Pomegranate Kin

Five hours later, the pair of them arrive at a massive compound, complete with jet landing pads, laboratory facilities, residential quarters, and training areas. Christina recognizes the telltale A symbol and knows that she and her son are about to tangle with the Avengers, which is not what she'd been expecting when she'd been arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D.

She's lead by two of the agents who'd arrested her down a number of hallways, carrying Jamie, and leading Winter along by his leash. They're directed into a lobby area of sorts, where they're greeted by a familiar face. Agent Maria Hill, Director Fury's right hand, stands before Christina and greets her professionally. "Ms. Pierce," she nods, turning a regarding eye to the little boy in the blonde's arm. "Agent Hill," Christina replies, shifting the child in her grip, "This is my son, Jamie." The spy nods, before picking up a series of files.

"You've being detained in order for us to debrief you. I'm sorry we had to arrest you, Christina, but you were a difficult woman to find." Maria Hill regards, "If you would leave your son and your dog with Agent Hobbs, I'd like to begin right away." Bristling suddenly, Christina begins to back away. All calm and understanding gone in an instant. "I'm not leaving Jamie with anyone." Growls the blonde. Sighing, Maria attempts to reason with her, "Now, Ms. Pierce, no harm will come to yo—"

"—I'm not leaving my son with anyone!" Christina yells, drawing the attention of a group of surrounding S.H.I.E.L.D. members, on of home inches over casually. "Hi!" A man suddenly interrupts, placing himself between the furious mother and the annoyed agents. A five-foot-nine, sandy-blonde haired man in his mid-forties inserts himself into the conversation and Christina instantly recognizes him from television. "You must be Christina Pierce, I'm—"

"An Avenger," the blonde cuts him off. The man chuckles, shaking her hand, "Clint Barton, but yeah, an Avenger." The Archer's eyes crinkle as he greets little Jamie with a wave, "I'm really great with kids. I could look after him while Hill debriefs you real quick," offers the Avenger, "If you'd be more comfortable with that?" Reluctantly, Christina complies.

So she files into the sterile white interrogation room behind Agent Hill, where she's left to stew for a good twenty minutes. Only half an hour later— when the single mother is nearly at wit's end, bored out of her mind and worried after her little boy— does the door open and two people finally enter. Ever-blonde and intimidating, Captain America, tails Agent Hill, looking cross and serious.

To him Christina Pierce may very well be a traitor to the nation, one with Hydra's nefarious schemes. After all she was often present. With her father, with Rumlow and Rollins, at S.H.I.E.L.D., even among the recorded comings and goings of Hydra's D.C. headquarters, The Vault. There could be no denying her knowledge of the terrorist group's existence.

Even among S.T.R.I.K.E.'s records did Rumlow make mission reports of tasks carried out for Christina Pierce, though the nature of those takes were not noted. Regardless, Steve has little doubt that the single mother is guiltless. It's merely a matter of how much guilt? What all had she known? What all could she have prevented?

"Miss Pierce," addresses the Avenger, looking almost cross as he and Agent Hill sit opposite her at the cold, steel table. Christina locks eyes with him, recalling the last time they'd met— before the Wall of Valor— and how unawares they'd both been. Neither could have known what the future held for them or that they'd be seated across from each other in an interrogation room after she and her boy are subsequently detained.

"Captain Rogers," replies the blonde woman, twiddling the rings on her fingers nervously, "Agent Hill, how long will this take? I want to see Jamie." The mother is clearly distressed, uncomfortable being away from her son for so long, especially being left with strangers. "It may be a short while, Ms. Pierce. We have a lot to discuss," The pair watches the anxiety bloom over Christina's face, but the female agent bolsters on, "In particular we'd like to debrief you about the attack on the Triskelion and you're subsequent disappearance afterwards."

She bristles immediately, "Look, I didn't know what they were planning with Project Insight, but I couldn't just wait around for Hydra to regroup and come back for us!" Hisses the insecure, frightened, now thirty-one year old, single mother. She hadn't any other choice! She'd had a son to protect! "You don't know what they would have done to us if the truth came out! We had to hide! I thought I'd done my best, I thought we'd hidden well enough. How did you even find us?"

Captain America and Agent Hill can see Christina beginning to unhinge. It'd been a long year for the single mother, hell a long decade, if she really thought about it. This hadn't been the life she'd dreamed of, only the one she'd been dealt. By all standards Christina Pierce had been through hell. Her life had been uprooted, everything she thought she'd known was stripped from her. She'd been kidnapped, nearly killed numerous times, met the Winter Soldier, fell in lust— and later love— with him, bared his son. The very fabric of her existence had been turned on head, but she'd taken it in strides, even thrived. Until her father and his Neo-Nazi terrorism group had tried to take over the world.

