Reality in Motion

a big, fat ukrainian wedding

Their situation in Odessa was already ten times better than in Dnipropetrovsk. Using some money from one of his bank accounts under that was hidden under a false name, Dawson was able to get them a real place to stay rather than a shoddy motel room. Located on a semi-private beach, their closest neighbors weren't for multiple kilometers. No one would come knocking or wondering what the group was doing there. The house itself was bigger than Q's parent's house, letting each of them have their own space instead of sharing a small hotel room with twin beds.

For the first few weeks, it was all about settling in. Dawson set up their security system for the house, along with some added bonuses littered around the shoreline to let them know if and when anyone was getting a little too close. Having only one working hand, it did take him a bit, but he got it done (and was even more proud of himself than usual). Marina searched for her contact in Odessa - someone who had ties with Hydra back in the day, but had turned his life around since then, or so he claimed. And Q stuck to following the lead Natasha had unintentionally given them about Bucky.

As expected, the lead went cold with the dead engineer. There was no information on where Bucky had disappeared to after. In fact, it turned out no one even knew he was there to begin with. The official report had chalked it up to a motorcycle accident, despite the engineer dying from a fatal gunshot wound, not from the impact of the crash.

Newspapers and online articles were full of skeptics. Few claiming they had seen the scene, mentioning another woman with red hot hair facing off against a man with a metal arm. The scanned and copied report of the autopsy popping up here and there that listed a Soviet slug with no rifling. But every author she tracked down or commenter she emailed claimed they had no further information that would be helpful. Which meant, no Bucky.

A part of her was sort of glad Marina had showed up when she did. If she hadn't, both her and Dawson would be stuck in Odessa with no idea what the next steps would be. Sure they had access to the Hydra database, but even that was old and probably contained more dead ends or heartbreaking information about Bucky or other victims of the program. Nothing that could really help them. All that time and energy and sacrifice would've been wasted. Not to mention that Bucky would probably be getting further and further away from them, solidifying the fact that it had all been for nothing. But with Marina's help, there was at least another option, another chance at finding him. Which was all Q could ask for, really.

When she first decided to go after Bucky, she didn't really know what she was going to do when she found him or even why she was going. In the beginning, she had convinced herself she was doing this - finding him for Steve. The lost brother and friend come home.

The reason she kept it such a secret from him and left so abruptly was because of what happened that day on the causeway. She didn't know what state or how she would find Bucky and she wasn't about to subject Steve to even more pain if it turned out that he wasn't himself again. Selfish, yes, but as the months went on she realized she wasn't doing it for him. She was doing it for herself.

A part of her just wanted to find him and prove that what she read in her grandmother's diary was true: that he was in fact her brother - making him Q's grand-uncle. The moment the two shared on the edge of the riverbank altered her life. Enough to send her on a wild goose hunt chase to find him. Simply enough, she wanted to find Bucky because he was her family. And all she wanted from him was answers. Or stories rather. Stories about the grandmother she thought she knew so well. And obviously, she wasn't going to get them from her dead grandmother, and she rather not go to her asshole of a father. Meaning a previously brainwashed, ex-Hydra assassin was her next best bet to hear them. If he even remembered. But that was a problem for another day. First they needed to find him.