Winter Blues

.

He's only been given a mission like this once before.

Joanna Writton had been an incredibly successful business woman, with a growing empire that spanned three continents and had rapidly been approaching American soil.

Unfortunately for her, her seemingly inadvertent approach had threatened HYDRA, and so, he had been sent after her.

But it had been a mission that required delicacy, that couldn't house the touch of an assassin, otherwise the inheritors of her estate would have strove for America, regardless of Mrs Writton's sudden death.

No, they had needed a scandal, within which they would hide their assassination.

So, he had been ordered to sleep with the woman, to be caught leaving by the husband. At which point, the Asset would saw to it that the woman was killed, and then her husband committed suicide.

Or rather, that was what those first on the crime scene had believed.

No evidence of the Asset's involvement mentioned, excluding the fact a suspected lover had been caught leaving Mrs Joanna Writton's room.

The scandal had ruined her empire, and kept it far, far away from the USA. So it's been mission accomplished.

The Asset hadn't enjoyed the mission per say, he was an Asset, the Winter Soldier, he didn't have the emotion to enjoy the mission.

But it hadn't been hard.

Hadn't been a difficult mission.

And here he is, several cryofreezes later, told this was to be his next mission.

A witness to the last assassination, has survived the HYDRA clearing.

Usually the agents were skilled enough to ensure there was no witnesses, that they all died that day if they unlucky enough to stick around.

But apparently, this woman, who's throat they'd slit, hadn't died.

They hadn't even noticed she'd survived until, by pure chance, one of the agents from that day had passed her by in the street.

It wasn't surprising they'd recognised her, the scarring on her face, like lightning cracking across the sky, is incredibly noticeable. Thick black hair falls around her face in an aureole of curly locks, eyes a bright enough green that it'd be very difficult to mistake her for another.

Distinctive, a feature which always makes a mission easier.

The mission seems easy enough; get close to the target, sleep with her if required, and then when her guard is down, finish off Agent Cloroka's incomplete work.

It doesn't matter if people discover her body, only that no one sees her murder. An easy enough job, given the fact he is told to seduce her away from the populous.

No self respecting woman would allow herself to be seen in such a state in public.

He isn't looking forwards to this mission, but he isn't hesitant over it either.

Other missions require planning, precision. Weapon choices, consideration of resistance; there is so much to take into account.

In this, they're booked a hotel room near where to woman was staying -holidaying in the Bahamas- for his use, and that is that.

They cannot offer him anymore information, because everything they've tracked down on the woman is fake.

Identities for her seem to just pop up out of nowhere over the past two years, but anything before 2007 is absent.

All that seemed to remain the same is that she was born 1987, July 31st, and her name could in some way result in the nickname 'Harry'. Harriet, Harrietta, Haridana, Haranny, Harrana, the list went on.

And the last name always started with a 'P'. Porter, Paevans, Peverell, Pottom, Protter.

HYDRA wants her gone.

So gone she would soon be.

.

It's an easy set up, the woman walking the street at night. Hiring a mercenary to mug her, only for the Asset to step in and knock him unconscious.

No deaths today, none other than the woman's.

She looks up at him with big green eyes, rounded with surprise and shrewd by nature.

But she accepts his request to walk her home. Putting on an act, charming this woman who introduced herself as Harry, is as easy as drawing up the zip of his well worn tactical jacket.

She responds to every comment, her fingers lingering ever so slightly whenever she pokes him in the side or the arm, a gesture she completes with every amusing anecdote she tells.

Were he a normal person, were he not the Winter Soldier, he'd be charmed. The woman has a gravity about her, one that pulls on his attention.

Regardless of his training, his eyes linger on her slight curves whenever she draws ahead of him. He feels the smiles that she teases out of him, the deep rumble of his chuckle whenever she manages to blindside him with a joke.

He walks her to the door of her hotel room, and he doesn't even get to attempt the flirtatious line one of the HYDRA agents has drilled into him -nor the collection of compliments that seem to have been lingering unnoticed in his mind, only to suddenly spring forth- because she takes a hold of the material of his button down shirt and pulls him down for a kiss.

Her lips aren't particularly soft against his, having been bitten one too many times.

