Chapter Text
Steve’s dorm in the Avengers facility isn’t anything special, and frankly kept a little cold considering its inhabitant once spent 70 years encased in ice, but it’s hard to stay indignant about it when she’s curled up against him, moonlight shining through the bulletproof glass window and casting long shadows across the bed.
There’s something about the dark that makes it easier to talk honestly. It’s the same thing that gave Georgia to courage to lean across the empty expanse of the middle of her bed in Cambridge, to press a kiss to Steve’s mouth for the very first time. This time, it’s Steve who exhales heavily into her hair.
“I need to tell you something about DC,” he says, and she’s about to quip something light-hearted when she realizes that he’s quite serious.
“Tell me.”
He twines a bit of her hair around his finger, wrapping it tight before letting it go. “The Winter Soldier… I knew who he was.”
Georgia wants to pull away, wants to turn on a light and look at his face closely, but she thinks he might shut up and never say anything again, if she does. “No one knows who the Winter Soldier is,” she says carefully. "Nat says he's like a ghost story," and absolutely she trusts Nat's judgement on matters like this.
“It’s Bucky.”
She can’t even stop herself this time. Georgia rockets upright, and stares down at Steve, who is laying perfectly still. “Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier.” She closes her eyes and presses one palm to her face, then lets it fall into her lap. “How? Why? That doesn’t make any sense!”
“We think he survived the fall, during the war. Russians must’ve found him. We couldn’t figure out why he lived; that fall should’ve killed anyone. Half that fall should’ve killed anyone. But then Natasha reasoned that the only person she knew who could’ve walked away on the other side was me.”
Georgia shakes her head, even as her brain pieces the puzzle together for her. “The serum. He got the serum. But Erskine...?”
“A different version, we think. That Hydra gave him, when he was imprisoned at Azzano. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“But he’d be nearly a hundred!” Steve opens his mouth to reply, but she beats him to it. “They iced him, didn’t they?” She doesn’t need Steve to confirm it; she can read it all over his face.
“I need you to know,” he says quietly. “Because I’m going to start looking for him.”
“Steve.” Georgia leans forward to press her hand to his bicep. “He tried to kill you last time. He nearly beat you to death. You almost drowned. It’s not safe.”
“He would do the same for me,” Steve says stubbornly.
“He’s dangerous.” There are tears gathering in her eyes, and a lump growing in her throat. This isn’t like any other mission, where there is a bad guy that Steve is going to punch until the bad guy can’t punch back anymore. Bucky is his best friend, the last remaining part of his life in 1940s Brooklyn, and that makes him far more terrifying than any other gun-toting maniac.
Steve shakes his head. “He’s alone, and I have to bring him home.”
Georgia sits and looks at him for a long while. His face is steady, but resigned.
She slumps over and tucks her body up against his. He’s solid and warm, and his hands come tentatively over her sides and travel up her back. “You’ll need intel,” she says finally. His arms tighten around her, just a little bit. “And SHIELD isn’t around to do that for you, anymore. How were you planning to do it, just head out into the world and wing it?”
“Natasha thinks she has some ideas, and Sam is coming with.”
“That is not even remotely close to a plan.”
He scrunches his nose at her. “We’ll figure it out.”
“Can you wait, just a few days? Just long enough for me to talk to Nat, and do some digging of my own.”
Steve noses into her hair, his breath skating over the top of her head. “Thank you,” he says.
He falls asleep beside her, but Georgia lays in his bed and stares at the ceiling for hours before she finally succumbs to exhaustion.
***
There isn’t a lot to find, even with the data dump that Nat dropped online. Georgia parses it all for anything that might be useful, utilizing the massive computers at Stark Industries to look through everything a thousand times faster than any one person ought to be able to manage on their own.
She watches satellite feeds and combs social media, and there’s nothing to see, until there’s the suggestion of a hint.
“It could be nothing,” she warns, but Steve leans down and presses his mouth against hers. She’s got a paper file, the only copy, clenched in her hands between them; there will be no digital copies to be found by someone else.
“Even if it leads to nothing, thank you for trying,” he says, retreating just far enough that she can look up into those blue eyes. “I know it’s been a lot to ask, but… thank you.”
