November, 2014.

Copenhagen, Denmark.

I turned my key in the lock as quietly as I could, even though I knew it was futile. I knew Bucky would be waiting for me on the other side of the door, probably seething. My watch said it was nearly two o'clock in the morning.

The door swung open with a bit of grudge, and I immediately saw Bucky lounging on the bed. I ignored him as I locked the deadbolt and put the door chain in place. I sat my bag down on the couch and pawed through it until I found what I had spent so many hours working for. It was another maroon booklet with gold crest and letters embossed across the front. I flung it like a Frisbee at the bed, and Buck caught it with ease. While he thumbed through the passport, learning his new name and reviewing the border stamps, I removed one of the guns from the backpack and placed in a kitchen drawer.

"Is this where you were?" Bucky asked. I heard him rise from the bed, but I lost track of his quiet footsteps.

"I got in touch with someone who could get it for me, but they wanted to meet up late," I explained vaguely. I turned around from putting the gun away and found Bucky barely a foot away. The room was dark, thank God, and I could really only make out his shadow.

"Why?" he followed up.

"Privacy, I guess," I assumed. I brushed past him, the sleeve of my jacket bristling over his partially exposed metal arm. "Besides, if you're going to blackmail your coworkers, you have to be untouchable."

"I meant why only one passport," he amended. "Where's yours?"

"I don't need one right now," I told him. I shucked off my jacket and threw it onto the foot of the bed. I found a clean t-shirt to use as pajamas and moved for the bathroom door, but seeing Bucky stopped me. The light coming out of the bathroom was enough to expose my blooming black eye. It was fresh, but it still hurt. It was throbbing.

"Gail. What happened?" he asked softly. He stayed a few feet away, well out of arm's reach.

"I got you a name. That's all," I answered. I stepped into the bathroom and didn't bother to close the door. By the time I was standing in front of the sink, ready to wash my face, he was leaning against the doorframe.

"Is that how you paid for it?" he questioned. He didn't sound upset. He just sounded tense, like he was struggling to keep his anger tamped down.

"Of course not," I griped. I tried to be as gentle as I could washing my face, but I couldn't help grimacing when the washcloth touched my left eye. Bucky turned away and left me alone to wash up. I quickly changed into my clean t-shirt and left my pants in the floor before he came back. He didn't come fully into the bathroom; he just took up his station in the doorway, holding something in a kitchen towel down by his thigh. "Don't tell me that's a bag of frozen peas."

"Come and sit down," he said, ignoring me and my lame attempt at a joke. I sat down on the foot of the bed, and he knelt in front of me. The scratches on my face were a little more noticeable now. There was a bruise the size of a softball on my thigh, visible once my t-shirt rode up, and the edges of a handprint shaped bruise peeked out from under my sleeve. There was another bruise over my ribs, but I wasn't keen on showing that one to Buck. "You seem to forget that I've got a lot of experience cleaning up after someone who shouldn't be getting into fistfights."

"I wouldn't call it a fistfight," I argued. He raised the poor man's icepack up to my face and gently covered my eye with it, using his right hand the whole time.

"You know who you sound like, right?" he laughed tensely.

"Captain America?" I checked, trying to smile even though my face was half covered by some sort of frozen produce. He nodded as he tilted my face to the right.

"What would you call it then, if it wasn't a fistfight?" he asked. His hand ran down my arm, and I winced as he passed the bruise. He pulled back his hand and muttered a sorry.

"No, it wasn't you," I told him. "The guy I got in a small disagreement with grabbed me pretty hard."

"Small disagreement," he mimicked. His hand rose to my arm again, and he nudged the sleeve of my shirt up a few inches. I didn't look at my arm. I didn't need to. So, I looked past Bucky and focused on the tile pattern of the bathroom. "Used to see bruises like this a lot back in Brooklyn, from the husbands who'd drink their dinner. Their wives would say they ran into a door or a piece of furniture the next day. Where else did he get you?"

