A/N: So updates might not come as frequently for a little bit because I have a lot of stuff to do but I'll try my best. Thanks for all the support! xx

Quebec with Bucky. Perfect, just perfect.

Victoria and Bucky were meant to stay there for an entire week before the extraction team came to take them back. And by that time, they were meant to have shut the Hydra base down. They had landed in Quebec in less than an hour after they had left and Victoria was unimaginably grateful. The flight there was – to say the least – uncomfortable. They didn't say one word to each other. In fact, they didn't even share a glance. It was going to be tough. They still had to figure out how to take the base down and silence really wasn't the best way to communicate ideas, but then again, neither was bickering.

After they had touched down with Fury, the two of them were left completely alone. The taxi ride to the hotel was even more uncomfortable than the flight and it was hard to believe that was even possible. When they arrived at the hotel, they checked in as Emily and William Jones, aliases given to them by Fury. The angle of the relationship between Emily and Will was up to Victoria and Bucky to decide.

As the they stepped inside the elevator that was headed to the tenth floor, Victoria realised another moment of tension was about to ensue and she refused to let that happen.

Sighing, she decided to speak up, "Bucky, I don't know what's gotten into you but you and I both know that we can't do this by fighting and refusing to talk to each other. We don't have much of a choice here and as much as we would both love to turn back and head to the tower, we can't. So let's just suck it up and get this over with."

The elevator doors dinged open and she walked out before Bucky had time to respond.

Room 107. Victoria had walked in a bit before Bucky did so she headed over to the small couch near the window and placed her bags on the floor next to it. Grabbing her laptop from the main pocket of her duffel bag, she sat herself on the couch and began to read the intel on the Hydra base that Fury had given her.

Bucky walked in a few seconds later, placing his bags near the bed. Getting the chair from the desk next to the couch, he swung it around to face Victoria and placed himself atop it.

"What intel did Fury give you?" Bucky asked, which earned him a surprised glance from Victoria. She didn't really expect Bucky to listen to her little rant that went on in the elevator and if he did end up talking to her, she didn't expect him to be so wonted about it.

Returning her gaze back to the luminescent screen of her computer, she responded, "As far as I've read, the base is more focused on scientific research rather than your standard special ops base."

"Great," Bucky responded, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

"Actually it is great. I've got a plan," Victoria said, a small smile playing on her lips.

"Which is what exactly?" He asked, furrowing his brows.

"We go undercover as scientists – I'm sure Fury will be able to manage all the technicalities – and we get more intel, stuff we don't already have, and we take it down from the inside."

He nodded slowly, "That's actually not a bad idea, especially coming from you."

"Wait, was that almost a compliment?" Victoria teased, causing him to roll his eyes and get up from his seat, "Where're you going?"

"Gonna take a shower," he called out, heading to the bathroom.

The faint sound of water hitting the tiled floor of the bathroom bluntly hit Victoria's eardrums as she continued to look through the files. Fury had sent them blueprints of the entire base as well but besides that and the other information that Victoria had already discussed with Bucky, that was pretty much it. A sigh escaped her lips, the only way the two of them were going to get anything done was to follow her plan and go undercover. Closing her laptop and picking up her bag, she headed to the bed placing it on top of the white duvet. Wait, the bed. As in singular. There was only one.

Ugh, of course.

An empty silence filled the air as she registered that the pattering of water had stopped.

Okay so what's the plan? Convince him to take the couch? I take the couch? We can't get another room; it would drive too much attention towards us.

Victoria paced in the limited area between the wall and the edge of her bed but all her thoughts flew out the window when Bucky came out wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. What was under it was left to her imagination. Victoria glanced away not wanting her stare to linger but she wanted nothing more than to look back.

"There's a problem," she mumbled, looking towards nothing in particular but concentrating very hard on not looking at him.

"What?" He didn't notice her mental struggle.

Thank God.

"Um… there's only one bed," Victoria said, moving her gaze to the floor.

"Right," he said in an understanding and somewhat calm tone, "I'll take the couch then."

"Really?" She looked at him, surprised that he was so compliant and completely forgetting that she was avoiding looking at him in the first place. And before she knew it, her eyes were shifting down his body but she swiftly rested it back on his eyes hoping he hadn't noticed.

