Clara Lewis: S.H.I.E.L.D agent, New Yorker, accidental time traveller- wait what?!
Clara thought being a S.H.I.E.L.D agent made her life as crazy as it would get. Ever since her accident in the field, she'd become a desk agent but working as Phil C...
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"Sir." Steve greeted as he barged into Colonel Phillips' tent. "I need the casualty list for the 107th."
"You don't give me orders, kid." the Colonel put bluntly, turning around from his desk on which sat a typewriter and a stack of condolence letters.
"I only need one name, sir." Steve insisted, "James Barnes. B-A-R-N-E-S."
"I can spell." was Colonel Phillips only response, "It sounds familiar."
Clara let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in a defeated sigh and averted her eyes, blinking back tears. She took a deep breath and turned back around, determined not to show her weakness. They'd never take her seriously if they saw her crying.
"Then I am requesting supplies for a rescue mission." Steve bargained as Peggy winced from behind him. That's not a good sign...
"They're 30 miles behind the lines, soldier. We'd lose more men than we'd save."
"But if you know where they are then-"
"Captain, I strongly suggest you step down." Colonel Phillips ordered. "And you, nurse...Chloe is it?"
"Clara. Clara Lewis." Clara corrected, sharing a confused and slightly offended look with Peggy.
"Okay, Miss Lawrence then," He said bitterly at Clara correcting him, yet he still got it wrong. Clara shot a sideways glance to Peggy who just rolled her eyes. "you shouldn't even be here. There are men who still need your attention." the Colonel continued, belittling her until Clara left out of awkwardness.
"And Agent Carter, I'll be having words with you later." Clara heard him say on her way out. Clara caught the defiant look on Peggy's face as she slipped out of the tent. She also saw her whisper in Steve's ear and leave not long after her. Clara could only hope Peggy had a plan and hope Steve would find his way to that base in Austria and that when he came back, if he came back, he wouldn't be alone.
*
As soon as Clara had finally dropped off to sleep, Maggie came and urgently woke her up. Her cheeks were tear stained. In the privacy of her own tent, she had let her guard drop. Subsequently, she had only managed to get an hours sleep at most. Now here she was being woken by a frantic looking Maggie shaking her by the shoulders.
"Clara!" Maggie coaxed as Clara's eyelashes, still heavy with tears, fluttered open. "You have to get up. Come quickly, come on." Maggie urged, practically pulling Clara out of bed and leading her through the muddy plane on the army base they were stationed in. It had been raining heavily but the sun had made an appearance this morning. If it weren't for Maggie's hand around her own, Clara would have stumbled, her stiff, unyielding uniformed shoes getting caught in the puddles. There was already a large crowd forming around whatever, or whoever, it was that Maggie was leading her to.
"What's going on, Mags? It's like 4 in the morning. Why is everyone up?"
"It's Captain America, you know, that actor guy. He actually went out to where the rest of the men were being kept. The 107th, they're back!"
"Wait- Steve did what?!" Clara asked. In her sleep deprived state she couldn't fathom any of what Maggie had just said.
Being considerably smaller than the men who had congregated by the armoured gate to the encampment, Maggie and Clara managed to squeeze their way to the front. They were a long way off but Clara could definitely make out Steve's spangled costume and stupid boots. And he wasn't alone. There was an army of men behind him, most of them limping, but the most injured among them were piled into tanks or perched on the edge of recovered army vehicles. That was going to be a long job for the nurses. But the thing, the most important thing, that mattered to Clara was the familiar face marching alongside Captain America.
"Bucky..." Clara whispered, her voice hitching in her throat, her eyes pricking with tears. She blinked them away. The men had approached closer now, close enough for Clara to make out individual faces. There was Steve, his jaw clenched, his shoulders square, swaggering along to the beat of victory. And there was Bucky, looking strangely small next to Steve. His eyes were hollow and his face a mosaic of cuts and bruises but it was still him, it was still that cocky, arrogant, adorable man she left behind.
Clara cursed under her breath as she realised she couldn't ignore her feelings anymore.
Before she knew what she was doing, Clara found herself striding across the mud towards the procession of returning soldiers. Bucky's eyes were fixed on the ground ahead of him, Steve saw her approaching though and smirked knowingly. She met them a few feet away from the gate, they kept slowly trudging forward and Clara was faster than she thought.
Bucky's eyes met her own and he stopped walking. The others continued past them like nothing out of the ordinary was happening, not even Steve stopped. Clara didn't know what to say to him. She envisioned this great confession in the couple of seconds it took her to reach him but she had tried to tell herself for so long that nothing would ever come of a little crush that nothing had come of it. They were standing face to face and neither one knew what to say to the other. They couldn't have been standing there for more than thirty seconds but the tension between them made it feel like forever.
"You're a nurse?" He stated, the only thing he could think to say.
"You're back."
"Hey, I promised, didn't I?"
Clara smiled at his sudden assuredness. Despite the cuts and bruises and whatever hell he had endured, he really hadn't changed one bit.
Clara inched closer to him so she could reach a hand up to cup his cheek and examine the extent of the cuts on his face. They'd heal up clean enough. Hopefully none of them would scar. She was close enough to him to feel the irregularity of his breathing. Those snatches of breath that came out shaking were all too similar to her own. Was his heart beating so fast too?
His hand at his side brushed against Clara's, there fingers moving almost without them knowing to entangle around the others'. Clara leaned up on her toes to close the distance between them. She could hear the rhythmic beating of his heart fall in pase with hers as their lips touched in a moment of calm clarity.
The world melted away, no more war, no more death, it was just them. Of course it was too good to last. Their moment of peace was broken by a chorus of wolf whistles and cheering. It didn't matter to Clara, none of the others mattered. Bucky was back and he was safe, and that was victory enough for Clara.
