Babydoll

Two minutes

The next few days after Aurora's arrival were business as usual around the Tower with the exception of their newest member adjusting to her new home. If he hadn't been hyper aware of her he wouldn't have even noticed that she was there because she kept to herself after their little.. interaction. Giving him some space while still being friendly. Even though that's what he wanted Bucky couldn't help but watch for her.

Learning that she kept to a strict schedule in the mornings when she wasn't on a mission or covert assignment for Fury. Promptly she would get up at 6:30 am every day to workout for an hour. Then she'd shower and be out of the Tower for most of the morning. Bucky had been unsure if it was for SHIELD business or if she was catching up with friends since he'd found out she'd been in London for the last two years. Because he didn't feel like he could talk to her or ask around about her without arousing suspicion he'd done everything he could to find out all about her without giving it away to anyone.

Hacking into her SHIELD file had given him as much information as he could find on her. Aurora Donahue was really smart having gone to MIT just like her dad and Tony for engineering right out of high school and then right after graduation she enlisted in the US Marine Corp at twenty-one. The only thing he could find out about her military service was at the beginning of her enlistment.

She'd gone into the intelligence field and that's all that he could read that wasn't redacted. At some point in 2011 she'd been recruited to SHIELD because she had stumbled upon something she wasn't supposed to and had handled herself above and beyond Director Fury's expectations. And all without revealing anything to anyone in the military, her friends or family.

That first year with SHIELD in 2012 was classified, but whatever she'd done she'd gone in a level three agent and come out a level seven. That was higher than Steve and him who were at six and five respectively. The two years in London weren't exclusively to England; it was more like it had been her main base of operations.

Aurora had traveled and gone all over the world doing missions similar to theirs but on a much more secretive scale. Bucky had been physically attracted to her from the moment he laid eyes on her, but now he was attracted to her for everything else. He'd waffled back and forth on what to do. Buck wanted nothing more than to walk right up to her and ask her out, but then he'd see Tony and Bucky's past would wash over him.

Waking up from cryostasis to see a handler and being given his mission.

"У меня для тебя миссия. Санкционировать и извлечь. Без свидетелей." (I have a mission for you. Sanction and extract. No witnesses.)

It only took two minutes for him to end the Stark's life and orphan Tony.

Two minutes...

Every moment of those two devastating minutes were ingrained in his memory forever: Slashing the front tire of their car to force it off the road. The sound of the metal screaming as it slammed into a tree. The smell of the smoke and the sound of the fire as the engine burst into flames that had filled his senses as he secured the briefcase to his motorcycle before walking over to the man who had crawled out of the tangled wreck.

"Help... my wife... help my wife..."

A moment of recognition had flared in his own mind at the sight of the man he had once known. He was much older than when he'd seen him last, but it was Howard Stark.

"Howard?.."

"Sergeant Barnes?"

The shocked disbelief in Howard's voice and eyes at the sight of a still young and alive Bucky as he called out his name before he had beaten him to death. The feeling of his lifeless body as he drug him over and placed him back in the burning car.