[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.

Comments

[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?"

[nerves_of_ice]

He stares at her in utter shock.

"You --"

Natasha. She knows Natasha, knows that once, long ago--

(Nataliya Alianovna)

For an instant the second name almost doesn't register, but then...

He takes another step closer, searching her face in the dim light as though he's never seen her before ... or as though he might have.

"-- who are you?"

[from_the_outside]

The similarities are there, for those with the eye for them: maybe not physical, but there all the same. Different shape of the face, of the mouth; her eyes are more hazel than brown, and she has lighter hair –

But sometimes, Sharon looks very much like her Aunt Peggy.

A muscle jumps in her jaw, the only outward sign she allows of the warring flood of adrenaline telling her to run.

"My name is Sharon Carter."

In for a penny, in for a pound. "When S.H.I.E.L.D. was still a thing that existed, they called me Agent 13."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Sharon Carter. Agent 13 is Sharon Carter."

There's disbelief in his tone, but no real doubt. He shakes his head slightly, muttering under his breath in Russian, then switches abruptly back to English.

"Я не могу в это поверить гребаный... Christ. Does Steve know?"

[from_the_outside]

Her expression flattens, and then turns irritated – her Russian isn't great, but it's good enough to catch that.

"No."

First the first time, her gaze flickers: not to the ceiling, in a lie, but to the floor, avoiding the aggravating combination of guilt and uncertainty that show up without fail whenever she thinks of how he's still in the dark about that little detail.

It's for the best. And there's no reason it should bug her, except that Steve Rogers kind of has this way of making you want to be better than you are.

"He knows I'm not a nurse named Kate Newton. You blew that cover, so thanks –"

Shaking away the thought like it's an annoying fly. "He knows my name is Sharon, and that I was Agent 13. He knows I'm working for the CIA now. He doesn't know my last name."

[nerves_of_ice]

His jaw sets at the pointed reminder of what he'd done in D.C., but he takes the hit without comment. She's right, after all; he'd blown her cover and worse, far worse.

It's just one of the many crimes he's committed as the Winter Soldier, one more debt he owes and can never repay, one more bucket of blood on his hands. Never mind that he was being used, or how - he still did it. All of it.

He watches as she looks away for the first time, and lets out a quiet breath.

"Why not?"

[from_the_outside]

"Because..."

There are so many reasons. He doesn't need to know. It shouldn't make a difference, but she knows it would. It might drive a wedge between him and Aunt Peggy. It would feel like manipulation. It would mean he'd never not compare her to Aunt Peggy. Would maybe never see her for herself.

Which shouldn't matter.

" – telling him would be for me, not him."

Hey, if she can't be honest with an ex-KGB, ex-Hydra, currently at large and extremely dangerous brainwashed assassin from World War II, who can she be honest with?

Her smile, such as it is, turns wry. "I'm not high on his list of favorite people, right now. If I told him, he'd think I was working an angle -- and he'd probably be right. So I haven't.


"Not that it's really your business."

[nerves_of_ice]

"You made it my business when you came looking for me."

It says something, he thinks, that she's not using that relationship as leverage with Steve. Lots of people wouldn't hesitate, but clearly this woman is different.

(Or lying. That's always a possibility. Still, she doesn't come across as a liar -- and he's got enough basic intel now to look into things, just to be sure.)

"So." A single heartbeat of silence. "Now what?"

[from_the_outside]

"Did I?"

She considers him, feeling tension begin to leak from the tight muscles in her back, her shoulders. Maybe they'll get out of this without a fight, after all. "Is Steve Rogers really still any of your business?"

(Of course, maybe they won't.)

"Now?" She shrugs, uncrossing her arms, and letting one hand land on a hip while the other gestures loosely at him. "Now, I ask if you're really just here to lay low, or if you have some kind of business in the area."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Yes. He is."

Three words -- terse, harsh, and without an ounce of compromise.

(with you to the end of the line)

She's holding herself more casually; he appreciates that, but stays balanced for quick movement all the same.

(He can't go near Steve, nor does he plan to; he knows that he's likely to be more of a danger to him than anything else. It doesn't matter. No one, no one, will stop him from watching out for the man who was once his best friend in every way that he can. Not again.)

"Why do you want to know?"

[from_the_outside]

Her eyebrows lift infinitesimally at that statement, but she doesn't argue: his reaction was more than enough.

"Because you're a globally wanted terrorist assassin on the run, and I work for the Joint Terrorism Task Force."

A beat.

"You're really surprised I want to know about your agenda and if you're planning on hurting anyone?"

[nerves_of_ice]

So that's it. He should have known.

Weary disappointment shows through in his expression, in his eyes -- along with a hint of anger.

"Give up, Agent Carter. I won't work for you. Or your хуёый task force. I don't do that any more."

He meets her gaze without evasion.

"I've killed too many innocents."

[from_the_outside]

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

He might be angry, but she's just exasperated, eyes rolling to the ceiling, before meeting his again. "Why the hell would I want you to work for me? In what possible world would that be a good idea? No one wants that. There's no chance you could ever work for us, are you kidding? My boss wants you put in a jail so deep you never see the light of day again."