A small smirk played on his lips before it was quickly wiped away. He nodded and walked towards his bag, grabbing some clothes before heading back into the bathroom. Yep, he noticed.

About half an hour later, Victoria was showered and changed, laying on the double mattress of the hotel bed talking to Fury over her burner phone. Bucky was resting on the couch, arguing about the aspects of the undercover job with her as Fury listened on.

"It's easier for me to go undercover as a scientist, I have actual scientific experience," she reasoned, looking over at Bucky.

"You have experience being a scientist but you've never even gone undercover before."

"I'll figure it out along the way. Plus, me being a scientist is far more inconspicuous than you going in there with your shiny metal arm. How do you plan on getting that through Hydra's metal detectors, by the way?"

"Alright, alright. Here's what you're really gonna do," Fury spoke up from over the phone, "Edwards, you'll go undercover as the scientist." Victoria gave Bucky a look of victory before focusing on the call once again, "Barnes, you'll stay back in the vehicle outside the base, you'll be telling Victoria what to do." It was Bucky's turn to give her a look.

Victoria rolled her eyes, "I can handle it-"

"Don't argue with me, Edwards. You have no experience in espionage, Barnes does. End of discussion."

She sighed out in defeat, "You said something about a vehicle. We don't have one."

"I got that covered."

Victoria's eyes were forced to open as the sunlight streamed through the large window behind the couch where Bucky had been sleeping on the previous night. As her vision focused, she noticed that there was merely a blanket draped over the couch and Bucky was not present. Furrowing her brows, she turned over in the bed to face the wall only to find Bucky standing next to it, facing the bedside table, lifting up her infamous jade amulet.

"What're you doing?" She rasped out defensively, her voice still groggy from waking up only moments ago.

"Relax, I'm just looking." He placed it back down on the table and walked over to the desk on the other side of the room. He reached over and grabbed a laminated piece of paper and headed back towards her.

"Here," he said handing it to her, "Order."

"What?" She asked, sitting up taking the paper from his grip.

"It's the menu for room service. Order some breakfast so we can get a move on."

"Alright," Victoria mumbled as she read through the breakfast list.

Twenty minutes had passed and she heard a knock at the door. By this time, she was fully showered and dressed and had begun to dry her hair with a towel as she walked over to answer the door.

"Here's your breakfast Miss Jones, shall I bring it in?" The man behind the food trolley asked.

"Um…" Victoria looked behind her at the room and noticed that there was a handgun on the desk and Bucky was seated on the couch with his left arm fully exposed, the arm he had managed to hide when they had checked in, "No, it's alright, I've got it," she responded as she took the cart and moved it inside.

"What's that?" Bucky asked as the cart came close to his line of sight.

"It's our food." Wasn't that obvious?

He rolled his eyes, "No, I mean what's that?" He asked standing up from his place on the couch and pointing to the lower shelf of the food trolley. Victoria shifted her gaze to see what he was pointing at to find a black duffel placed on it.

"That's not at all suspicious," she said as she moved over to pick it up.

"Wait," Bucky stopped her, "Let me do it."

Victoria's forehead creased, "What, you don't trust me to lift a bag now?"

"It's just a precaution. In case it's a bomb," Bucky said as he lifted it up carefully and placed it on the edge of the bed.

"Nice to know you care so much," Victoria muttered, sarcasm dripping from her voice.

He slowly unzipped the bag to find a neatly folded black suit.

"What is that?" He asked, drawing his brows together.

Victoria scoffed under her breath, "That's my suit."

She had taken out the contents of the bag which not only included a new and improved suit and mask, but two handguns as well as extra magazines, a key card, Bucky's own suit and a pair of keys.

Victoria was still examining her suit when her burner phone rang out.

"Do you like it?" Fury asked once she had answered.

"Like it? I couldn't happier."

"That's good to know. The suit's made from a variation of Kevlar and while your steel claws were a good effort, these ones are made from a titanium alloy, much stronger."

"Wow, thank you."

"Thank Stark. Now, is Barnes there?"

Victoria looked over at Bucky who was watching her from the edge of the bed as he loaded up the guns, "Yeah he is, hold on," she said as she handed him the small phone.

