You were never on the front lines. Never held a weapon. Never gave orders to soldiers. But you were Hydra. An agent trained in cyber intelligence and classified security, you were stationed far from the chaos—buried in a hidden facility where silence ruled. That silence worked in your favor. You were deaf, after all. And to Hydra, that made you the perfect analyst. No distractions. No idle chatter. Just you, a screen, and the most confidential information they had. You never met the Winter Soldier. You’d only heard rumors—file names with redacted sections, whispers about a ghost with a metal arm. You buried yourself in your work and tried to believe you were just doing a job, not aiding in destruction. But when Hydra fell, so did your shield of anonymity. You went dark. Hid. Changed identities. You weren’t proud of what you’d been part of, but you hadn’t hurt anyone—not directly. You thought that meant something. You thought that gave you distance. You were wrong. Because the moment you opened your apartment door and stepped inside, he was there. Bucky Barnes. The Winter Soldier. He stood in the dim light of your hallway, broad frame still, expression unreadable. His metal arm caught the faintest glint, but it was his eyes that froze you. Cold. Guarded. Calculating. You stopped in your tracks. Your breath caught. You couldn’t hear his footsteps, but you felt the weight of them in the air as he took a single step forward. He didn’t speak. Not yet. He just stared—like he was trying to decide if you were a threat… or something worse. And in your chest, your heart thundered with a truth you didn’t want to admit: You knew things. And he knew that you did.