But they are warm, and they move with his own, not against them.

She pulls him back into the room, or the Asset manoeuvres her, perhaps it is a little bit of both. Her hands go running along the length of his shoulders, tapping against the metal joint with a look of curiosity on her face.

She won't be able to identify it with the assassin she'd seen; he'd been wearing a full cover jacket that day.

That doesn't stop it from being a point of interest though.

"You know, you never gave me a name." She speaks with an amused, accusing tone, and the Asset responds before he can think on it.

He'd been given a name to use of course, but it isn't the one that comes out of his mouth.

"James."

Her lips tilt again, her eyes giving him another once over as the Asset works his way out of his shirt. James sounds right. It doesn't have the tinge of wrongness, the foreign feeling that 'Chris' does.

"Mmm, James," the woman repeats, placing her lips against the side of his neck and sucking.

.

It doesn't take long to work the woman into bed, absent of all her clothes.

Upon the removal of her dress, he'd taken a moment to absorb her form, to truly take in all the scars that littered her skin. Something that looked like a burn stretched across one hip, a long jagged line on her inner forearm. Puncture marks, two from the bite of what must have been a truly massive snake, and one on her forearm the looked as if it's come from the fang of some form of giant animal.

There's a litter of other scars too, but he stops paying attention when she pushes him back onto the bed, settling on his lap with a puckish smile upon her face.

Her lips curl around the shell of his ear, as her fingers dance across his chest and her nails draw the slightest of patterns against his skin.

His own hand, the flesh one, comes to rest on her hip, the other clutching at the side of her thigh as she sinks down onto his cock.

She feels wonderful, and he's buried his nose in the wild mess of her hair, her own face pressing into the joint of his collarbones, warm cheek flushed against the cool metal of his shoulder.

"I don't normally do this," the woman admits sheepishly in his ear, even as she gives a slow, sensual roll of her hips, the muscles of her thigh flexing beneath his fingertips at the movement.

"Same," the Asset murmurs, because it's true.

He doesn't get to do this, and even when he does, it's always working towards the completion of a mission.

And everything about that feels so wrong, feels incorrect and made him, uncomfortable.

He, the Winter Soldier, feels uncomfortable.

But he pushes the feeling away, because right now, there's a beautiful woman sat on his lap, with green eyes so bright they probably act as a herald for whatever poison she carries.

A shaky breath leaves from between the woman's lips as he rocks his hips up, rolling them over until she's pinned beneath his form.

It'd be so easy to just wrap his metal hand around her throat now, to crush her windpipe.

But he doesn't want this to end, the Asset realises.

He wants to remain here, nestled between the woman's thighs with her legs wrapped around his waist. Their chests pressed together, her lips peppering the scratchy stubble that shadows his jawline.

He doesn't want to go back to being the Asset.

But if he doesn't complete the mission, they'll come for him anyway.

They'll wipe him, and then they'll kill her.

And it won't be a painless thing.

At the very least, he can grant her a merciful death.

"Don't start feeling guilty," the woman whispers, fingernails scratching at his scalp as she tugs at his hair, twisting his face towards her so she can kiss at the tip of his nose. Her muscles clench around him and the Asset growls beneath his breath, rocking forwards.

He'll give her a painless death, and he'll remember this woman for as long as he is able, he'll do his best to not forget her.

Because the Asset gets so few things to himself, and he'll keep her alive in his mind as long as he can.

.

He stays afterwards, holding her as she sleeps for as long as he thinks he can get away with.

Then, he strikes the pressure points that will twist her lungs against her, until the muscles refuse to allow her to draw breath.

He waits until she's no longer breathing, until there's no heartbeat in the hallow of her chest.

And guilt roars deep within his stomach, looking down at Harry, would didn't even seem to be in her mid-twenties.

The wrong place, the wrong time.

And anger curls in his stomach, because they made him do this.

.

He kills fourteen HYDRA agents before they finally get him in a position where they can wipe him. But he never manages to quite stop the automatic flinch at that particular shade of green.

.

.

.

Five years later, those moments still haunt Bucky Barnes.

It's been a rough year, the fall of HYDRA last April, Steve dragging him in fourteen months later. His memories had been returning in small trickles.

