CHASING GHOSTS | BUCKY BARNES

07

"There wasn't a predictable thing about her, but that's what made her so interesting."

NADINE

Dante left the next day. He didn't say much when he left, nor did he look at her. His only acknowledgement of her presence was when he nodded after she apologized, and muttered a "good luck, Nadine" before he forced his tall form out of there. She wasn't worried about not seeing him again because of his anger towards her, but was definitely concerned of what his anger could cause him to do. Dante could get too emotional, and if he got too emotional...

Moving on to Natasha and her boys. Well, they lasted two weeks, which made Nadine lose a bet about how long they'd stay to Taj. They tried living like normal people -well, as normal as you could get living in such a fancy house- but Steve really wanted to get back out there. He still felt like he needed to stay for his best friend, though, because to him, he was his responsibility. Bucky, however, told him to leave, reassuring him that he was gonna be fine.

In reality, fine was a relative term if you considered the fact that he'd been sulking for the past two days.

By now Nadine could've found some new mission to do, but Fong told her to take it easy and let her bruise heal before subjecting her body to another possible injury. So instead, she decided to do some inventory in their armory. They had weapons ranging from handguns to sniper rifles, as well as a variety of blades. She noticed that two glocks were missing, as well as a hunting knife. Dante. Those were his choice of weapons most of the time, she knew, so she wasn't surprised that he'd decided to take them.

He better not do anything stupid.

"Nadine," Fong's voice filled the armory, his eyes glancing at his old katana that sat on the wall. He no longer used it, but that didn't mean he wasn't drawn to it. "Taj and I are going into town. He wants to help me at the clinic."

"Is he bored already now that his new best friend is gone?" She drawled, referencing his budding friendship with Sam. They'd spent their short time together cracking jokes and competing to see who was the funniest out of the two, whilst Taj casually interrogated him about Wakanda. Good thing Sam was oblivious to it.

"I think so," Fong chuckled, shaking his head in amusement. "We won't be gone for too long."

"It's fine, I'm heading to Lisbon. We're running low on ammo for the AR-15's."

"Be careful, then."

"Hey, Fong." She looked at the katana, chewing on the corner of her lower lip as she thought long and hard about her question. "How did you give it up?"

In the two weeks that she'd been resting, she'd actually done a lot of thinking, just like when she'd endured SHIELD's training. Though she never chose to be a part of the intelligence world, she always did wonder if she could ever get out of it or let go of the tendencies that she'd developed. Looking at Fong's katana, she'd never connect it to the pacifist person standing before her, despite having seen him carry it on his back that fateful day when Dante brought him and Yuna to Maricota- which he left right afterwards and didn't come back until months later, but that's another story.

It just didn't make sense.

Nadine didn't need to explain any further, he understood. Sighing, he walked up towards the blade and stared at it, lost in the memories that it held. "I was tired of the violence, especially after Yuna died. I didn't want to take part in it anymore, so once I left Seoul, I said it was going to be the last time."

And it has been, she knew. "Sounds easy," she said, her gaze shifting to nowhere in particular.

Fong scoffed, rubbing his hand over his face in a tired state, his demeanor having aged after thinking about his past. "It's not. Trust me, Dina, it's not. When you find the reason to want to leave all of this behind, don't hesitate to take it."