Radioactive | Bucky Barnes

THOR: CHAPTER ONE

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Thank you for reading this fic! This story is my heart and soul and it's kept me sane for the past couple of years. So, if you're reading this thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

Write for yourself and people will come. 

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Now a part of S.H.I.E.L.D officially, Rhiley finds herself in a routine, one that helps her ignore the hallucinations of her dead twin brother and the nightmares she continues to have of a past she can't escape from. 

Now that her secret is out, she'll do everything in her power to keep the one from that day in the nuclear reactor a secret. The only secret she ever kept from Howard Stark. 

The one she'll take to her deathbed. 

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Rhiley stared at the handprint scar just beneath her breast and the fresh tattoo she had just gotten. 

Her name. Written in the center of the handprint. That was all she had, the only thing she could claim to be hers because right now she was neither a Stark nor a Jones and all she had was the name...

Rhiley. 

"It feels spontaneous." Phil comments. 

Rhiley puts her shirt down, "Spontaneous is my middle name." She chuckled, sitting in the passenger side of the vehicle. "Where are we going anyways?" 

"It's confidential." 

"Can't you tell your best friend?" 

Phil side-eyes Rhiley with his dark sunglasses. Never taking his eyes off the road for more than a few seconds. "Here we are." He says, pulling Rhiley's focus on the dozen pick-up trucks surrounding a crater of some sort. 

While Phil rolls to a stop, Rhiley steps out. She ignores the hoots and whistles sent her way and looks down to see what all this is about. She squints her eyes and for a moment, she's a little pissed off. 

"Sir-" Phil had dialed someone up, "we've found it." 

"It's a hammer." Rhiley states walking up to him, "What's the deal with the hammer?" 

Phil hangs up the phone. "We're about to find out." 

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It took mere hours of S.H.I.E.L.D to set up camp around the hammer in the middle of the desert. Rhiley supervised, threw Phil a bunch of questions, and watched the little tent town get built until the sun fell and she was able to see stars for miles. 

"This is a lot for a hammer." Rhiley moves beside Phil. 

"It's more than just a hammer." Phil tells her, "Other things are in play." 

"Let me guess, confidential?" 

"Scientific." 

Rhiley squints up her face as they both look at the highly guarded hammer. "And we've tried to pick it up?" 

"Yes." 

"Can I try?" 

Phil looks at Rhiley then back at the fancy hammer. "I don't see any harm in it." 

"I bet you 100 I can pick it up," Rhiley shouts, walking up to the hammer that's embedded itself into the ground. It fell from pretty high up to create a crater like this. She examines it. It wasn't just a hammer - she knew that. It was fancy. 

Rhiley doesn't touch it. She kneels and studies it carefully. Wondering why something so simple needed a setup like this. Especially from S.H.I.E.L.D. It's a mystery, that's for sure. 

"What are you doing?" 

"Give me a minute!" She shouts back at Phil. Most have tried to pick it up with their bare hands, but that's all they had. Their hands. 

Rhiley had more. 

"Alright." She stood up and took a few steps back. She took a deep breath, braced herself, closed her eyes, she raised her hand. It's a basic object, she has been able to make robots pause for a second with her gifts. 

Rhiley focuses all her attention on the hammer. She raises her hand to raise the hammer. 

Then something inside her snapped. 

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"Rhiley?" She heard voices muffled around her, "I need help!" the shouts were drowned out. She couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. "We need medical!" 

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Rhiley awoke 48 hours later, with a pounding headache. "Did it move?" She asked Phil the moment she sat up from her bed in the medical tent. 

Phil stared at her, "Your heart had stopped." 

Rhiley scratched the back of her head, "It did feel like I was being electrocuted." She rubs her chest, "From the inside out." She looks back at Phil, "So-" 

"No." 

"I actually don't have 100 dollars," Rhiley admits, she flips her legs off the bed and stands up, "any progress while I was out?" 

"You were dead for five minutes." Phil continues, "We couldn't get your heartbeat back for five minutes. You need to rest." 

"I need to do my job." She turns to look at Phil, "I could use my hands next time." 

"You aren't going anywhere near that thing." Phil follows Rhiley as she exits the tent, "It must have affected you differently because of your gift." 

"Or it doesn't like me." 

"It's a hammer." 

Rhiley side-eyes Phil, "A hammer that stopped my heart for five minutes." 

"That doesn't give it emotions." 

"You have emotions, though." Rhiley smiles, "Did I scare you?" She mocks, finding her way back in the middle of the S.H.I.E.L.D circus, looking at the hammer that wouldn't move. "It's basically like king author's sword, right? that's correct?" 

"Excalibur, yes." 

"Have you figured out where it came from?" 

"No, but I need to leave." Phil looks at Rhiley, "I have your assignment." 

"Guard the hammer." 

"No, we have someone on that. Multiple Agents, actually." Phil gestures for Rhiley to follow her, "We have a special task for you." He says as they head further away from the tents and the government vehicles. "I need you to spy." 

"Spy on what?" 

"There is a town nearby." Phil stops in front of a simple truck, "I need you to go undercover as a UFO frantic or-" 

"UFO frantic?" Rhiley nearly lost herself laughing. "Can't I just be a simple traveler?" 

"No. that's too suspicious." 

"And believing in UFOs isn't?" 

"You'd be surprised." Phil continues, "You have supplies in the back, everything you need. Ask whatever you need to, figure out where this thing came from, and report back." 

"What are you doing?" 

"That's confidential." 

Rhiley walks to the driver's side as Phil throws her the keys, "I'm really starting to hate that word." She opens the door and pauses, "Phil?" 

"Yes?" 

"I don't know how to drive, remember?"