𝒑𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒕 || s. rogers & b. barnes

8||; 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒏, 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒋𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒚

"There's your father, Roberts," Romanoff says.

Irina trains her eyes on a specific photo. On a dashing young man, most likely in his mid-thirties, just a few years older than her, with slicked back brown hair and intelligent brown eyes.

"Howard," Steve says as she steps up to the photo.

Howard Stark.

Her father's name.

She didn't even know his name until now.

"Tony looks like him," she finds herself blurting out, noting to herself. It's true. The same intelligent eyes, the natural flare they held in their posture, the air around them...

She wondered.

Who did she look like?

Who did Irina Stark take after?

"You look a bit like him, too," Steve says. Irina glances at him, noticing her roommate had come up right beside her, smiling at the photo before his eyes drifted to her. "You have his eyes. But I think you might take after whoever your mother was. And if she can have tied Howard down," he smiles, eyes shining with memories of Howard Stark Irina couldn't see, "...she was a pretty remarkable woman."

Irina looks back at the photo of Howard. "I can't even remember his face," she mumbles, mostly to herself, but she knows the other two hear her. "Either of them. I can't even..." she punches out a breath, "...why can't I remember?"

Steve places his hand on the middle of her back in support. Irina shuts her eyes, leaning into it with a shuddering breath. She couldn't risk being any more emotional than she already was, not with their current circumstances.

She steps away from Steve's hand, sniffing as she steps over to a line of dusty old bookshelves.

"Who's the girl?" She hears Romanoff ask.

Irina shakes her hands, trying to brush away the anxiety threatening to let loose. She had to calm down. Control her emotions. She was good at that, right? She could do it —

The faint sound of wind.

Underground?

She pauses, tuning her ears to listen more closely. The soft howl of a breeze — in an underground bunker, no less. Suspicious. Irina turns around to the bookshelf, peering at the cobweb in the cracks between the two shelves. Watches it move.

"Hold on..." she mutters. "Steve. Here."

Steve's at her side in a second, looking over her shoulder as she nods her head towards the moving cobweb. "Can you get these out of the way for us?" She asks.

Steve, with a more focused look on his face now, nods and slides his fingers into the small crack. He pulls the shelf away with a grunt. Irina watches with satisfaction as it slides away. Steve goes between the gap created, putting his palm against the side and managing to fully push the shelf away, revealing to them a secret passage.

"Who knew they had cliche's like this, even back in the forties," Irina hums.

The three walk up to the elevator. Romanoff pulls out her phone, a blue light shining over the keypad on the side of the transport. After a moment, she types in the passcode. The elevator beeps, and the doors slide open.

They share a look, and Irina can't help but grin at their progress. So it wasn't a dead end at all.

The trio of fugitives take the elevator down a long way before it stops and opens into a dark room. Steve and Romanoff lead the way in, with Irina warily following. Anxiety buzzes at her nerves. Slowly, she gets a dreading feeling.