Green Eyes

Ch. 17-Turncoat

Matias is dead. Mama Donya is dead. Dovich told me Karli left those men in there to die and to prove a point.

Eva, I'm scared. This is not what I signed up for.

She stared at the screen of the phone in her hand trying to piece together their next move. Nico was sounding desperate she had to help him. They returned to the front of the plane only a few minutes before and even though she had been engrossed in thes messages from Nico she couldn't ignore the inquisitive stares from two certain men in her company.
"Out with it already."
"You doing okay?" Sam asked.
She leaned back in her seat and looked at him "I'm good actually," She looked over towards Bucky and she exchanged a small smile with him. "really, really good."
"So Eva that was your first time since..."
"Since college." Eva answered honestly.
"Buck was that your first time since before..."
Bucky answered Sam by staring daggers into him before looking away.
"Holy Shit!" Sam mused before an akward silence overtook them all for a bit and Sam continued his current theme of being nosy.

"Eva, I've been trying to picture it but I can't, what were you like in college?"

"Well, I double majored so most of the time I was studying or in a lab. Other than that, my friends and I had some epic weekend long campaigns playing DnD. We'd go cosplay at comic con and conventions, concerts, and the odd trip to Boston for baseball and hockey games. Just basic ordinary stuff."
Sam began laughing his ass off.
"Yeah, yeah. Let it all out jerk chicken."
"You're a geek!" He wheezed out.
"Keep on laughing. I can hack your flight systems and send you directly into the Sahara and turn you into fried chicken." She teased and he sarted to alm down.
"So you really went to comic cons all dressed up?"
"Oh yeah, every different series crew from Star Trek, all sorts of fantasy characters from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Doctor Who, and Star Wars."
"There's no way." He said.
She pulled out her phone and pulled up one of her old college friend's social media accounts and in an organized folder labeled 'MIT Shenanigans' she found plenty of evidence.
"Here, have a scroll." She said as she passed the phone over to Sam.

Sam saw countless photos of her with a small group of guys with swords, lightsabers, in and out of all sorts of costumes. Karaoke nights, computer rebuiding, video game playing, card games, and comic book store runs. Eva was in most of the pictures and the guys were absolutely nothing special. In any normal situation a girl who looked like Eva would have never given them the time of day. Eva looked so happy, free, and comfortable with them.
"It's like Snow White and the Seven Dorks in these pics." He said as he kept scrolling. He found pics of the group posing outside of The Smithsonian remembering the story Eva told him and he was intrigued. He noted the expression in her face and compared it to how it changed as the pictures progressed through the trip. He saw Eva in the background of a certain picture crying and staring at something in thre Captain America exhibit. sam kept scrolling and got to the end of the trip. Eva was wearing a forced smile but what caught him was the haunted look in her eyes. In another when she didn't know the camera was on her She had a pained expression on her face that was so familiar. Steve had that same exact look on his face after he discovered Bucky was still alive. Sam decided he had seen enough and handed the phone back to Eva.
"So yeah, that was me. I miss those days. It really was too short. I wasn't thinking about the future or the past, I was living in the moment." She mused sadly. The last hour in the air went by in silence before they landed.

Walking throug the streets in Riga seemed to trigger something in Zemo.
"I heard what became of Sokovia, canibalized by it's neighbors before it was even cleared of rubble. Erased from the map.I don't suppose any of you bothered visiting the memorial? Of course not, why would you? We are here." Eva tried to wrap her mind around Zemo's passive aggressive rant when she noticed Bucky being weird.
"I'm gonna go on a walk." Bucky announced.
"You good?" Sam asked and Eva searched Bucky's face for any insight.
"Yeah, see you guys in a bit." He said turning around and walking. She watched him turn a corner before entering the house herself.