4.4 | Trigger ✓

02 | рассвет

A/N

Unlike Draconian, the update schedule for this should be every 5-7 days. Feel free to give me a little extra push if it's been 7 days from the LAST update and I've not updated.

Welcome to Noelle's take on the Winter Soldier.

x Noelle

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ 

0 2

р а с с в е т

(daybreak)

DAKOTA STARED AT the man in horror for several seconds, until Steve  re-entered the apartment.

He took one look at the wide-eyed look on Dakota's face and the wide grin on Sam's and shook his head, letting out a quiet sigh. "You couldn't have broken the news to her gently?" He asked Sam, stepping over and hauling the unconscious man up, setting him down onto the couch.

"It's like ripping off a band-aid," Sam shrugged. "Quick and painless."

Dakota listened to their exchange absent-mindedly, but her eyes were still fixed on the man on the couch. There was something distinctly familiar and unfamiliar about him all at once, and she couldn't for the life of her remember where she'd seen him. His face was frighteningly pale, hair falling into his eyes in thick clumps and traces of ice still lining his skin, starching the clothes he was wearing. He looked like he'd been frozen in ice. Had he been frozen in ice?

But most of all, her eyes were drawn to the metal arm hanging limply by his side.

"Wait." Her voice was quiet, but it immediately stopped Sam and Steve. She took a step closer to get a better glimpse of the man, her eyes tracing the slope of his nose, the strong angle of his jaw and the way bits of ice still clung to his eyelashes. "I think – I've seen him before," she continued, a frown creasing her forehead as she thought. "At the...Smithsonian? He was in that exhibit on the second World War. And he was – "

She flicked a glance at Steve, who was watching her with caution in his eyes. All at once, the memory came rushing back. It was vague and drawn from the deepest recesses of her memory, but she remembered it all the same.

" – he was the guy who fought alongside you, wasn't he?" She asked Steve, her lips tilting up at the corners in a faint smile. "James, something – "

"Buchanan Barnes," Steve finished, but his eyes were still guarded as he stared at her. "We call him Bucky."

Bucky. Dakota silently worked the syllables of the word around her tongue. That was an odd name, but before she could say anything else, Sam was already speaking, his voice deceptively casual.

"You remember the exhibit, huh?"

She frowned in confusion, gazing back down at the man on her couch again. "Well – yes. But I thought...I thought he'd died. He was a war hero or something. How'd he end up – "

"Alive?" Sam supplied, when she trailed off. She nodded and he continued, "It's a long story. But we got him out of Wakanda and he needs somewhere to hide."

"Yeah, of course," she said. He'd probably survived the same way Steve had. Aliens in New York, superheroes around the world... Everything was so bizarre now that nothing fazed her anymore. She felt a surge of sympathy when she noticed the frown on the man's face. When was the last time he had a good night's sleep? "He can stay here. I'll clear out the study – "