Chapter Text
Old habits die hard.
That was Morana’s first thought as she sat in the café. A half-empty cup of coffee occupied her right hand as she busied herself with that morning’s edition of Le Monde, eyes tracing the headlines.
She wasn’t really reading the paper, though an outsider would most certainly believe so.
No, the newspaper was there to pace her: a sip of coffee followed by three paragraphs of writing and then a glance outside onto the busy road separating the first row of buildings from the beach. The traffic roared past her despite the early morning hour, though even that paled in comparison to the jet engines as planes flew overhead, some hundred feet above the sea on final approach to the nearby airport. When the thundering above reached its crescendo, Morana lazily glanced up, features pinched in frustration as if annoyed by the disruption.
What she was really looking for were markings and, if she was lucky, registration letters.
The woman had ruffled a number of feathers in Prague and if her intel was correct, one of her targets would be running this way to regroup. Monaco had no airport of its own, relying on helicopters, so Morana had to settled for the next best thing. The closest airport capable of landing private jets.
That, and she looked forward to feeling the warm sun on her skin and the gentle murmur of sea waves against a pebbled beach. Besides, the sip-read-look up routine was growing on her, much easier than the infiltration mission she had undertaken in Prague days prior.
Speaking of which…
Her dark eyes slithered down to the newspaper before her, the corners of her lips twitching at the grainy image of the suspect the police were looking for. Blonde hair cut short stared back at her, eyes obscured by a pair of dark sunglasses - the person just another face in a crowd of tourists.
Grimacing, a scowl crawled onto her features: Morana knew she should have gone with a darker shade of blonde. This one completely washed her out.
But what was done was done; there was nothing she could do about it now. Except remember not to pick such a light wig in the future. And never, under any circumstances, to bleach her hair.
A gust of wind ruffled the long, dark auburn strands of hair which framed her face as a car raced past her on the street, the distant rumblings of a plane alerting her to soon switch to the third step of her routine. Features rearranging into a frown of disapproval, she read through the final lines of the paragraph.
“The perpetrators behind last week’s attack on RLC Holdings in Prague have still not been identified and remain at large. Mr. Ilich, owner of RLC Holdings, which funds research at universities in most of Eastern Europe, has asked for privacy at this moment as he comforts the grieving relatives of the injured and the dead. When interviewed, Mr. Ilich asked the public to pray for the grieving families, promising any form of help they needed would be provided for by him personally.”
How altruistic.
The engine noise now reached its peak and Morana looked up to find a passenger jet flying overhead, the distinct blue and red flag on its tail making it clear it was not what she was looking for. Eyes falling back down, the woman ignored the twinge of disappointment blooming within her.
Morana knew patience was her friend in a situation such as this.
But she had been sitting here for four days in a row now – never in the same café or even the same spot within different cafes. To staff, she was another local, wiling away time with a coffee and a newspaper. But there has been no progress in her investigation; the private jets she had noticed all belonged to celebrities on route to Monaco or nearby Cannes.
Still, she had come this far and her little adventure in Prague had been enough to stir the pot, she was sure of that.
A figure entered her peripheral, dressed in a dark hoodie with a jacket over it. The man stuck out like a sore thumb – too casual and lacking fashion sense to be a local and yet not dressed for the beach weather like a tourist. His clothes were non-descript, devoid of creases which would indicate a well-worn, loved piece of clothing.
Like he had just taken them off a rack or a mannequin from a store, not bothering to even try and make them look lived in.
Morana didn’t react instantly, keeping her chin dipped down as if she was reading, letting her eyes follow him carefully behind her sunglasses. Her fingers twitched around a teaspoon perched on the saucer, pretending to stir her coffee.
The man moved with purpose, doing little to hide the fact he was coming straight towards her, navigating past the other empty tables. Under her breath, the woman cursed herself for having picked an area of the café which was unoccupied by others. If there were others, the possibility of witnesses might have deterred the assassin.