"Your aliases were run through the TSC's no-fly list and flagged when they couldn't find a cohesive history," Maria Hill summarizes and Christina begins to noticeably relax, "The FBI passed it over to us when they concluded the aliases to be yours." The single mother is nodding solemnly, but at the very least she's comforted knowing it was an unavoidable mistake. A beat of silence passes before the blonde begins speaking. "You know I really thought this could be our change to start over. Far away from here and everything that went over in the last seven years..."

Captain Rogers watches her fiddling with her jewelry, sees her exhausted eyes and bone-tired expression. He knows that look, has seen his colleagues wearing it, has worn it many times himself. "I got Jamie out of all of it though," A grin breaks out over her pink mouth despite her exhaustion. Quietly Hill reaches over the table and touches Christina's clasped hands, "Why don't we start at the beginning then," the agent insists. So she does.

In another part of the building the former Winter Soldier, James Buchanan Barnes, has taken to the training facilities as per his usual routine since coming to the New Avengers Compound. The place is abuzz with agents of the reformed S.H.I.E.L.D. agency and the increase of people has the ex-assassin on edge. Steve is nowhere to be seen and Bucky's nerves are raw from the influx of strangers wandering about in what has slowly become his new safe space. Running his fifth mile in twenty minutes, Bucky keeps running, despite the endless static that's begun to set in. The obnoxious buzzing that echos in his skull from time to time. He finds redefining one's self as a person to be suffocating, on some days the two different entities in his head are raging and others they're silent as a grave.

On this day the good old Howling Commando, Bucky Barnes, and the cruel assassin, the Winter Soldier are dead silent and all of his distractions— Steve and Bird Brain (Sam Wilson)— are off to their own devices. It's only the convenient timing of three other agents— members of Hill's team, who are temporarily using the facility to conduct interrogations— that are able to disrupt the endless loop of static and his footfalls slamming down on the treadmill. The metal armed assassin is silently grateful for the interruption, he thinks.

The agents— who've yet to lay eyes on him, as he slows to a jog— are discussing their most recent catch, a suspected Hydra operative who'd been living under an assumed name. Apparently the woman is so important that Captain America would be sitting in on her interrogation. Bucky slams his flesh hand down on the stop button and takes off for the exit, startling the group of S.H.I.E.L.D. ops as he passes.

That's where that punk's been off to, thinks the former assassin, as he marches off toward the interrogation hall, despite his casual gear. Whoever this Hydra agent is, they must be vital if Steve has inserted himself. Dressed in fitted sweatpants and a hoodie, the ex-Winter Soldier makes a bee line across the compound and nearly mows down the door before he actually stops to get a good look at exactly who is sitting in the interrogation room with Agent Hill and Captain America. His goddamn heart skips a beat when he finally does.

Leaving out the frequent sexcapades— and the entirety of her relationship with an infamous assassin— Christina Pierce tells her story. Explains how in 2008 she'd been an average university student, until she was kidnapped by the enemies of her father's terrorist group and then saved by the Winter Soldier.

Whether or not Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. have learned of her connection to James Buchanan Barnes, Christina isn't going to be breaking the news herself. She imagines he's off somewhere rebuilding his life. Part of her wonders what his new life is like, if he remembers her, if he's happy and free, wherever he is.

"And, that's the extent of your knowledge?" Hill asks, making notes in her file as she speaks. Captain Rogers is seated rigid, hanging onto every word as Christina speaks. The blonde woman nods, eyes down cast, bottom lip caught between her teeth and Steve knows that she's lying. They'd since learned how Hydra— namely Agent Rumlow— had helped her with her consulting for Valkyrie and they'd found documentation of her comings and goings at The Vault.

In the search of her Baltimore home the team have found stolen Hydra files about the Winter Soldier, likely stolen from her father, and then there was the evidence in her wallet. Steve knows she has a connection to his best friend, is all but ready to call her out on it, before the interrogation room door is bursting open and the latter is marching through.

Christina Pierce freezes at the sudden intrusion, only startled at first, before she turns her gaze to the figure interrupting the debriefing and damn near shoots out of her skin, standing suddenly and startling the two agents as she does. The Asset, the Soldier, Winter, James Bucky Barnes, stands breathless only a few feet from her. He looks as startled as she feels, neither of them having expected this sudden reunion.

