A Second Chance

Chapter 12 - Second First Impressions

In the hallway of a cheap motel, Roxanne walked past several room doors before stopping at a particular one. This was the one the guy at the front desk said he was staying in. The "he" in question being the Winter Soldier, or rather, James "Bucky" Barnes.

It had been roughly two months since Ro had offered to help Steve, AKA Captain America, locate the fugitive who had once been his close friend by doing an independent search. Her new friend and mentor was also doing a search on his side, and he undoubtedly counted on more people than just her, with better equipment, no doubt. Ro was basically a one-woman search party showing people a picture on her cellphone and following vague leads. To avoid raising suspicion, she usually claimed that the man she was looking for was either her cousin or brother.

Despite her humble means, the young woman was compelled to continue searching on her own. Not only because her determination to try and help this man somehow was resolute, but also because she was convinced that her solo search presented her with two subtle advantages. One, she too had been homeless at one point in her life, which meant that she had a good enough idea of the type of places someone with nowhere to go might gravitate toward, which were the places where she needed to look and ask around first. Two, she didn't call attention to herself. As someone who had spent her entire life maintaining a low profile, she had far fewer chances of being recognized in advance than the literal leader of the Avengers, which would help make sure Bucky wouldn't make another escape before she even got to where he was.

However, as the search continued, Roxanne couldn't help but wonder if that very thing had probably already happened at least a couple of times. Ro had come close to spotting Bucky's location on a few occasions, particularly in the past month or so, but in all the places where the rumors and clues lead her, she ended up finding nothing. Yes, the people she asked were likely to mistake the man she inquired about for someone else entirely, but there was also the extreme likelihood that the man in question was moving constantly to avoid being found at all.

In spite of this, something was telling Roxanne that her target may be getting closer than before. Not only had the people who were able to at least partially recognize Bucky's image increased lately, but the leads were also becoming more precise. All the "last week"-s and "a few days ago"-s that she had been getting were slowly becoming "yesterday"-s and "just this morning"-s. She was undoubtedly getting close.

It all brought her to this small roadside motel in a humble part of Winchester, Virginia, where a nearby grocery store owner had claimed to have seen Bucky enter. When she entered and asked the guy at the front desk about him, he had gone as far as telling Ro the room number that Bucky was currently staying in and informed her that the man had gone out a little less than an hour ago but had not checked out yet.

Thanking the clerk, the hero-in-training went up the stairs to the second floor. When she finally was in front of the room with the number that the clerk had given her, she stopped and hesitated, a feeling of apprehension taking over her.

Despite having learned so much about what had happened to Bucky in the past and genuinely desiring to lend him a hand, she also couldn't forget about the vicious assassin who had tried to kidnap her a few weeks back. How ironic that the roles had now been reversed and she was now the one after him!

She wasn't quite sure which version of this unpredictable man she was going to come across, and frankly, she was terrified at the idea of him being more Winter Soldier than Bucky Barnes when she meets him again.

Taking her backpack off, she unzipped it and saw the flip phone that Steve had given her sitting right on top. Just as he had promised, he had been calling occasionally, every two weeks or so, only to receive mostly unfavorable results every time. The thought of calling Steve's number and telling him that she seemed to have actually found where Bucky was staying crossed her mind, but she soon decided against it. After all, there was a chance that the clerk was wrong and Bucky wasn't even staying here at all, and she could potentially get Steve's hopes up for nothing. She needed to make sure first.