Faces of Bucky Barnes - More One Shots

3. Always Bumping Into Each Other

"Do you see the contact yet?"

Sam was circling high overhead, watching the approach of a defecting HYDRA agent who said he wanted to change sides but would only give himself in to the Winter Soldier.

"Not yet," replied Bucky, seated at the cafe table in front of the coffee shop.  "I feel exposed just sitting here."

"That's what you get when you're requested to be the person to bring him in.  Hold on, he's ducked inside of a shop.  Stay alert everyone."

There were check-ins from the others who were scattered around the immediate vicinity.  Then, out of nowhere, Bucky could hear a voice.

"Corey? Where are you sweetie?  No, don't you run away from me.  Corey ... dammit."

It was the kid he saw first, about four years old, with a look of glee on his face, coming towards him at full tilt, with a frantic woman chasing him, begging him to stop.

Standing up, Bucky stepped in front of the child, scooping him up in his arms and holding him until the woman caught up.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," she exclaimed when she got to Bucky.  "He climbed out of his stroller and took off like a bat out of hell.  He's faster than he looks."

"No problem," he replied, trying to hand the boy back as he noticed some people wearing masks and long coats suddenly appear in a perimeter around him.  "Uh, would you get behind me for a moment?"

"Excuse me?" asked the woman, looking at him with puzzlement, then noticing the gloved hand.  "Oh my God, you're Bucky Barnes."

He gave her a stilted smile in acknowledgment of her recognition of him at the same time as noticing the people in long coats were suddenly pulling out guns.

"It's a trap," he said, in his comms, pushing the table down and pulling the woman and the boy behind it with him.  "I read at least half a dozen enemy.  I have two civilians I have to protect."

Several calls of "on it" reached his ears as he reached inside to his jacket holster and pulled out a gun.  The woman shrieked slightly but stayed put, hugging the boy tightly and crouching as low as she could behind Bucky and the cafe table. 

"Buck, sending the shield, on your nine," said Sam's voice.

Bucky looked left in time to put his hand up and catch the vibranium shield, holding it up between him and the intruders.  They began firing anyway, making Bucky shake his head at the futility of them shooting at a bulletproof target.  Firing back several times, he stopped when he saw Sam dive bomb the closet gunman, picking him up and dropping him into a fountain at the other end of the plaza.  Peter's webs encased the next man, then the young Avenger pulled on it lifting the man and hanging him in his cocoon from a lamp post.  From his peripheral vision he saw another man rush towards him and stepped up, throwing the shield at his midsection knocking him over into a flower cart before the shield returned to him.  Quickly, looking behind him to check on the woman and the boy he was shocked to see her in a tug of war with another gunman as he tried to take the boy.  Shooting the man in the knee, he picked him up with his vibranium hand and tossed him about twenty feet away. 

"Hold this in front of you," he said to the woman, giving her the shield, then leaped into the air towards two others, meeting Thor who was doing the same thing from the other side. 

Looking back at the woman he groaned when he saw another one of the gunmen trying to steal the shield from her.  Despite holding on to the boy with one arm she was doing a pretty good job of it, kicking the man in his legs, and using the shield against him as best she could.  Striding quickly over he took the man by his collar and tossed him aside, letting Peter finish the job by immobilizing him in a web.  Within another minute they had seven gunmen covered in webs, and all of the Avengers on this operation visible in the plaza to ward off anyone else thinking of taking them on.  Torres, still in the air, said the supposed defector took off in the other direction.