"Hello?" Bucky said, putting the phone on speaker.

"Barnes, I hope you got everything I sent. The keys are for the white FedEx van parked outside your hotel, you'll find it's equipped to your liking. I've set up a key card for Victoria so she can get in and out of the base." Bucky looked at her as Fury said this, "I want the two of you to be careful. If anything goes wrong, Barnes, I want you to step in. Other than that, you stay in the car. Understood?"

"Got it," Bucky responded in a low voice.

"Good luck."

After they had ended the call with Fury, Victoria and Bucky made their way downstairs and out to the van. Fury had packed the back of it with a bunch of weapons as well as a couple of communication devices.

Bucky drove the car to the base while Victoria sat in the passenger seat reading her alias file. She was going undercover as Emily Jones, a biophysicist. She was supposed to get as much as intel she could, intel that she didn't already have. Bucky would be speaking to her from a coms device in her ear, she had glasses which would enable him to see what she saw and the button on her blouse would allow him to hear what she did. He also had access to any security cameras around the premises so he could monitor the area around her.

Bucky came to a halt on a side street next to a giant skyscraper.

"This is it?" Victoria asked, staring up at the building from the window.

"Yep."

She sighed, taking her necklace out from the front pocket of her jeans and began to put it on. She looked up after it was secured around her neck to find Bucky staring down at the amulet.

"Hey, my eyes are up here," she joked only to have him look up at her with a look that she couldn't quite place, "What's wrong?" She asked, her smile now a grimace.

"Nothing, you should go."

"Yeah, okay," Victoria agreed hesitantly as she slipped out of the vehicle and headed towards the building.

She hated to admit it but she was nervous. She was nervous about infiltrating a Hydra base. She was nervous about getting caught. She was nervous Bucky would hate her even more if she did get caught. Nerves are good, except when you're supposed to be acting like it's any other day at your ordinary-yet-not-so-ordinary job.

Calm down, Victoria. You have got this. She mentally prepped herself.

Stepping in front of the automatic double glass doors, she walked right in. A burly security guard was stationed at the front desk instead of your classic secretary. They really did mean business. Doing her best to be casual, she made her way to the glass elevators that were situated diagonally to the left of the security guard. She walked as quickly as she could, still looking inconspicuous while the guard watched her with wary eyes. He obviously knew all of the people that worked in the building, he must've watched them come and go every day, so a new face would unavoidably grab his attention.

Victoria made it to the elevator without a single question asked and boy, was she glad. Once she had stepped inside, she scanned her key card – the very same one that Fury had provided her with – and let the elevator take her to her destination.

When she was safely up and moving, she heard the familiar voice of Bucky Barnes in her ear, "Stop being so jumpy."

"I'm not jumpy," Victoria whispered as if someone other than Bucky was listening in on her.

Yes, you are, liar. She scolded herself.

Victoria heard him sigh through the earpiece, "Alright, just calm down. Take a breath. Pretend like this is…" He trailed off trying to think of a situation to parallel the one she was currently facing, "Pretend this is your first day working for Stark."

She let out a bitter laugh, "As if that's gonna help. I was so nervous that day I wore three layers just so I wouldn't sweat through my clothes."

Before he could reply, the elevator had reached the eleventh floor and opened up to a petite woman in a lab coat.

She turned out to be an astrophysicist from the main lab on one of the upper floors, who went by the name Joanne Parks and she was assigned to help Victoria get settled in. Much to Victoria's surprise, Joanne was just as chipper and excited as John had been on her first day at Stark Industries. The lab was just as brightly lit – Victoria had expected the rooms to be lit like an Indiana Jones tomb – and it gave her a strange sense of déjà vu. She found it strange how two completely opposite factions of a war can be so different and so eerily similar all at the same time. Joanne showed Victoria around the lab and how there was a hierarchy system set up around the entire Hydra base. She then told Victoria what she would be doing and it made her feel sick to her core. Building a biological weapon might not seem totally bad but doing it for Hydra, that's another story. Victoria was given a desk where she would do all the written work and a station where she could do everything that was hands-on.

