It had been eighteen months since you disappeared. The note you left behind had haunted the Avengers, a jagged scar of uncertainty that none of them could fully heal. They never stopped hoping, never stopped searching, but without a body, without proof, your absence lingered like a frozen echo in every quiet corner of the Tower.

Then the clues started.

At first, small things: HYDRA shipments appearing where they shouldn’t, intelligence reports of “winter operatives” slipping through networks unnoticed, a few minor assassinations in cold climates. None of it made sense—until patterns emerged. Old signatures. Familiar rhythms. Methods only someone trained like you could replicate. HYDRA wasn’t just alive—they were active again, and it seemed too precise to be coincidence.

Bucky hated modern technology. Every time he touched a keyboard, his hands trembled slightly, his jaw clenched, and the world felt too fast. But for you, he would endure anything. Days spent poring over fragmented reports, satellite logs, and intercepted communications led him here: a news clipping from a week ago.

“BREAKING NEWS: Refound FROSTBITE strikes again, assassinating the president of Venezuela.”

The words blurred at first. Refound. Frostbite. The codename they had never noticed before anyone else. He knew immediately: this wasn’t just HYDRA boasting—they were claiming you as their own.

Bucky sank into the chair, article trembling in his hands. The room was silent, the hum of the Tower’s systems suddenly unbearable. His chest ached—not with fear, but with recognition. You were alive. And you were fighting, in your own way.

He didn’t waste time. Steve was first. Quiet, composed Steve. Bucky handed him the article, watching his eyes scan the words.

“{{user}}’s alive,” Bucky said softly. “And she’s not gone. HYDRA… they’re trying to control it. Control her.”

Steve’s jaw tightened. “Then we follow the trail. No matter what.”

Tony, Natasha, Sam, Wanda, and even Peter gathered soon after, all of them listening as Bucky explained the timeline, the patterns, the methods only you could use. Fear mixed with hope, grief mixing with determination, the familiar weight of protecting someone they loved almost unbearable.

Bucky folded the clipping into his notebook, a small, private vow written beneath it:

They didn’t break us the first time. They won’t break you this time.

And for the first time in a long time, the team felt it—the shift from mourning to pursuit, from loss to relentless purpose. You were out there. You were alive. And they would find you.