Ice Queen and Winter Soldier

9- The Dance

"Wait, who else is looking for me?" Bucky asks me cautiously.

"Just Tony. He doesn't know your real identity, though. Speaking of..." I take his chain out of my bag and hand it to him. "A bit dramatic, don't you think?"

He sighs. "It's just easier if I let go of who I used to be. I can't take back what I've done, you wouldn't get it."

"Look, despite what you think you know about me, I get it. I get that you think you deserve this, but you didn't have a choice." He blinks, almost as surprised as I am about what I'm saying. Even though I didn't expect it, I truly believed every word... but there was no time to be sentimental. "You know what, I'm getting out of here, with or without your tin man ass" I snapped, perhaps a bit too harsh. He then glances around quickly, grabs me by the shoulders, and moves closer to me.

"Eyes and ears everywhere" he whispers. "Do you and your billionaire friend really think you're the only ones looking for The Winter Soldier? Did you already forget the other night? I bet even more of those people are looking for you."

I take a breath. Why hadn't I even considered that potential enemies for both of us could be in this very room?

"Leaving now will just attract attention. It's better if we just blend in with the crowd, for both of our sakes" he says with the same low volume.

If I go back with Tony, it will attract attention even more than we're getting now from being two of the only people standing I thought, noticing everyone waltzing. I then loop my arm around Bucky's and begin dragging us to the others. When he stays still, I raise my eyebrows at him. "Did you not just say to blend in with the crowd?"

He sighs, knowing that I'm right, and shifts so that he's the one leading me.  "Bet they don't teach you to dance like this in space" he remarks.

"I'm a princess. I'd like to see you try to be better than me, old man" I scoff. As we get into position in the ballroom, the string quartet begins playing a new song, perfect for the waltz. As Bucky took my hand in his and put his other around my back, our eyes met and didn't break apart for what felt like a lifetime. I broke eye contact quickly, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. Thankfully, the dance began before either of us had to comment. I hated to admit it, but he was quite the good dancer; we moved in sync with each other and the music, and I almost forgot that there were other people around us. I look back into his eyes, noticing that he had already been staring.  I expected him to turn away, but he kept contact, unembarrassed. At one point, he lifted me by my waist and spun my around. We both laughed, while I tried to ignore the butterflies I felt. In what felt like a few seconds, the song ended, and the crowd began to disperse. Ignoring them, we stood across from each other, still laughing.

"I didn't know you smiled" I said through laughter.

He smiled at me and began to say something, before his face suddenly turned serious and his eyes widened. I mirrored his expression, asking "What is it?"

He cocked his head in the direction of a nervous Tony, who was just a few feet away from us with a man I had never seen. He didn't appear to see me, but I instinctually tried to find a place to hide. Bucky stops me.

"Go, convince him that you guys need to get out of here. I know him. He wants both of us"

"What are you gonna do?"

"Give him part of what he wants" he states, ripping off the glove masking his metal arm before I can stop him. The man smiles as he notices Bucky, and I realize I only have one option. Hoping Tony would understand that I know what I'm doing, once I catch his attention, I motion for him to suit up. Knowing that Tony is now safe inside the security of his iron man suit, there's only one thing left to do.

I shoot out a wall of ice between Bucky and the man, ignoring the shrieks of those around me. The man stops, his attention now fully on me. He looks even more pleased with himself. I stand my ground, challenging him to come for me, ignoring Bucky's protests. He begins charging towards me and just as I'm about to punch him, Tony comes up behind him and knocks him out.

"Y/n, get out of here, he was looking for you! His backup people are on their way, I got this under control, go!" Tony shouts frantically. As if on cue, before I get a chance to even look for an exit, masked soldiers arrive, surrounding me in every direction. 

"So this is how you're playing it?" I tiredly ask their covered faces, guns hoisted all around me.

"Cooperate and there won't be a problem" the one directly in front of me shouts. My expression remains bored as I put both of my hands up.

"Is this what I'm supposed to do?" I ask, causing them to look at each other in confusion. One of the ones behind me approach me, about to cuff my hands. Without looking, I send the soldier and all the others surrounding him back with a blast of frost, breaking the wall as they crashed through it.

"You see, I don't like being touched by random idiots" I say with a sarcastic smile. A few of them shoot at me, but I freeze the bullets mid-air. "Do the rest of you want me to put you with your little friends? It's no problem, truly" I say with mock enthusiasm. The leading one nods at the rest of them, and they lower their guns, then separate to create a path for me to walk out of their crowd. "Much better" I announce with pride. Their movement allows me to actually see the rest of the room again. The first thing I see is Tony with a smaller, but similar crowd around him... but he's holding his own just fine. I expect to see Bucky in a similar situation, but I was way off. Only two men are standing by him, idle. Yet, Bucky is squirming on the floor, repeating the words no, no, no.... It takes me a minute to see that one of the men is reading off of a notebook of sorts, while the other stands expectantly with his hands folded together behind his back. As if on instinct, I sprinted across the room to avoid hurting any bystanders in the path between us and knocked out the reader with one punch. The other man picked up the book and ran away, but I was too preoccupied with Bucky to notice. His breathing began to slow instantly, and struggled to stand up. He was still too breathless to fully speak, but he managed to gasp out Go. I looked quickly to see how Tony was doing, and to my surprise, all the soldiers were leaving. Tony was collecting himself, but he looked perfectly fine. I look back at the disheveled man in front of me.

"Not without you" I declare, then hoist him up and push the both of us out of the room before he can protest.