Winter's Angel

A Fallen Angel

December 21, 2019

Sitting in a little bistro in midtown he was glancing over the menu the waitress had given him. Bucky glanced at his watch for the time. He was ready for this date to be over and it hadn't even begun yet. Sighing, he looked down at it again for the sixth time in two minutes. She was twenty minutes late. If she wasn't here in the next five minutes he was leaving. He shouldn't have let Sam convince him to start a Tinder profile. None of the women Sam had helped Bucky pick had worked out. The dates never went past the first one and he usually made up a fake Avenger emergency to leave halfway through.

He was lost in thought of what he was gonna do when he got back to the Tower when he thought he noticed a familiar head of distinctive white blonde hair. No, it couldn't be her, Aurelia was still in Asgard on her honeymoon. Besides this woman was taller and her hair was cropped to her shoulders. He could only see her from the side, but the way she walked and carried herself was drastically different. This woman walked like she was dancing on air. Lia was graceful, but this woman seemed like she was constantly moving to music only she could hear. He continued to watch her until she was swallowed by the crowd and out of his sight.

"Sorry! Sorry, I'm here." His date quickly sat down and dropped her purse next to her feet. Her sudden appearance startled him. Usually, he was very aware of his surroundings, but seeing the woman who looked like Lia had distracted him. Sitting up straighter in his chair Bucky gave his date a small forced smile.

"It's alright. It happens to the best of us." For the life of him, he couldn't remember her name. Kirsten or Krista..not remembering his date's name didn't bode well for this being a successful afternoon. It didn't matter in the end though, she wasn't Lia. No one compared to her.

Aurelia was the reason why he forced himself to come on these pointless dates. Because he was still in love with someone he couldn't ever have. Aurelia Stanislov, well Rogers now. He had met and fallen in love with her almost six years ago while he'd been on the run from Hydra. They had only been together for less than a month, but that hadn't stopped him from falling head over heels in love with her in that short amount of time.

Hydra had eventually found him and in doing so, had found her. Lia had been kidnapped, tortured, given a serum similar to his and Steve's and experimented on until they had unlocked her mutant genes. Then they wiped her and turned her into an assassin like him.

He had been tricked into believing Alexander Pierce had her killed and then shoved back into cryo to relive her death over and over. When he woke up he'd been wiped and told to train her. Each not knowing the other was who they were. The next time Bucky had seen her it was five years later and she had to deal with the lie told to her by Pierce.

He'd told her that Bucky had gone out and recruited her specifically to be a part of Hydra and had never loved her. Lia's reaction to seeing Bucky again had been to kill him. Hell he didn't blame her. In fact he'd offered up his life for her to take if that was what it would take for him to make amends, but she didn't in the end.

Bucky had learned that Lia had been rescued and fallen in love with his best friend, Steve Rogers. What he didn't know was that when he had come to help clear Bucky's name after the UN bombing was that Lia had been pregnant with their daughter. Having been branded a criminal Steve had been on the run with Bucky and the other Avengers who had sided with him and hadn't been able to get into contact with her during that time. Feeling betrayed twice over she had given up hope and fled to Asgard. There she found out she was pregnant with Katya and decided to stay until two months ago. A series of events had led to Lia and Steve to be reunited and getting married nearly four weeks ago.

Not able to be with Lia and not wanting to ruin his friendship with Steve, Bucky's bright idea had been to get out there and start dating. This is how he found himself across from Kaitlyn. Listening to her go on and on about her job as an Instagram model, whatever the hell that was. He really tried to seem interested, but he couldn't do it. Discreetly as he could, Bucky pulled out his cell phone and texted Sam SOS. Two minutes later his phone started to ring. Taking his phone back out of his pocket he glanced down and then up at the woman across from him.