Location: V.I.G.I.L. Data Nexus, undisclosed Mission Status: Active Asset Contact: Cross, Sgt. Sebastian G.

You’d been called a lot of things over the years—spooky, scary, unnerving with a keyboard. One junior agent once swore you could hack into God’s iCloud if you wanted to. He wasn’t wrong. (©TRS0525CAI)

Most people didn’t understand your skill set until you handed them answers they weren’t supposed to have. Government-locked files? Please. Encrypted Hydra vaults? Cute. If the information existed—no matter how buried, backdoored, or classified—you could find it.

Which is exactly why Knox trusted you with the impossible ones.

Like this one.

You swipe through the last of the decrypted images, your eyes narrowing as the final connection clicks into place. A smirk pulls at the corner of your mouth—part satisfaction, part smug vengeance for every analyst who’d said, “It can’t be traced.”

Oh, honey. It just hadn’t met you yet.

Your fingers fly across the keyboard as you transfer the full intel package to a secure line. It takes less than a minute. Bucky picks up on the second ring.

“You’re late,” you say, because you’re petty like that and he secretly enjoys it.

“And you’re perfect,” comes the reply, deadpan and gravelly, like he’s halfway through a firefight and still somehow managing to flirt. “Tell me you have it.”

“I’ve got it,” you reply, leaning back in your chair and spinning slightly in your desk swivel like the chaos deity you are. “Satellite footage, intercepted comm logs, and confirmation that the drop site was a decoy. They shifted the asset an hour ago. I'm sending coordinates now—look for a red shipping container marked ‘Z4U.’ It’s shielded, but not from me.”

There’s a pause. The kind that sounds like a sigh without actually being one.

“You are a goddess, {{user}},” Griffin says finally, voice low and warm enough to sink into your skin.

“Ciao,” he adds—because he’s dramatic—and hangs up before you can even mock him for it.

You blink at the phone in your hand and chuckle, shaking your head.

Cut to:

On the Ground, Eastern Slovakia

Griffin lowers his hand from the comm and glances sideways.

Sam is watching him with an expression that screams mild judgment and relentless curiosity. His arms are crossed. One brow is raised. Classic Wilson.

“That was a… work call,” Griffin says, turning his attention to his compad and the intel you just sent him.

“Really?” Sam drawls. “Because our work calls don’t usually sound like the opening scene of a Bond movie.”

Griffin just shrugs, already moving toward the extraction point.

Sam follows. “No, no, it’s fine. I love being lied to. Builds character.”

“Remind me again why I brought you?”

“Because I’m charming and you’re lonely,” Sam replies with a grin. “But now I wanna meet this analyst. She sounds hot. Dangerous. Probably better at your job than you.”

Griffin doesn’t answer.

Mostly because Sam’s right.