn't."

She edges towards the center of the room, keeping her path to both doors clear. "I guess that depends on who you ask.

"What are you doing here, Sergeant? I know this place has a nice view, but I didn't think that would be high on your list of priorities just now."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm asking you."

Sergeant, she'd called him. Which means her intel's better than the usual government grade, or she's stayed in touch with Steve even after her cover was blown, or ... she's doubled, with all that means.

If she's HYDRA, she won't leave this room alive. No matter what.

[from_the_outside]

Her lips tighten –– boy, the tension in this air, it is really kicking up, a notch or seven, does she ever have a way with the men, amazing they aren't just beating down her door –– before twisting.

"No."

Again. But answering a different question, this time.

Well –

Annoyance flickers across her face, and she amends. "Not today, anyway."

It's certainly possible that will change: the CIA has as much interest in James Buchanan Barnes as any other shadowy government intelligence organization, these days. He's just the most popular boy at the dance.

There's a pause, and then she does something really stupid: begins lowering the Kahr back towards the floor. "Which isn't to say my boss wouldn't give me the promotion of a lifetime if I brought you in."

What the hell? She could give it the old college try, if it came to that. She's done dumber things before.

[nerves_of_ice]

Looks like she's not going to try shooting him. Not now, anyway.

He still doesn't move, although his eyes narrow slightly.

"Then why are you here?"

Questions, so many questions, but this one covers most of the immediate ground.

[from_the_outside]

"Because it's better to have you in front of me than behind."

The muzzle of the Kahr is all the way down, now, but it would take only a second to pull it back up again, and her stance hasn't lost an iota of readiness. "Because I want to know what the hell you're up to, and what you're planning on doing, and if you should be my mission.

"Because, traditionally speaking, being on the run sucks and it's just possible you need help."

The caveat there being that maybe he shouldn't be on his way to assassinate anyone, but that's really neither here nor there at the moment.

The muscles between her shoulder blades tighten like a key is being turned there.

"Because we have a mutual friend."

(Or two.)

"Pick one."

[nerves_of_ice]

"If I'd wanted you dead, you would be. And you'd never have seen me."

The matter-of-fact tone may make his statement more unnerving, but it's the hint of weariness beneath it that's likely to be of real interest.

He leans back against the wall, watching her closely.

"Assassins don't have friends."

[from_the_outside]

"Oh, I don't think you want me dead."

There's a chilling blankness to him, but that's not what makes her eyebrows flicker into a brief frown, and her eyes narrow, curious.

"I don't think you want anyone dead."

Inasmuch as he wants anything.

Brainwashing, that was part of it. His old self stripped away, replaced by the machine. The perfect assassin.

Her lips purse in something almost like amusement. "I guess they're not such hot conversationalists, either. My turn: why are you here?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"No?"

Too much shows through these days, as he tries to find a balance between the Winter Soldier and the man who'd once been just plain Bucky Barnes. She's observant, and she's good, but that's not something he wants to talk about.

"Maybe I'm ... just out of practice."

A beat.

"I'm here to talk to you."

He's pretty damn sure she'd meant the town, or hell, maybe France itself, but why should he make this easy?

[from_the_outside]

Hey, this script got flipped somewhere along the line: Sharon Carter is the one who is the pain in the ass, okay? Call her a hypocrite, but she's never liked the flippancy of the modern day Bad Guy.

"That is so sweet."

But her gaze stays level, and, look, soldat, you may be a solid half-century older than her, but:

Never bullshit a bullshitter, son.

"You do seem a little rusty at it, so let's try this again. Why are you in Franche-Comté?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Why not? It's as good as anywhere else."

One corner of his mouth quirks, very slightly, as he waits for her reaction. There's something about her that reminds him of Natasha, long, long ago.




(Not to mention that the region is a manufacturing center, and that there's business he needs to take care of in one of the warehouses where automotive parts aren't all that's being shipped, and the village is large enough to blend in while being small enough to evade notice ... or so he'd thought. He'll have to recalibrate, now.)

[from_the_outside]

"And you decided to finally backpack across Europe the way you never got to after college?"

Aunt Peggy always said Barnes had a saucy streak to him – currently, Sharon isn't all that sure whether the fact that he clearly still does is a good thing, or just annoying.

"Are you on an assignment here?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head.

"If you know my old rank, agent, you know I did my share of humping it across Europe."