"I'm fine, Buck," I promised him.

"I can see the bruise on your thigh, and you're leaning towards your right side like you're trying to keep from stretching out the muscles," he observed. I rolled my eyes, or tried to at least.

"Kick to the ribs, and I fell a very hard sidewalk. Get me a Bible, and I'll swear on it," I joked sardonically. I took the ice pack off my eye and just held it.

"You scared the hell out of me, Gail," he said quietly. I could practically hear my father saying the same thing the first time I broke my curfew in high school. "I came home, but you didn't. For hours. And I had no way to call you or find you. I just had to wait." He put his hands on my knees, like he just needed to feel me to know I was there. "I thought something had happened to you, and I didn't know what I was supposed to do. Then you come in all roughed up and--shit."

One hand left my leg, and I watched him rub at his eyes. Shit was right. I had made Bucky Barnes cry. I slid off the foot of the bed and put my arms around him. It meant his cold metal hand slid up my leg and under my shirt, but I ignored the goosebumps it gave me. His right hand very slowly moved to wrap across my shoulders. He was still kneeling, and I was close to straddling him. Slowly, he leaned his face against my neck and held me a little tighter.

"I'm sorry," I whispered in his ear. "I'm not sorry about going and doing this, because you needed a name to fall back on. But I am sorry for not telling you. It was just too dangerous."

Bucky put his hands on my shoulders, pointedly avoiding the bruise on my arm, and gently pushed me away from his chest.

"That is a load of shit, and you know it," he told me gruffly. "I could have handled whoever it was that did this."

His hand ghosted over my arm, and when he realized there was no place for him to put his hand that wasn't flush against my skin he simply put it on my waist, over my shirt.

"I didn't mean it was dangerous for me," I corrected. I poked at his metal bicep, stubbing my finger somewhat painfully. "It was dangerous for you." I poked him in one of his stubbly cheeks. "You get in a fight with someone sketchy, word gets out that a guy who looks like a lot like James Buchanan Barnes was throwing punches in a back alley in Copenhagen. And that would be bad."

"You're going to do this sort of thing again, aren't you?"

"If I have to," I confirmed. I got off of his lap and sat on the bed again, delicately crossing my ankles. "Next time, I'll tell you when."

"If that's all I can hope for, then I'll take it," he agreed. He stood up fluidly and took the bag of cold stuffs back to the fridge.

"At least tell me what you had to do to get that passport, besides getting beaten up," he requested. He walked back towards the bed and only stopped for a moment to flip off the bathroom light. The rest of the apartment went dark, and I could only see Bucky's shadow as he moved. He walked to his side of the bed and began undressing. I scooted up the bed and pushed our sleeping bag comforter out of the way. By the time I was covered up, he was laying down as well.

"A man who can get a passport wanted me to pickpocket someone in particular. Steal their wallet because there was some access card in it," I explained. I let out a long, deep sigh as I laid on the pillow. "Obviously, my target wasn't some helpless middle-aged man who's prone to panic. He knew how to throw his weight, and mine, around. I got his wallet though."

"I see that," Bucky muttered. He rolled over in bed, and I did the same. I was only partly sure that we were facing each other. "I know I'm going to be paying you back for a long time, Gail. I just want to make sure you're around so I can."

"You have some very old-fashioned tendencies, Buck," I teased. "But I wouldn't want to bruise your fragile male ego. I'm sure I'll have to do this again, and if I think it's feasible, I'll bring you. I'm not too proud to admit that it would've been nice to have you there tonight."

"I'd hate to stroke your fragile female ego, but I think you did pretty well."

*

Author's Note:

Fair warning: it may be some time before I get to update this story or my other works. I'm having to realign some priorities, and my personal writing has to move down that list for the time being. Nonetheless, I have every intention of finishing this story, and I'm so thankful for the positive responses I've gotten so far. So, please be patient with me, and thank you again.

Also, these two definitely need couple's counseling. If not now, in later chapters.