Rings (Bucky Barnes x OC soulmate AU)

Chapter 1 - the Six and Assignment

It was supposed to be simple: seven agents, one enemy base. Get in, get information, get out. Nobody was going to even know they were there. Clara Hughes designed it that way for a reason.

Through her headset, Clara Hughes could hear everything. On the screen in front of her, she could see everything. Seven red dots, racing around her screen, trying to escape the borders that separated them from the outside world. Panic was thick in the room while she scrambled to find a solution to the problem that threatened the lives of seven red dots in the field.

It had gone so well at the start. What happened to set the alarms off?

There were seven SHIELD agents that were about to die. As a mission coordinator, her job was to plan everything - plan for every possible situation and outcome, get maps, and plan pickup. The maps for this mission were wrong and the agents didn't know where they were going, therefore the mission was a failure. There was no way to get agents out the way Clara had originally planned.

"Hughes!" shouted her supervisor. "You have two minutes to find a new pickup site or this entire thing will have been for nothing!" He anxiously pressed onto one side of his earphones, desperately listening for more information.

This is too much pressure, Clara thought, frantically searching for a new location. She leaned forward at her desk and craned her neck to get a closer look at the computer screen. Way too much. This was just supposed to be a mission to collect information. I dunno if I'll find something... There - that's it! The mouse hovered over a small break in the dense forest. If the agents acted immediately they would all have a chance.

Hopefully.

Clara stood quickly, shouting the newest commands to her leader. "They need to head southeast!" She ran a hand through her curly hair as she spoke. "There's a clearing - I already sent the location. It's kinda far, but if they make it -"

"There's only one agent close enough. That building is set to go off in just under a minute - Agent Hughes -"

A sudden, loud, thundering boom burst through everyone's headsets. All the agents in the room threw their headsets off.

Clara's eyes instinctively squeezed shut for a few seconds, until her ears stopped ringing. When she looked up, six of the dots on her computer screen were gone. One remained - one unmoving dot, just outside the walls of the building that had just exploded. She slipped her headset back on, hoping there would be more noise, but all she heard was static.

Her fingers started moving before her mind processed what was happening. She sent the location of the single red dot to the rescue team.

One remaining agent. One in a team of seven.

Invisible, crushing weight suddenly crushed her heart and mind. Tears filled her eyes. Some of those agents had been her friends - and she killed them.

It was all her fault.

▪️▪️▪️

Six months later, very little things brought solace to Clara's guilty soul.

On advice of her therapist, she kept track of the things she was grateful for. It would be a reminder that there are good things happening in her lift every day. Every day on the bus ride home she thought of three things. When she got home, she wrote them on a thin slip of paper and folded it into a little star, which was then placed in a jar. The jar was placed in the middle of her kitchen where she would see it every day.

A jar full of things she was grateful for, things that were good.

The other thing that helped was her soulmate.

Having a soulmate wasn't very common. Those who did have one were born with a way to find them. Some were given rare forms - being able to communicate telepathically or through drawing on their skin, or through dreams. Others were given simple forms - necklaces, tattoos, or rings - which was the form Clara had.

Every day she prayed she would be able to find her soulmate. Laying in bed at night, staring at her ceiling, she would twist the ring on her left hand and wonder where he was, what he was doing.

She hoped some part of her soul would recognize the one it was created with.

Months passed after the incident in which she got six people killed.

She thought about that every night for six months. Finally a day came where she didn't think about it - and that was the day Director Nicholas Fury stood inside her apartment on a Friday night.

"Agent Hughes," he greeted when she closed the door to her small apartment. "Welcome home."

Clara's heart pounded in her chest as she set her keys on the counter near the door. "D-Director! Hi! What are you - what's going on?" All attempts at being formal went out the window as panic filled her brain.

"Your recovery has been going nicely." Fury picked up the jar of stars from the counter. "Most agents in your department would be gone after a mistake like the one you made." He threw the jar in the air and caught it.

Why was he bringing this up? Did he come all the way to her apartment to fire her?

"But you're strong," Fury continued. He placed the jar back where he found it and walked into the living room to look at pictures that hung on the wall. "I have a new assignment for you."

Clara swallowed thickly and breathed deeply. He wasn't going to fire her. "Okay. What would you like me to do?"

"You ever heard of Bucky Barnes?"

"Yeah, of course I -"

"He's going to be your neighbor. I need you to watch out for him." He pointed to a family photo over the couch. "That's a nice picture, by the way." Fury opened his coat and pulled out a yellow file, then approached Clara to give it to her. The file was thick and heavy, making her wonder what happened to Barnes. "He's not adjusting as well as Rogers. Be his friend, take him places."

Clara gave Fury a hard look. "You want me to babysit." It wasn't a question.

"Not babysitting. Barnes is free to do as he pleases. I invited him to join the Avengers, and whether he accepts or not is up to him. He just needs time to decide." Fury walked to the door and placed a hand on the doorknob, "Oh, and Hughes? Keep him out of trouble."

"Wait - excuse me, Director, why - why me?" Clara asked, drawing her eyebrows together.

Fury paused for a moment, considering what to say. "You're a special woman, Hughes."

Surprised when he didn't have anything else to say to her, the words, "Yes sir. Thank you," escaped her lips.

Fury gave her a half smile. "No, Agent Hughes. Thank you." Then he exited the apartment, leaving Clara to question exactly how her assignment was different from babysitting.

She didn't think much into it, however, because she decided it was time to watch TV and eat dinner. After ordering a pizza ("That will be delivered in about an hour, ma'am") Clara flopped onto the couch and started flipping through the channels. She began to flip through the file after deciding on a mindless tv show to use as background noise.

On the first page were two pictures of James Buchanan Barnes. The first was his picture from World War Two. He was clean cut with that try-not-to-smile smile and very handsome. There were no doubts that he was a heartbreaker.

The second picture was very different. He had long messy hair, a scraggly beard, and a dead look in his eyes that said "I could kill you before you even realized you were dying."

The information that SHIELD had on him was irrelevant. She didn't want to know how many people he'd killed, what kind of torture he'd endured, or what issues he had. If anyone knew about her problems before they met her, Clara definitely wouldn't like it. She wanted to give Barnes the same courtesy. So, after quickly flipping through the file to make sure there wasn't anything she absolutely needed to know, she made a decision.

She would start with ground zero - only know the things that everyone else could know. And that meant starting with the Smithsonian.