All signs of amusement fade at her next question, however, and a quiet tension coils back through him - even though he doesn't move from his casual slouch against the wall.

"And if I was?"

[from_the_outside]

It's her turn to crack a faint smile. "I guess I did hear something like that."

But he's shifting, slightly, in a way that pulls her spine a little straighter, makes her grip her gun a little more firmly. "If you were –



"I'd want to know who you were working for, and what they told you to do."

If he was back with his handlers, he'd have attacked by now. (She thinks.) (Probably.) But that doesn't mean she doesn't want to know exactly who's side he's on, here.

[nerves_of_ice]

Everything about him goes still, and his expression smooths into absolute blankness.



"You first."

Deadly flat.

[from_the_outside]

And here they were getting along so well.

"I'm not getting my orders from anyone."



An irritated lift of one shoulder, and a roll of her eyes. "Okay, I mean, these specific orders. I used to get them from Nick Fury."

Before the man in front of her shot him.

"And then it turned out everyone I used to get orders from was actually Hydra, which was obviously not acceptable working conditions, which brings me back to my original point: Are you working for Hydra?"

If he is, she's not sure she cares how sad it might make Steve Rogers, or how pissed off Fury would be, or how quickly the Winter Soldier could kill her: Taking him down would be the mission.

[nerves_of_ice]

Silence falls between them for several tense heartbeats, and then:




"Not any more."

He says it as flatly as before, and he doesn't look as though he expects her to believe him.

[from_the_outside]

She watches him closely, as if the lie might be written across his face in flashing neon letters, but sees nothing except her own wariness reflecting back at her.






He might be lying.



She doesn't think he's lying.


"All right."

(It's not just taking him at his word: if Hydra had the Winter Soldier, they would have used him for something big by now. They wouldn't let him simply disappear.)


"Then who are you working for?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Does she believe him?

Probably not. Why would she? Why would anyone?

(Steve would--

He manages, with grim determination, to suppress the thought before it can go any further.)

"I'm not," he says, bluntly.

Might as well see where this will go, and how it'll get there.

"Working for anyone, I mean."

[from_the_outside]

There's a pause as she waits for her internal alarms to start ringing – although, what the hell does she really know about telling whether or not someone's lying, her old boss turned out to be a Hydra goon and it's not like she saw that coming –

But they don't. Whether he's telling the truth, or just enough of it, or some of Steve Rogers' boundless and endlessly exasperating optimism rubbed off on her as she listened to his broadcast before S.H.I.E.L.D came tumbling down, she doesn't know.

It's just a feeling. (Buoyed by years of training and thorough research into his character, his history, his tactics.)

"Okay."

Another pause, considering him, before she moves for the first time since sighting him, walking to the edge of the room and laying down her handgun on a dusty side table, before turning back to him with crossed arms.

"Looks like we're both doing a little freelance."

[nerves_of_ice]

That --

-- was not what he expected.

Not even close.

He straightens, coming away from the wall with catlike grace, and takes a couple of steps in her direction before stopping, poised to react swiftly at need.

"Freelance?"

He sounds utterly disbelieving.

"You came after me as, as a freelance assignment? Are you insane?"

[from_the_outside]

She watches him, cool composure a thin and fragile veil over the aborted instinct to reach for her weapon at the second he moves.

(She can feel her heart pounding, almost as clearly as she can hear that voice of better judgment in her head that always sounds like Aunt Peggy saying well, that was stupid). "And here Cosmo's always telling me that guys like assertive women."

Her lips thin, but she stands her ground, chin tipping up stubbornly.

"I'm just an interested party. By all right's, I should call my boss and turn you in right now – so let's just say I'm invested and leave it at that."

[nerves_of_ice]

"No."

He meets her eyes with an expression that's almost mulish in its stubbornness.

"Let's not leave it at that. Why are you so invested in me? Why do you care? What the hell am I to you?"

[from_the_outside]

"To me? An internationally wanted, lethally dangerous pain in my ass."

No one out-stubborns Sharon Carter: she takes a step towards him.

"But you're something to a couple of people who mean a lot to me. Something important."

She sucks at her teeth, head tipping to one side like she's considering all the possible angles of what she's saying and how it'll come across, and whether or not she'll need to dive for her weapon and/or her gun.

"Natasha Romanoff, and..."







A swallow, a chin-tip that's maybe a little reminiscent of another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, now retired. "Peggy Carter."

A beat. "Do you know those names?"