A Birdie Lost in Time | Bucky Barnes

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"I'll see you soon." The words were out of her mouth hurriedly before she shifted to leave, but Bucky's hand stopped her.

"Stay safe," he said quietly, before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to her forehead. "Call me if anything goes wrong."

She was sure her cheeks were bright red as she nodded, unable to say anything before slipping out of the car.

The number of people around her would normally be suffocating, but she was too distracted by the lingering feeling of his lips, so she managed to cut through the crowd and into an alley without issue.

It was only when she'd heard the influx of voices from the street that she'd finally escaped her daze.

"It was a friendly, forehead kiss—literally calm down," she bit as she looked down to her tablet.

Well shit.

Bucky and Sam were right.

The Flag Smashers attacked the meeting. No one seemed to know exactly what was happening, only that something happened, so she switched over to a map of the area and oriented herself before choosing where to hide out.

Her steps were hurried as she carefully dodged across streets and avoided people heading towards the attack, but the further she got from the fray, the quieter it became.

In the five minutes it took for her to reach the mostly deserted intersection, the decision to evacuate the building was made and she'd caught a few mentions of The Falcon swooping above Manhattan buildings.

Scanning the area, she decided it was probably her best option. A large section of the intersection was under construction, with a pit for a new building along one side and just past that, the street dug up and blocked off. That meant less people driving through the area, and although there was a scaffolding tunnel that would allow for foot traffic, she hadn't passed anyone coming into the area, so hopefully most people were going around the construction.

And considering she was in Manhattan, there would be a risk of people anywhere she went.

With that decided, she hurried towards a line of cement dividers that blocked an open section of a construction pit and dropped her tablet on top, pulling up Tony's program, and searching for anything to do with the meeting.

The version she had on her tablet wasn't capable of much, but she managed to link it to one of Stark Industries computers, so while she was searching the internet and police com lines, the computer was running both a facial recognition and watching for any IP hits from the Flag Smashers.

If anything came up, it would notify her.

Hopefully Pepper wouldn't—

There.

The Flag Smashers were in the building. The Council was being evacuated. Two trucks, one helicopter.

She had to hold back the urge to return to the building; she might not be a super soldier, but she could still fight, still help people get out.

That's not the plan.

The plan was for her to stay here and keep an eye out for anything that the others might not see coming. They could handle the building.

As if it would convince her feet to not move, she swung her leg over the divider and sat, shifting the tablet as she leaned down to check Tony's program again.

So far there weren't any updates, nothing about hostages, or people unaccounted for; just silence.

But then from down the street, she heard voices.