When the memories of the woman, Harry, hit him, he locks himself away for days.

He's sick, several times over, and he can't look in the mirror.

He recognises the fact he's been used, they had used him, but it still leaves him looking at the gun and wondering.

He doesn't tell Steve about it, doesn't want his friend to know how low they brought him.

He wakes up screaming the nights after those memories return, persistent green eyes haunting even his unconscious thoughts.

The Widow had shown up in a black wig one day, and he'd been unable to stop the flinch at the sight of such familiar hair.

Sleep's eluding him, and he's taken to walks, going out into New York in the early hours of the morning and just walking. Letting his feet carry him to whatever destination they decided upon.

.

Bucky doesn't remember falling asleep, but he does remember waking up.

Startling into full consciousness when two small hands came down to tap against his metal one, and it's a damn close call, given how close he comes to punching the kid in the face.

"Didn't your Ma tell you not to go near strangers?" Bucky snaps, quite unable to help himself.

He might be an Avenger now, but he doesn't really do the whole 'press' thing.

He helps save the world.

Talking to people really isn't for him. The old Bucky used to be good at it, used to thrive on it.

But he can't do that anymore. There's still too many reminders, still too demons snapping at his heels.

"Ba-but I'm lost."

The voice is tiny, wobbly, and Bucky pulls his arm down from where it's been shielding his head.

He gapes.

The kid is his spitting image.

The same face that were shown in his childhood photos stares up at him with the same winter blue eyes that sit in his own face.

The kid can't be any older than four, and there's tears gathering in the corner of his eyes.

Bucky cringes, dropping to his knees before the boy that looks so much like him.

"Okay, we'll find your parents kid. Where did you see them last?"

"Mummy," the kid murmurs in a British accent, latching onto Bucky's shoulders with a strong grip betrayed by his slight frame, and giving him no other option than to pick him up, "just mummy."

He's making a valiant effort to be brave, that much is obvious.

But his bottom lip is wobbling something vicious, and his eyes are blinking far too rapidly than to be doing anything other than holding back tears.

"Okay, right, we'll find your Ma. What's your name kiddo? My name's Bucky."

"You're on TV," the boy confirms, nodding his head with a serious look in the eyes that peer out from beneath all that curly black hair, "like Ironman."

He pats at Bucky's metal shoulder with one of his tiny child hands, before he turns back to scanning the park.

Bucky's not used to his questions being ignored anymore -Steve always leaps at the chance to provide him with an answer for anything nowadays- so he juvenilely resorts to poking the boy ever so gently in the ribs.

He's successful, because the kid giggles, squirming in his grip.

"Your name?" Bucky prompts, adding another light jab to accompany his words, and the kid laughs again.

"James Sirius Potter," he responds proudly, with only the slightest of childish lisps to his middle name. He pronounces it in the way that comes only from mass amounts of repetition, of a child who's gotten tired of tripping over his own name.

Bucky was the same once, with his tongue twister of a middle name.

Sirius isn't exactly a common name though; wasn't that the name of a star?

"James is a good name," Bucky confirms, looking the child over again.

What were the odds that the boy would be the spitting image of him, and have his first name too?

One of his great nephews?

Rebecca and Charlotte both went on to have kids, and he knew they'd had kids too. What were the chances that he'd run into one of their descendants though?

And why the hell would they give the poor kid the name 'Sirius'?

"Mummy' daddy was called James," little James Sirius informs him with a sharp nod, winter blues searching the crowds of people, "and my daddy was called James. Mummy says so."

He doesn't appear scared anymore.

In fact, he seems quite comfortable resting against Bucky's hip, one hand wrapped up in Bucky's running short and the other resting on his flesh shoulder.

Bucky barely has the time to realise none of his nephews were called James before a woman with a British accent was calling the name, jogging over.

And all the breath is stolen from Bucky's lungs when he gets a good look at her.

It's the woman, Harry, who's been haunting him ever since he remembered her.

She's exactly the same, if only a few years older than before.

She's not dead.

She's not dead.

He repeats it a third time in his head, but it's just not sinking in, so he ends up saying it aloud the fourth time.

