Broken Arrows and Tangled Webs

We're going on a Trip

"Remember anything you see here that you didn't already know when you came here you can't talk about to anyone, got it?" Clint said for what Kate thought was the thousandth time since they began their trip upstate. "And don't be on your phone the whole time," Clint added, swatting at the smartphone that Kate had been on for what seemed like the whole trip – it would have been the whole trip, but she did like playing with Lucky whenever they had to stop for water or bathroom breaks.

"What are you even doing on that thing anyway?" Clint asked, absentmindedly as he turned the car down a road that had dense woods on either side. They must have been getting close based on how Lucky began jumping around in the back seat, that or he needed to go out again.

"Nothing, just normal teenager stuff." Kate didn't really want to tell her mentor that she was texting his nephew and had been doing so for the past couple of weeks since he left. "So, who all is going to be there?" Kate asked, trying to change the topic.

"Rogers, Barnes, I think Sam will be there...um maybe Sharon, but I think she's been being called in by Fury. There's a possibility that Rhodey might be there but that'd only be if Steve or Sam told him about you coming."

Kate thought through the group in her head, "Yeah so unless Captain America or the Winter Soldier pulls out bottles of Coke with actual cocaine in them, I don't think anyone from that group can really shock me."

Depends on how much you actually paid attention in your history class kid, Clint thought as the weaved closer and closer to the newly rebuilt Avengers HQ.

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He said go down the hall take the fourth left and then third right and it'd be the sixth door on your left, or was it right? Maybe it had been third left and fourth right? Come on Bishop you've barely been here for five minutes and you've already gotten lost, Kate thought as she tried to navigate her way to where the sleeping quarters would be.

Clint had offered to help guide her but it turned out that Lucky had needed to go to the bathroom and so Kate assured her mentor that she could navigate the place fine, thank you very much.

While Kate admired the modern look of the building, she hated that that modern look also meant that every goddamn hallway looked the exact same. Some hope did enter her heart when she heard to voices talking that seemed to be having a normal conversation, as opposed to a conversation that Kate had heard being held by what she could only assume were agents that she had ran into while on her quest to find a bedroom. And while yes, she could have easily asked one of them she was training to become an Avengers and she's pretty sure that getting lost and having to ask for directions at headquarters wouldn't help her much in the application process.

"I am telling you, Steve, they both could have fit on the door and she just went and let him go, even after she said that she'd never let go." Kate heard a man's voice say.

"He was already dying of hypothermia and pulling him up onto the door wouldn't have helped since his clothes were already soaked, and besides that Buck, she meant that she'd never let go of his memory, not of him," Kate heard another voice reply, although this one was much more for familiar from all the PSAs that she had to watch at school.

Kate followed the voices as they continued to bicker, hoping that wherever they were watching the movie at was close to where they sleep quarters were.

"I still think it's a stupid ending," The man who thought that Rose was being a dick – 'Yes Steve that's exactly what she was, and I don't care that she's a girl, it's still dickish behavior'- said and Kate could practically hear the pout in his voice, a pout that was being accompanied by arms crossing over his chest and slouching even further down on the couch.

"I'm sorry Buck how 'bout I make it better."

It was at this moment that Kate walked in and saw a sight that would definitely make her uber-conservative history teacher bust into flames. Captain America and Bucky Barnes were kissing on the couch -Kate would like to point out that it was not a full-on make-out session, but rather the kind of kiss that is shared at the end of a Hallmark movie, the kind that happened after Hannah learned the true meaning of Christmas from some single dad from her hometown that she had probably dated at some point and his mischievous yet adorable child. Kate was also pretty sure that were romantic feelings behind this kiss and not that men had expressed their affection differently in those days and that we shouldn't apply modern standards to historical figures.

"Oh my Jack Harkness," Kate said. She was in such a state of shock that she hadn't even noticed that her duffle bag now lay on the ground – along with her jaw.

"What?" Bucky asked, more confused at the reference than the intrusion.

"It's from a British TV show, I used to watch it with Peggy when I visited her, it was pretty progressive for the time," Steve explained to his boyfriend (?), Kate wasn't really sure what their relationship actually was. "And you must be Kate, I'm Steve and this is Bucky," The blonde said. It was obvious that he was just trying to make the situation as normal as possible, but the blush that seemed to have taken up the super soldier's entire face and rucked up hair wasn't really helping matters any.

"Yeah, um hi. I was just trying to look for my room, Clint tried giving me directions but I think I maybe kind of got lost?"

Steve paused for a moment, trying to decipher what exactly Kate had said as it all seemed to have come out at once. "Oh yeah, up you're really not that far off just down this hall and it'll be the fifth room on your left."

Kate squeaked out a thanks before grabbing her bag and scurrying to the sleeping quarters. So maybe Clint wasn't wrong about the surprises that were in store.