Battlefield ★ Bucky Barnes

XXI. I Need You To Trust Me

FIVE DAYS LATER

Connie sat and waited, just as she had been doing for the past four days. She was perched against a wall inside Steve's exhibit in the Smithsonian. Not many people could see her, but she had a perfect view of just about everyone on the floor, though the only view that really mattered to her was her view of Bucky's memorial plaque, as well as her view of the Howling Commandos. Connie was smart; she knew that she and Steve had managed to trigger something inside him, regardless of how extreme that something was, it was still something. She knew that the Smithsonian would be the first place Bucky came in order to try and figure things out, so until he made an appearance, she would wait quietly and undetected in her spot.

As Connie shifted into a more comfortable position on the carpeted floor, she winced. Her injuries were still healing, more specifically, the gunshot wound to her abdomen was still healing. Currently, the brunette should have been resting in a hospital alongside Steve, but she refused. After waking up in the hospital after an operation to remove the bullet that was lodged inside her, she convinced Natasha to get the doctors and nurses to discharge her. She never provided them with a specific reason as to why she was so desperate to leave the hospital, Natasha included. The only information she gave them was that she was a super-soldier, meaning the serum that ran through her veins provided her with a rather advanced physiology, much more so than Steve's was.

It took about three hours to convince the hospital staff to finally discharge her, and when they did, Connie immediately took off to hers and Steve's very unkempt apartment. She packed a duffel bag full of clothes and shoes and checked in to one of Washington's finest hotels. Connie was jobless considering S.H.I.E.L.D.'s current status, so she didn't have to worry about going into work, which she was particularly thankful for. Her only job now was making sure she could find Bucky and help him so she and Steve could finally have him back. She had a plan, and her main priority at the moment was to put that plan into action.

Connie let out a breath and leaned her head back against the wall as she tried not to focus on her pain. Her stomach was killing her, as was her fractured wrist, and the small laceration on the side of her face from being punched burned greatly. She had been given numerous pain medications to ward off the pain, but her body burnt off the effects of it so quickly, and Connie didn't exactly feel like taking a handful of medication every hour.

In an attempt to distract herself from the pain, Connie scanned her brown eyes over the exhibit crowd. There were so many people present, though out of the many, one of them managed to captured her attention. While everyone visiting the exhibit appeared to be with their families, their husbands, wives, friends, or anyone for that matter, this man that had caught her attention was alone. A baseball cap covered his head as if to further conceal him from the eyes around him, but the shoulder length brown hair gave his identity away to Connie, not to mention his very muscular build and the way he walked.

Connie watched him carefully as he moved through the crowd, stopping briefly in front of the Howling Commando display before moving on to the large memorial plaque in the middle of the room. He stood studying the plaque for five minutes, which only further led Connie to believe that this man was the one she was looking for. As he turned to leave the exhibit, Connie pushed herself up, pulling the hood of her jacket over her head as she did so, and shoving her hands into her jacket pockets. She already had a baseball cap on in order to hide her face, but the hood only helped to further conceal her face.

Connie furrowed her eyebrows as Bucky moved to exit at the back of the building, and she quickened her pace behind him, though not by much. Bucky could feel that he was being followed, however, and so he quickly made his way outside and to the back of the building, more than ready to confront whoever it was. He ran to conceal himself behind a corner of the building to wait for his pursuer. If they wanted to get to him as much as he believed they did, they would look for him.