Instead, she was stuck dealing with this on her own.
Slowly, she held the spoon at its neck. Though not the most effective weapon, if Morana jabbed it forcefully enough into his jugular, it should be able to kill him.
Getting away would be the tricky part.
Neutralising the operative – for he was one as everything from his clothing, movements and pace betrayed him as one and not even a good one – was easy. It was always the flight from the crime scene that was rife with chances of being caught. For a split second, Morana was almost disappointed her old mentor had sent someone so sloppy to kill her.
According to her observations of average police response time in this part of the city, the woman would have five minutes before the first officers arrived. She had three options: run out onto the beach, the pavement or out through the back of the café. The back was the quickest route, with the winding alleyways, but she could just as easily be overrun there if the man had backup who knew the city better than her. Pavement was suicide so she didn’t even consider it.
As for the beach… that was the riskiest option.
If she made it past the road and onto the beach, a canal ran underneath the streets all the way to the large public park a few blocks away. If anyone pursued her that far, Morana would be easily lost in the sea of faces there, free to shed a few pieces of clothing, her sunglasses and style her hair just enough to make it to the hotel before disappearing.
The humming of an incoming plane reached her ears, the noise slowly building; the man was only a few meters away now.
Morana gripped the teaspoon tightly, her eyes focusing on the vein in his neck like she could see the blood rushing beneath his skin.
Any moment now.
Just one more step, come on-
“Long time, no see, kid.”
Bucky’s voice was drowned out by the plane overhead as it manoeuvred to line up with its final approach, the man moving to sit opposite her. Her muscles relaxed instantly, the tension draining out of them as her knuckles regained their colour.
The teaspoon clinked against the saucer when she put it back down.
Inclining her head to the side, she gestured to the chair beside her, “You came all this way, old man – at least appreciate the view.”
He grumbled something under his breath; the words lost under the roar of a long-haul passenger jet as he settled in the chair.
“There’s a camera at the back of the café,” she said as he learned back in his chair, “And one some twenty meters down the street to our left. So, keep those sunglasses on.”
Bucky huffed, shaking his head, “Still as sharp as ever, I see.”
Morana didn’t smile, “Have you come for political advice, Mr. Congressmen? If so, you should know I grew up during a civil war-”
“What are you doing, kid?”
Frowning in confusion, she didn’t answer, prompting the man to tap the newspaper before them, “Seems like you’ve been busy.”
“A tragedy, truly,” Morana answered, her voice dripping with practiced empathy, “Poor people.”
Even behind the sunglasses, Bucky didn’t seem amused, “So you’re on what? A little vacation on the French Riviera?”
“It’s a lovely place,” she shrugged, “I recommend it.”
Her eyes darted upwards, catching sight of a small private jet as it turned towards the runway, the whining and whirring of the engines softer than those of the previous planes.
Artificially modified? Or privately upgraded for stealth? The schematics she caught sight of in Prague flashed in her mind, quickly trying to match the specifications to the plane flying overhead.
Gaze darting towards the registration, Morana squinted, trying her best to catch the letters.
G… R… Y…
The plane was gone, too far away for her to read the rest, the registration growing blurrier.
Morana cursed under her breath, her nose twitching with displeasure: she would have to doublecheck that one later. Somehow.
From beside her, Bucky shifted in his seat; his eyes burned into the side of her skull, intense and heavy.
“You’re hunting someone,” he said quietly.
An amused huff left her, “I’m just enjoying the sunshine and the sea. Nothing wrong with that.”
“Really? Mind telling me why this prolonged European adventure – five years and counting by the way – has been so secretive then, that the FBI, CIA, Interpol, everyone hasn’t had a clue as to where you were?”
Morana gave him an innocent smile, “It’s not a vacation if people can get a hold of you.”
His lips twitching into a scowl, “Five years, Morana. That’s a long time to go no contact.”
A spike of guilt tore through her.
“I needed time,” she said quietly, stiffening under his watchful gaze, suddenly guarded.