‘You’re welcome’ gets caught in her throat, and so Georgia grabs him by the collar and drags him back down again instead.
Once his mouth is swollen from her kisses, Steve unwinds one arm from around her waist to reach into his pocket. “Here,” he says, pushing the small, round object into her palm. “Keep this safe for me.”
She doesn’t even have to look down to know what’s held tight in her hand. “I will, if you keep yourself safe for me.”
***
Georgia hasn't been with Steve all the time during their months of dating, due to their mutual busy schedules (her studies and his saving-the-world thing), and he’s often out on missions when they’re apart, but it’s never felt quite how it feels now.
The easiest thing to do it throw herself into her work, because too much idle time leaves Georgia wondering if he’s found Bucky yet, if Bucky has raised his gun and unflinchingly shot his best friend, if Steve let him because he couldn’t bring himself to raise a hand against the man who stood by them all through their childhoods.
She wants to follow him digitally, to know where he is and what he’s been doing, if he’s physically okay (because she knows that he’s not okay, emotionally), but Steve had asked her not to.
“Focus on your degree,” he said, faux-stern but entirely genuinely. “It’ll take us a while, and I don’t want you staying up late and worrying the whole time.”
Which was easy enough to say, and much harder to actually accomplish.
Nat has fallen out of touch as well, which is difficult to swallow but entirely for the best. Georgia doesn’t want to put her friend in a position where she feels obligated to talk about the things that Steve obviously doesn’t want to talk about right now, and even if she never brought it up, he would always be hovering behind the words she could say. Georgia keeps a note of all the things she wishes she could share with Nat, the silly jokes and keen observations that she thinks she’d like, and stores them up for when they get back home.
***
Georgia fiddles with the old, simple gold ring that's hung on a chain around her neck, a nervous tick that she's only picked up recently. The ring is warm between her fingertips, and she lets it fall back into her cleavage where she's been keeping it safe for him for the last month.
He reached out to her only a few days previous, looking for information that Nat couldn’t dig up on her own. He’d stayed on the line with her while she dove headfirst through firewalls and found the intel he wanted.
He says ‘I miss you’ at least four times, and Georgia says it back every time.
He tells her that he’s alright, that they haven’t come in close contact with Bucky yet, and he’s been managing to sleep reasonably well in the hotels they’re staying in.
Every word down the line is like a balm to her heart, and she wants to tell him everything that’s been going on, but also doesn’t want to hear him stop talking anytime soon.
But eventually, she comes across the piece of information he’s been looking for.
"There's some vague evidence that Rumlow has been laying low in Lagos.”
"Rumlow," Steve says, irritated at the very thought of him. "I'll be glad when he's finally out of our hair."
“And I think I might have another lead on your friend,” she says, quietly and carefully.
Steve breathes steadily into her ear. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll send it to Nat; she’ll know which encryption I’ve used. Handle Rumlow and get Bucky, and then get back as soon as you can. I got you a present."
"You didn't have to," Steve says. She knows he's thinking about that first extravagant gift, the one he'll never be able to return the favour for.
"Oh, I wanted to." Georgia pulls the phone away from her ear, and pokes at the screen. "Here, I've sent you a teaser."
There's a moment where Steve's phone must buzz in his hand, and he checks his messages to find the photo she's sent.
"Georgia," he hisses into the phone, scandalized. "The internet says you're not supposed to send that sort of thing, for privacy."
"Oh, please, like I can't properly encrypt something over a secure connection."
"...It is a very nice colour."
"Right?" The lingerie set she picked up, Steve in mind, is a bit more feminine than she normally prefers, but she thinks he'll appreciate the pale pink lace against her skin.
"I'll be home soon. I love you," Steve says.
"I love you, too. Now get back here so I can do all sorts of awful things to you."
"Yes, ma'am," Steve says, snappy and eager.
Georgia makes kissy noises down the line at him and then hangs up the phone, feeling infinitely better than she has in days. Maybe Steve hasn't put two and two together yet, but it’ll be July 4th in only a couple of weeks, and she's got a great idea for his birthday present this year.