Which, in hindsight, is probably not the best idea, given the fact he was the one to -attempt to- kill her.

But instead, the woman just smiles sadly, holding her hands out for James Sirius.

And the timeline falls into place all at once.

Bucky really doesn't want to hand the boy over, not now that he suddenly understands why he's the spitting image of him.

Because he's not one of his little nephews from his sisters lines.

James Sirius Potter is his own son.

The black curly hair is from his mother.

His mother who he tried to-

"Forget about it," she cuts him off before he can even complete the thought. She even aborts her movement to take James from him, instead dropping a kiss on the boy's forehead and ruffling his hair when the child begins babbling away.

Adjusting his hold on James -his son- Bucky looks back over at the woman with something that's probably close to wonder.

How she can let him hold her child, their child, after what he did-

"I read all the files online," Harry insists, cutting him off and adjusting her hold on the leather bag she carries, "I don't blame you."

She pauses for a moment, clearly hesitating over something, before she slowly begins to walk.

Understanding the unspoken request, Bucky joins her, keep pace, with James between the two of them.

The boy's quiet now, resting his mess of curls on Bucky's shoulder with his thumb jammed between his lips.

"It's not that the HYDRA idiot didn't do his job. Or that you failed to do their dirty work. I just can't die. Not of anything other than old age."

He has never been more thankful for something, even if he doesn't understand squat anymore.

An inability to die?

"And, James..." Bucky trails off, not knowing how to voice his thoughts.

God, he thought he'd never have a family, not after what HYDRA did to him.

But, here's a woman who's birthed his son, and God, he's never wanted anything more than to be a part of their lives.

"I'm not going to ban you from seeing him, if that's what you're worried about," she sends him a small, nervous grin as she speaks, and Bucky realises how much guts it has to have taken for this woman to come close to the place he resides.

"I want James to have a normal a life as possible. And I barely know you, but maybe, I don't know, we could work something out? Try something? I mean, if it doesn't work it's not harm done, but I'm not going to stop you from spending time with him. If you want to do any of that, that is."

She finishes her speech with a little huff at the end.

There's a tenderness to her gaze though, the cautious look of a person who's been kicked a little too often, but hadn't quite given up on the world yet.

Bucky wonders if he wears the same expression.

"Yeah, God, I'd like that. You're- you seem like a swell dame, and..." He trails off helplessly, only just noticing that they've arrived at a small coffee shop, James looking with obvious interest at the collection of cakes on sale.

"Let me treat you?"

It's a tentative question, and God damn it he used to be good at this kind of thing.

But Harry gives a smile as cautiously hopeful as he's feeling and she nods.

"That sounds good."

.

They spend the entire day together, Bucky showing Harry and James his favourite sights, the places of interest that tourists normally don't click onto.

They eat at a little sandwich shop Clint recommended to him, and Harry grows more and more relaxed as time goes on.

And he likes spending time with her.

She's exactly the kind of girl he'd have brought home to his Ma, the kind of girl his Ma would have approved of.

Part of him feels awful that he put her in this position; got her knocked up and left her to raise a kid all on her own.

His Ma would've had his hind for that.

But given the circumstances, she'd probably have been in more trouble had he known, had he tried to do something.

Because even as the Soldier, he'd still have tried, for his child.

He knows that, deep in his bones.

Only, that would've brought HYDRA down on their heads.

And that really was unacceptable.

.

They end up returning to the tower, Bucky having somehow, through one miracle of another, talked Harry into taking up a guest room for a night or two. She said she'd been considering moving to America, now that they were dealing with the HYDRA problem, so he's got some time to point out how secure and safe the Avengers tower is.

James is sat high up on his shoulders, fingers in Bucky's hair and his legs held loosely in Bucky's own hands.

Of course, it's damn typical that Stark was returning to the tower at that point, damn typical that he turns to look instead of just continuing into the building.

He pauses at the sight of Bucky, then his eyes go round and his mouth pops open as he takes note of Harry and James.

He stares for a second, jaw flapping uselessly, before he throws his head back and laughs.

"Have fun explaining that to Rogers."

So, I wanted to write a kidfic. If more of this happens, I'll post it, but there's no concrete plans.

Tsume

xxx