Jesus Christ, save her arrogant men.





"My point was only that there's no way I wouldn't be interested in what you're doing or planning on doing, Sergeant Barnes."

She can be just as pointed with a rank and name as he can, after all. "I am not trying to recruit you, because that would be insane. And counterproductive. And a waste of my time and yours."

[nerves_of_ice]

He openly scoffs at her.

"Get real. You know how this works. The second I was in that jail, I'd vanish into some secret room or another, where your boss or their boss would offer the first deal. As long as I cooperated, that is. Helped rid them of their inconvenient problems."

"And of course, when I didn't --"

(stubborn)

(he struggles)

His lip curls back in disgust, and the look he turns on her is near-feral.

[from_the_outside]

"Yeah, I bet that'll go over real well with the taxpayers, when the most recognizable assassin in the world starts working for the good old U.S. of A. And for sure the Avengers would be cool with it, right? It's not like they have anyone on their roster who might give a shit about what you're doing, for who, and they definitely never seem to get their hands on classified government intelligence."

His scoffing at her isn't worrying, but the look he turns on her after a second's pause is: the glare of a rabid animal caught in a trap and ready to bite the hand that tries to free it.

The problem is, there's no good way to prove anything she's saying: he'd have to trust her, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. If ever.

"But I'm not turning you in. I'm not recruiting you. If I wanted to make that call, I could have done it ten minutes ago. I could have had this place swarming with agents. But I didn't."

She holds her hands up: empty. Maybe not harmless, exactly, but empty. "I just want to make sure you're not planning on killing any more innocents."

[nerves_of_ice]

He shakes his head, but doesn't argue further. She believes what she's saying, it's clear. Why should he be the one to disillusion her?

(Besides which, the thought of Steve being faced with such a betrayal - again - is too sickening to contemplate.)

"You came looking for me. By yourself. Without backup. To ask--"

A long, long silence.

"No. No more innocents."

He takes a step toward her, his focus intent.

"So I guess the next question is, do you believe me?"

[from_the_outside]

Does she?








Steve would. Aunt Peggy might. Nat might.

Steve and Aunt Peggy and Nat all know this guy a hell of a lot better than she does, and Sharon – well, she's always been kind of a skeptical person.

"I believe that you believe it."

Hey, that's almost like believing him.

There's a wry slant to her mouth that's fighting to turn into a fullblown frown, nut it's not aimed at him.



..Okay, it's like, a good seventy percent not aimed at him. But it's a start. "I'm not exactly used to taking things on faith...but I'd guess you aren't, either."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Taking things on faith's a good way to get killed."

He says it the way another person might note that the sky is blue, or water is wet - a fact so clear there's no doubt of its truth. The look he's giving her, though, is speculative.

"Out of curiosity, what were you planning to do after you found me?"

[from_the_outside]

That's the question, isn't it?

The one with the answer even she thinks is nuclear levels of dumb. The one even Captain America himself might go so far as to call a hair optimistic.

(Only the answer they've arrived at, though. In the grand scheme of choose-your-own adventures, most of the previous paths she could have taken and choices she could have made would have ended in her own gruesome and untimely demise.)

"Well, you're not on a killing spree for Hydra," which checks one option off the list. "And you don't seem to be interested in making amends with your old buddies from SHIELD --"

Which is probably for the best. "Which means you're just trying to stay under the radar, which I can respect --"

Honestly, there are days when disappearing into the workings of the everyday world just sounds so much more relaxing than getting shot at or blown up. "So -- Talk. Is what I was planning to do. Which we're doing. So I guess I can check that one off the old to-do list."

Except talking is a waste of his time and hers. He's right -- no one comes after him, alone, without back-up, without reason.

Which brings her back to her first thought, that this is a dumb answer and maybe she should have spent a few more months trying to figure out a better one before actually finding the goddamn Winter Soldier here in bucolic France.

Her finger taps, annoyed, against her arm. "I thought, if you weren't back to your old murdering ways, you could use a hand."

It's a second before she glances at the metal glimmering at his left side. "So to speak."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Ha, ha."

He's scrutinizing her with unnerving closeness.

"And yet you already said you didn't want me to work for you, so..."

A single beat of silence hangs between them.

"What exactly do you mean, a hand?"

[from_the_outside]

So much for building a sense of trust and camaraderie through humor. Thanks for nothing, How to Make Friends and Influence People.

"That depends on what you're up to. I can offer a few recommendations for your stay here -- there's a cheese shop that's out of this world, honestly -- but somehow I don't think you're here just for the relaxing country air and charming hamlets."

She knows what a mission looks like when she sees one, what an agent looks like when they're on one, and he is. Does. Isn't here for shits and giggles. Isn't just lying low, blending into the native crowd, disappearing. he didn't have to meet her, he could have given her the slip at any time before now.

Which means he wanted to be sure of something about her.

"You might not be on a mission from HYDRA, but that doesn't mean you don't have something you're trying to do here."