Haven [Marvel | Bucky Barnes]

Chapter 19

As soon as she was standing inside the lobby of the Joint Counter Terrorist Centre one very large lapse in logic hit Iris.

She couldn't just walk in and ask to see the Winter Soldier.

There was no way in hell they'd let someone like her—a virtual nobody waltzing in off the street—see him. Her stomach felt like it dropped to her shoes at the realization.

Nearly feeling faint under the weight of her own foolishness, she tried with as much composure as she could manage to find somewhere to regroup. Off to the side, just past the front desk, there was a modest seating area with pale grey chairs and couches arrayed around a glass and stone terrarium bursting with slender, leafy plants. But nearly as soon as she sat, bitter tears were threatening. For the first time since leaving DC, it occurred to her that she might not be able to find a way to reunite with James...that she might never see him again. With everything he'd done, whether he'd been forced to it or not? They were never going to let him go. The realization of the very real possibility that the man she loved was about to be lost to her forever hit her like a kick in the chest, fear and despair rising up in her throat like bile, choking her. She fought to push the feelings aside. She needed to figure out what to do next.

She had to do something.

Already she had gotten a few odd looks from just standing frozen near the entrance when she'd realized the flaw in her plan. She couldn't afford more. She needed to look like she belonged, like she had a real—or rather, more widely acceptable—reason to be here.

Taking a deep steadying breath she forced herself to relax, and ignore the panicked little voice in the back of her mind that said she never should have left DC and the anguished voice that was sure she was never going to see him again. Thus far, her first real venture beyond the boundaries of DC was not going quite so well as she hoped... This might have been a bad idea. It certainly wasn't very well thought out on her part. She was so far out of her comfort zone she had long since left behind any scale to even chart the feeling on.

But she was here now, and there was no going back. Not until she found him. Not until she knew he was okay.

Pulling out her phone to look at the blank screen, she hoped she'd look like just another agent or employee or whatever waiting for a friend or colleague to appear. As she did, she let herself glance at the TVs situated discreetly high on the walls. That wasn't the best of ideas either; each one seemed to be playing news stories about the Vienna Bombing, James' capture or footage of the now infamous Freeway Fight against Captain America years ago in DC. Iris felt sick all over again.

But then something else in the news cycle caught her attention, reminding her of one glaring and potentially crucial fact that she'd nearly forgotten: James hadn't been taken into custody alone. He'd been in the company of Steve Rogers...

...and Sam Wilson.

Sam.

And apparently neither one of the two Avengers had been formally arrested.

And they had been brought to Berlin too.

Iris' heart began thrumming excitedly at the implications and possibilities now laid out before her. It dimmed a little when several long minutes passed without any response to her messages followed by several more that seemed to drag on forever. But she wasn't about to give up on Sam just yet.

As calmly as she could, Iris stood and retraced her steps back toward the front desk.

"Excuse me?" It took the receptionist a moment to look up, a congenial look appearing on her face as she noticed Iris standing there before greeting her politely back in English. Iris barely even registered what she said, eager for the woman to stop speaking so she could make her case.