Dangerous Woman

[ 60 ]

Bratislava, Slovakia

Being a part of the Flag Smashers wasn't easy and Noelle had been really careful to win over their trust. She had never considered herself to be an actress but when Sword asked her to help them on this mission then she had no choice but to agree. It was the first mission since the blip and it was her first official mission without Steve; this was her chance to prove to everyone that she wasn't just a sidekick. The only downside to the mission was that she had to leave behind Bucky, and he was in a really emotional stage of his rehabilitation. She made him promise that he would attend therapy and ensured that his number was saved so that they could contact each other if there was an emergency. Worse than just leaving him behind was that she couldn't tell him anything about the mission, it was private and she couldn't tell anyone about what she was doing which was harder than she had thought.

Her story was clear. She had been in an accident which was where the Flag Smashers found her and when she woke up, she had amnesia. When they had taken her into their care, she was unconscious, something that Sword had given her to make everything seem legit. The Flag Smashers had planned on keeping her as a hostage until the government agreed to their demands but when she woke up without knowing who she was or what was happening, they decided to train her as one of their own. It made sense, she was already a super soldier and it was better to have another person on the team than against it. Most of the Flag Smashers accepted her and opened up to her, liking her nurturing side and her sarcastic comments which kept morale up but there were a few that didn't warm to her. Dovich being the main one. He was always blunt and strict with her, never wanting to get too close because he was sure that her memories would come back and then she would betray them.

Karli was the leader and she became the closest to Noelle, giving her a new name, Ellie and giving her a fake backstory, which helped to give her an easy time at camp. If the leader likes you then the followers like you. Due to Noelle being a nurturing figure, she became the mother of the group when they were on missions and knew more first aid than anyone else. Something that she had learned when working with Steve for several years; of course, she had to pretend that she had no idea where she had learned her skills from. DeeDee and Gigi were just glad to have another girl around, someone that they could train with that was more their size and would be honest when they were making mistakes. Lennox liked to have someone else around that cracked jokes and Nico was happy to train her in all things computer-based.

Working with the Flag Smashers for several weeks, Noelle earned their respect and became an important member of the team. Something that almost got ripped away when they were attacked in Munich because if she had been spotted talking to Bucky then everything would have been compromised. She wished that she had more of a chance to talk to him about the mission but any longer and someone would have investigated that truck. All she could do was hope that he was safe and that he and Sam were leaving the Flag Smashers alone because she had everything under control. If she was being honest, she agreed with their cause because the return of those in the blip had caused major problems all over the world and the government weren't doing enough. She didn't really believe that they were going about it in the right way but she couldn't argue with them; that would make them suspicious. She just had to go along with whatever Karli said and offer herself as a trained soldier to do the bidding. Something that she didn't realise she would enjoy so much was beating up John Walker.