“We all needed time,” came the sharp reply, “But not all of us ran away like we were finally free from a cage.”
Morana bristled at that: guilt morphed into frustration. She didn’t expect him to understand the feeling of having a part of her ripped away, the one part which had made her useful. The only part of her which had mattered.
The anger that came with one’s value changing overnight, plummeting until she became nothing more than just another field agent. The pain that came with atoms rearranging within her very being, reordered and pulled apart by some higher power ripping away a part of her she had had since before her tongue could form words properly. The loss of her powers, that bloody mark of something greater, which had been branded into her brain with each completed mission, now clinging to her like a phantom limb.
The fear of being useless.
The warmth of the sun upon her skin suddenly felt blistering, the coffee bitter on her tongue. The bruises purpling on her back in dark blooming splotches ached in that moment irritated by the fabric pulling taut over them, this material causing her skin to itch.
A tired sigh left Bucky, more felt than heard, as her fingers twitched around the teaspoon. Her eyes flickered upwards as another plane flew by.
“Is it so terrible seeing me that you’re contemplating murder?” he joked lightly.
It didn’t land quite like he hoped it would.
“What do you want, Bucky?” Morana turned her head, dark eyes icy behind her sunglasses.
To his credit, he didn’t recoil, “Whatever, or whoever, you’re looking for, going at it alone will only make it more difficult. It’ll take longer and the target might even slip through your fingers due to sheer stubbornness on your end.”
A sharp retort formed on her tongue, begging to be unleashed like a hunting dog on a rabbit’s trail. The sight of a waiter approaching kept the words lodged in her throat however, and she forced a charming smile onto her lips, even as the syllables gnawing into the flesh, ripping it apart under their teeth.
“Bonjour,” Morana greeted the young man, noticing his skittish disposition, “Un café au lait pour moi, s'il vous plaît.”
Then she leaned closer, flashing the waiter a knowing smile, “Et pour lui, un americano.”
Briefly, the waiter glanced Bucky’s way, eyes drifting over his features and nodded. As if having seen something in his face.
“Très drôle,” Bucky said when the young man left.
“I’m glad you agree.”
“I mean it, Morana,” he said, his voice dipping low, “We could help you.”
She raised an eyebrow, “We? That ragged group from New York?”
Bucky paused, “Yeah, them. They’re not a bad group. Could help you with whatever you’re doing.”
Morana eyed him carefully, trying to peer through the dark sunglasses and into the pale eyes underneath. The tint prevented her from seeing anything, her nose twitching in irritation.
There was a catch; there had to be. There always was.
She just couldn’t figure out what.
“What do you want in return?” the woman asked lowly, her words muffled by a speeding motorcycle racing past.
He shifted in his seat, like the silence would make her forget about the other shoe waiting to drop.
It didn’t.
“Out with it,” Morana muttered under her breath, voice icy.
Bucky sighed exasperatedly, finally committing to just placing all his cards on the table, “Come back. Now, before you say-”
“No.”
“-no, just hear me out, will you? I’m not saying you have to join the team or something. Just come for a month or two-”
“A month or two?” she echoed in disbelief, “A team? Surely you can’t believe that. I have eyes, Bucky, and you lot looked as surprised to be called the New Avengers as the public was to find out there was a new superhero group protecting them. I’m in Europe, not Mars; American news does reach us over the Atlantic, you know.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
The words made her tense up; her shoulders raised like hackles on an animal. Eyes glanced towards the road, counting the average distance between the cars driving down the main street.
There was an instinct within her that was yelling at her to shoot up, clamber off the chair and run. It didn’t matter where; Morana just had to move. To go to the beach and into the canal hidden there. To the hotel and the collection of cheap wigs she had in her suitcase the woman had purchase in some backstreet shop in Barcelona. To peel the coloured contacts off her eyes and switch them for green, blue, hazel, anything else.
It had become so easy in the past five years, shedding identities like snakeskin.