Bucky is short of breath, confused but wired at the sight of her. Her tired eyes, her mussed blonde locks, her torn jeans and oversized cardigan. She's not a dream. His lover is a real, tangible person that he can touch and feel, not some figment of his imagination. He hadn't dreamed her, hadn't made her up to comfort his own tortured mind. She's real; physical, solid, concrete, and she's sitting right in front of him.

Agent Hill and Captain Rogers are startled by the sudden interruption, even more so when they notice it's Bucky Barnes who'd caused the unanticipated intrusion. The former Winter Soldier is frozen where he stands, eyeing Christina as if he's seeing in color for the very first time. Steve doesn't think he's ever seen Bucky looking quite so full of awe and raw emotion, maybe not even before the war. Hell, the man looks so vulnerable, like he could fall to pieces, and the woman hasn't even said anything yet.

"Chr—" The ex-assassin nearly chokes on his words. It reminds the single mother of the times when his voice would sound hoarse from lack of use, the memories makes tears burn behind her eyes. "Christina?" Bucky finally questions, his voice soft and almost helpless. The woman chokes up too, realizing in that instance, that he'd never said her name out loud before. At a loss for what to do, how to react, what to say, she merely whimpers out a quiet, "Hi," before the waterworks start.

The former assassin doesn't know what to do with himself, watching the little blonde as she begins to weep. But, he knows enough to cross the distance between them and extend a comforting hand. As soon as his hand touches her cheek, Christina falls apart, clings to his shell-shocked frame, presses her forehead into his chest. Bucky isn't good at giving solace, that'd always been Christina's part. She'd held him to together at every instance he'd been coming apart at the seams.

He's spent months all alone, a year's worth of lonely nights with no one to comfort him. Wary of any company and hesitant to reach out for anything, even if just to ground himself, so he doesn't know how to make her feel better. The ex-Winter Soldier simply folds her in his grip and tries to quiet her cries.

Captain America and Agent Hill are still and sidelined at the sight before them. Maria feels to be critically assessing and Steve is grasping at straws. How well did Christina Pierce know the Winter Soldier? How had they become close? What was their relationship, if Bucky is this comfortable making physical contact with her, even without Hydra in his head? The blonde can't be sure, but he knows that Christina Pierce can't fully be trusted. Not this easily and certainly not quite yet.

The Captain flashes back to that instance in the Triskelion lobby, standing at the Wall of Valor. The single mother, with her baby boy balance on her hip, lingering before the memorial plaque of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes and whispering to her nine month old. Both of their hands stretched out over the memoria, fingers tracing over his engraved name. She'd known then, that Bucky was the Winter Soldier. That he'd been a prisoner of war for seventy years. And, she'd done nothing about it. Steve Rogers turns cold at the thought of it, struggles to understand how Bucky can so willingly wrap her in his arms.

The emotional reunion is short lived though, partly because of the awkward bumbling and partly because of the present audience. Teary eyed and exhausted, Christina reluctantly pulls back from her lover's embrace. The former Asset allows her, but remains within arm's length, drawn in like a gravitational pull. He watches her closely, observes the way the tension wound tight in her bones seems to seep out with every passing second at his side. Bucky can relate. They're home together. Even he feels an ache he hadn't been aware of, dwindling and disappearing now that they'd found each other once more.

Finally settling his attentions on her interrogators, the former assassin regards Steve and his familiar stern expression, takes in Maria Hill's raised brows, and comes to his senses. "It would appear you know each other." The female concludes, rather obviously. Under the weight of their judgmental gaze, he senses Christina become small, guarded. Bucky raises his metal arm to settle around her waist. "If you don't mind," He says, directly to Steve and Steve alone, "I'd like to explain."

Privately, after Agent Hill excuses herself with the assurance that Captain America would take their statements instead, the former Winter Soldier explains his relationship with Christina Pierce to his best friend. He sides his lover back into her seat and pulls out the chair beside her. To the best of his ability, he clarifies the delicate balance of their relationship, and how— when in his right mind— they pair would partake in an intimate relationship, kept secret from his superiors, as well as her friends and family— namely her father.

It's fucked up, the whole circumstance. Christina knows it and inserts it in that exact phrasing at multiple instances of their conversation. Their relationship, specifically the ever dubious manner of it, often wore on her. Even into the present, but at the very least hearing Bucky's interpretation of their relationship is comforting.

It appears, that despite his mind being far a field the Winter Soldier had loved her in their time together. And, even sweeter, after taking an entire year to reassess and rehabilitate himself, piece together than man he'd once been, Bucky Barnes— or whoever he is now— came to the conclusion that he loves her too. It's reassuring and eases her ever raging guilt.

