Doll. // Bucky Barnes X OC

SIXTEEN

Nat came back wrong. Not injured, not shaken. Just... sharp, in a way that meant something hadn't stayed contained.

Her quinjet touched down just before dawn, engines whining low as they cooled. She was off the ramp before the techs finished locking it down, jacket still dusted with ash, braid coming loose at her shoulder.

She didn't stop to debrief. She went straight inside.

The mission had been simple on paper - she and Clint left three days prior - intercept a HYDRA courier cell operating out of an abandoned relay station near the Baltic. Smash-and-grab. Data extraction. No Avengers-level resistance expected.

What they found instead was a breadcrumb trail.

Not Barnes. Not the Winter Soldier. That name barely came up at all.

What came up - repeatedly - was Melany.

Her name was embedded in encrypted packets. Her movements flagged. Her proximity to Barnes was tagged as "secondary value." Psychological leverage. Long-term asset acquisition.

Nat didn't need to read much further to know what that meant. She ripped the server apart anyway.

Now, she was walking fast through the compound, already running through who she could trust with this information and who she absolutely couldn't.

She didn't go to Tony.

She went to Bruce.

"You're early," Bruce said, trying for casual as Nat stepped into the lab.

She didn't return the smile. Didn't even take off her jacket.

"Yeah," she said. "So is HYDRA."

That did it.

Bruce straightened immediately, chair scraping back as his hands came down flat on the table. "What happened?"

"They weren't asking about Barnes," Nat said.

His brow furrowed, confusion cutting through the concern. "What do you mean?"

Nat crossed the room and pulled a drive from her jacket, slotting it into the console. Files bloomed across the screen — names, timestamps, movement logs. Bruce leaned in instinctively, eyes scanning fast.

Then he saw it.

Melany's name.

Once. Twice. Over and over.

His breath caught.

"No," he said quietly, like if he said it softly enough it wouldn't be true. "No, that doesn't make sense. She's not an asset. She's not enhanced. She's not—"

"She's leverage," Nat said gently, but without backing down. "And they know exactly how close she is to him."

Bruce shook his head once, hard. "She shouldn't even be on their radar. I kept her out of this. I made sure—"

His voice broke before he could stop it.

"They've been watching," Nat continued. "Tracking proximity. Emotional ties. They're not rushing it."

Bruce's hands curled into fists so tight his knuckles went white. His breathing sped up — controlled, but only just.

"They don't get to touch her," he said, voice low, dangerous. "They don't get to look at her like she's collateral."

Nat held his gaze. "That's why I came straight to you."

He swallowed, eyes still locked on Melany's name like it was a wound.