New city, new version of herself: that had been the life she had carved out for herself. Running from one country to another, always on the move lest the grief caught up with her, making her falter when she had no choice but to be resolute. Morana couldn’t fail now, not when she was close to finally fulfilling the promise she had made to herself as a child.
Even if the price to pay for it was no longer recognising the reflection staring back at her in the mirror.
“No,” she answered, though the rebuttal sounded hollow to her own ears.
Bucky tilted his head just a degree, enough to show he didn’t believe her, “A month, kid. That’s all I ask.”
“What for?” the words left her before she could stop them, laced with curiosity Morana just couldn’t hide.
“There’s someone on the team. I think he’d benefit from speaking with a person such as yourself.”
Morana scoffed, “Someone broken, you mean.”
“Do you consider yourself broken?”
Another scoff bubbled past her lips, “I hope you didn’t come all this way to play therapist, Bucky.”
“No, I didn’t,” a small smile warmed his features, before he gently sighed, “He’s a good kid, Morana. He just needs a little extra guidance. That’s all.”
“Powers?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t have my powers anymore.”
“I know, but you still have that knowledge and experience of having them. That’s more than any of us have.”
Morana didn’t reply; she chewed on her bottom lip, eyes drifting automatically upward to catch glimpse of a private jet’s registration. Not that it mattered anymore but routine was routine, regardless of how boring or useless it might have seemed.
The madness of it had saved her life on more than one occasion.
But there was only so much she could do as a one-woman team. A sour truth she had to admit to herself and to the man beside her.
When the time came to do what she truly wanted – what that small girl stuck in the bunker had dreamed of – Morana knew she couldn’t do it alone. At least not with a proper, thorough way of gathering the intelligence she needed.
Because once she struck, and she would strike, the moment had to be perfect; she couldn’t afford any mistakes. Morana couldn’t let the moment slip past her fingers like sand, nor could she allow her enemies enough time to lick their wounds clean.
“Besides,” Bucky added, “You owe me.”
Morana’s face fell, brow crinkling in confusion, “What?”
“You heard me,” he replied, voice deceptively casual, “I might have helped you stay under the radar for the past few years. ‘Cause I’m your friend, remember?”
“And how exactly did you do that?” she asked, words thick with scepticism.
He smiled knowingly, “Changed a few city names here and there on official documents, sent them on wild goose chases.”
Her frowned deepened, “You don’t have clearance for that. Who helped you?”
“No one,” his brow furrowed as he continued, voice tinted with offence, “I’m not that computer-illiterate. I know my way around altering intelligence files.”
Eyebrow raising impossibly high, Morana studied him for a long moment: he was lying through his teeth. She just couldn’t quite prove it.
But the woman had a strong theory as to who helped him actually do that.
“Sam helped you.”
A second later, “Sam helped me.”
The edges of her mouth twitched, a soft chuckle bubbling up her lips. It left her, enriching the air around them, hovering above the pair. A reminder of how easy things had once been; a nostalgia-filled memory of how much both had lost.
And for a moment, Prague, the private jet flying overhead, the persistent ache of the bruises hidden beneath her clothes, these all disappeared. Her mind, a slate wiped clean by the easy comfort than came with a friend’s company.
Morana hadn’t even realised how much she missed such a thing; her bones and soul had yearned for something her mind had been too preoccupied to even register she wanted. She needed.
She hungered for.
Would it be so bad then, to take a break? To take just a few weeks and recharge? To remind herself of what life could look like?
“Three weeks,” she said firmly.
Beside her, Bucky perked up, “A whole month.”
Her nose crinkled, “A whole month and all intelligence you have on both RLC Holdings and its associates.”
He paused for a second but relented, “Fine. Do we have a deal?”
Morana turned to face him, a wide grin on her face, one rivalling the Sun with its brightness, “We do.”
She extended her hand out and Bucky reached out to shake it, a satisfied tone to his voice, “Welcome to the team, kid.”