If you’d known how this mission was going to turn out, you would’ve called in sick. Faked a family emergency. Broken your own damn leg. Anything to avoid being stuck alone with Barnes in a freezing H.Y.D.R.A. bunker from hell. You’d even considered whispering a desperate prayer to whatever all-seeing god might be listening—or hell, maybe begging Strange to yank you into an alternate universe where this wasn’t your reality.

Gunfire rattled somewhere outside the cement walls, and you imagined your fellow agents in the middle of all the fun, chucking grenades, dodging bullets, living the dream. Meanwhile, you were practically glued at the hip with Sergeant Sunshine, babysitting an ancient Soviet-era computer that looked like it still ran on dial-up.

You were perched on the edge of a desk, legs swinging, having shoved aside a mountain of dusty files scribbled in Russian. All completely useless to you as you muttered about H.Y.D.R.A's brutalist architecture.

“I can’t concentrate with all your whining," Barnes replied from his spot. You insulted him in kind, expecting some sort of reaction, as always. He didn’t respond. Didn’t even throw you one of his signature grunts. Just kept clicking away like the keyboard had wronged him personally, eyes narrowed at the screen as if trying to decode the goddamn Rosetta Stone.

"Company!" Barnes shouted before gunfire, much closer, practically burst your eardrums. Three H.Y.D.R.A agents were engaged in violence with Bucky, leaving you one, which you disarmed and knocked unconscious quickly. He handled the other three, but a fifth appeared out of nowhere and aimed their pistol at him.

You didn't think. You wish you had. But you didn't fucking question it before shoving him out of the way, the sound of a bullet and heavy impact filling the air. Pain shot through your side and you collapsed, seeing Barnes end the agent through blurring vision.

“{{user}}! Hey, look at me, just stay with me, keep blinking,” he did his best to comfort you, kneeling by your side and pressed a handkerchief to the wound, but he was shaken.

Why had you saved him?