Working around the more difficult aspects of their relationship— like Pavlov's death and their last time together at The Vault— Christina and Bucky attempt to bring Captain America up to speed. It's trying, but he holds her hand, tucked out of sight beneath the table the entire time. His big, warm hand clasping hers, their fingers intertwined, his thumb brushing comfortingly back and forth over the back of her hand. Steve Rogers is still hesitant, his broad shoulders stiff and squared back as he listens to the pair.

"—Then that August you transferred to D.C., Captain Rogers, and they reassigned him to the Russian sector." Christina explains, turning to Bucky as if to inform him specifically. "I didn't realize it then, but they couldn't have the Winter Soldier and Captain America running around in the same city," She turns back to Steve, "On the off chance you ran into each other."

Something aching and pained blooms in Bucky's chest and before Christina can continue he finds himself interrupting her. "Did you know who I was?" Questions the former assassin suddenly and it has Christina back peddling. She begins to shake her head, offering a haste "No," but Captain America is quick to cut in, pulling a small black and white photograph from the interrogation file.

"She's lying," Steve insists, "This photo was in her wallet when she was arrested." The ex Winter Soldier turns toward his best friend, observes the frayed, dog-earred photo of him dressed in his military uniform, donning his sergeant's cap upon his head. Bucky turns to her, eyebrows pinched, form rigid, visibly bothered by this turn of events.

Never in all the time they'd been together had he suspected she'd been manipulating him. He'd never thought her to be working with Hydra, acting as another puppeteer to keep him in his place and make sure of where his loyalties lied. But, this new development could very well mean she'd been doing just that.

Eyebrows furrowing, Christina angles herself toward him and shakes her head. With her free hand she reaches out for the photo the Captain had produced and traces her fingers over it fondly. "I didn't find out until you returned to major operations in Europe," She assures, smiling sadly down at the worn photograph.

"After they pulled this guy—" the blonde gestures pointedly in Steve's direction "—outta the ice and then the Battle of New York happened, the Smithsonian revamped their Captain America exhibit." Christina begins to explain and the two super soldiers hunker down to hear her out. Her demeanor has changed, the tension is her shoulders easing, and her voice softening as she recalls. "My friend, Deja, wanted to go see it. Her fiance had been in New York when everything happened and—" the woman looks the super hero in the eye as she goes on "—they were just teeming with gratitude for the Avengers, so I went with them."

Tears gather in the corner of her eyes and she squeezes Bucky's hand. "There was this memorial, A Fallen Comrade, it said." The former Asset squeezes back, leaning in toward her when her voice cracks and trying to offer more silent comfort for his lover as she looks between him and the photo of the man he once was. "The picture was old and the hair was wrong, but I knew that face." Christina tells them fondly, finally relinquishing the picture and taking both the ex assassin's hands in her own. "Suddenly everything made sense. I knew they'd come to collect all of my dad's records and I didn't know where you were, if you were still alive, so I took his file on you. That photo was in there."

Captain Rogers makes to protest. There are plenty of things for her to answer for. Rumlow doing her dirty work at Valkyrie, the dubious nature of her relationship with Bucky, how she'd coincidentally named her son after Bucky without having known his true identity, that time in front of the Wall of Valor. Why hadn't she told him then? She'd known him to be James Buchanan Barnes, that they were toying with his mind, that they'd dehumanized him for seventy years, and still she'd said nothing to no one.

Steve's objections however, go unheard, much to his dismay, thanks to the sudden intrusion of Avenger, Agent Clint Barton— and the screaming two year old in his arms. "Mummy, mummy, mummy!" whines the brunette little boy on repeat, arms extended in the direction of his mother as he wales and cries. Christina is automatically out of her seat, brushing passed Captain America and the former Winter Soldier without hesitation.

Bucky's heart rate spikes at the sight before him. His lover, Christina Pierce, scooping up a little child, whining and crying for his mother. The little boy eases almost instantly, his waling growing softer with every moment back in his mother's arms. Christina is this child's mother. For an instant a jealous heat settles in his ribs as he considers who the boy's father could be, but it dissipates as quickly as it'd blossomed. He observes the child— who has now all but ceased his crying. His brunette hair, his grey-blue eyes, his skin tone which is a shade darker than his mother's and a distinct match to his own.

Bucky doesn't need to be told that the little boy before him is his son, he quickly comes to that conclusion on his own, but as if somewhere some higher power had overheard the whisper of his doubt, the two year old looks right at him, teary eyed and hiccuping and suddenly smiles. He reaches out two chubby little arms and happily exclaims, "Daddy!"