It had been about half-an-hour since Joanne had left her alone and she had occupied herself with some schematics of the proposed biological weapon.

She looked around the area and noticed that everyone was busy doing their own work which gave her a good opportunity to talk to Bucky, "Hey, do you see this?" She whispered, talking about the blueprints before her eyes.

"Yep, I'm taking pictures as you speak."

Victoria made a sound of approval as she continued observing the plans. "I think I should go for a walk, you know, scope out the place?"

There was no response from the other end but she assumed Bucky had heard and made her way out of the lab. Victoria started making turns here and there and before she knew it, she was deeper in the building than she had intended to be.

But she kept on putting one foot in front of the other, walking slowly down the empty corridors until she came across a door. This door wasn't like the other ones. It wasn't made of glass or regular steel. No, this thing was bulky and had a keyhole much larger than the others. Not to mention the engraved sign on it that read 'Authorized Personnel Only'.

"Hey, I found a door."

"And?" She heard Bucky ask her through the earpiece.

"And it's not like the other ones. It's different."

"Okay, where are you?"

Victoria looked around to see where she was and realised she had no clue whatsoever. "I have no idea."

"You're lost?"

"I'm not lost, I'm just… Misplaced." She cringed at her pathetic comeback and then attempted to put the badly phrased words at the back of her mind. She needed to get back to the lab before anyone had noticed she had gone missing. She wasn't awfully good at lying so the best plan was not to get caught at all.

"You're misplaced?" It was hard to tell if he was confused or amused but she decided to ignore his question completely.

"I think I came from over there," Victoria said walking to her left, "Or maybe it was over there," she said switching directions.

"How did you even get lost?"

"I don't know, Bucky. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that all the walls here are coloured grey and every damn thing looks the same. And it's not like I can just follow the yellow-brick road."

"Sorry I asked."

"You know you could help by pulling up the map of the building that Fury sent us."

"They're not going to be much use if you don't know where you are in the first place, doll."

Victoria wanted to be happy that he finally called her 'doll' again – it was a step forward – but the thought of being caught in an unauthorized area of the building was the most prominent idea in her mind. She decided she should at least try to find her way back so she chose to go left.

After about five minutes of aimlessly wondering about and Bucky asking her if she had made her way back to the correct path, she saw a shadow at the end of the hallway she was at.

"Bucky, I think someone's coming," she whispered, making a half turn and heading back the way she came from.

"Shit," Victoria heard him curse under his breath, "Okay, just act casual, like you're meant to be there and walk right past them, got it?"

She nodded in response, knowing that Bucky could see her from the camera that was prominent from the end of the hallway.

Victoria spun back around on her heel and with her chest up and shoulders back, she headed in the direction of the shadow.

As she got closer and closer to it, a tall man with an athletic build turned the corner. The two of them made brief eye contact before she took her gaze away. She didn't even get a chance to walk past him as he grabbed her arm the moment she was within reach.

"What're you doing here?" The man asked, a slightly confused expression taking place on his features.

"Remember, play it casual." Bucky said into her ear.

"What're you doing here?" Victoria asked in a defensive tone and she was almost one hundred percent sure Bucky would've shot himself in the leg just so he wouldn't have to come and help the idiotic girl who couldn't lie to literally save her own life.

The man chuckled at this but it wasn't at all menacing, "Look, my name's Liam, I work at the lab, like you."

What the hell? How did he know? Do I look like a stereotypical lab assistant?

Liam noticed her expression and began to explain himself within a few seconds, "Um, look I'm actually kind of your boss. You've been gone for quite a bit so I came out to find you."

Shit. Why is it always me?

"Oh." The fear in Victoria's eyes was evident, "Am I… Am I in trouble?"

"Oh no, this happens all the time, especially to the new lab assistants considering the size of the building and all. Yeah, they go off looking for the bathroom and before you know it, they're gone for a whole hour. You were looking for the bathroom, right?"

Victoria nodded slowly, amazed at how smoothly that went down. How she managed to get out of that situation, blew her mind.

Liam led her back to the lab and soon enough she was seated back at her desk Bucky's voice in her ear once more, "You good?"

"Yeah," she replied in a soft voice knowing she was being watched much closer now.