"If it means something to you, fight for it."

NADINE

Taj escaped, but his arrival to Wakanda was a failure thanks to Steve warning the king to keep an eye on him. They apprehended Taj the second he arrived at the border, so at the very least, whatever mission Taj had been sent to do had been brought to an quick end.

Fast forward a week and they all decided to split up. Sam, Fong, and Emilia stayed at the villa watching Kristina and Dante, while Natasha and Steve went to search for answers in regards to The Bratva and whatever it was they were planning with the sphere. Meanwhile, Nadine, Bucky, and Kaia were searching for said sphere, tracking The Hand's locations in hopes of getting it back. So far, they'd been to two locations, and both had been a failure. The last one almost backfired on them with Kaia almost getting stabbed, if it wasn't for Bucky using Nadine's sniper rifle.

She was finishing up with said rifle when there was a soft knock on the door, followed by Kaia quickly entering the little hotel room, duffle bag in hand.

"How are you?" she asked, her eyes scanning for new injuries. Surprisingly, Nadine had been hit very little during this last mission, unlike Kaia's bandaged forehead.

"I'm fine," Nadine replied, giving her a shrug. The ones she sustained from Dante subsided in it's majority, but the horrible feeling still lingered. She doubted she'll recover from that any time soon.

The French woman nodded once, unconvinced, but not wanting to push it. She liked that about Kaia; the woman knew when to prod for answers, and when to just drop the situation entirely. "I cleaned these up."

Kaia placed the bag on the bed, unzipping it and pulling out a suit. Nadine's suit, the one given to her by SHIELD when she was an agent, the one she'd stuffed into the depths of the armory and didn't plan on wearing again. Until this past week, that was.

Nadine stared at the grey sleeves and red detailing that contrasted with the black, reminiscing the memories that accompanied it. Her last mission before SHIELD's fall had been a simple one. It involved a boy on the run, and she simply helped get him to a safe location with papers and a new home. Fairly simple, easy, and the boy settled quickly into his new life. Nadine couldn't say the same thing about the rest of her life, though.

Throughout her life, she'd played many roles: a daughter, a mercenary, a student, a spy... She'd also been a victim, as she came to realize after she started at SHIELD Academy. It was easy for her to lose herself in the roles and the aliases that came with them; she'd been dubbed chaos bringer, cherry bomb, the wraith. There came a time when she had too many aliases and roles to play. When SHIELD fell, she finally shed all the personas and adopted her final identity: Nadine Madaki, mercenary. And for once, she felt almost complete.

Almost.

Nadine's fingers traced the red collar which she used to cover up the lower half of her face during missions, the SHIELD logo on its sleeve nowhere in sight. "You know, you should've left this back in Maricota."

"Don't pretend like it was not a good idea," Kaia replied tersely, pulling out some more clothes onto the bed. These were black and grey and bigger in size, made for Bucky specifically. "Give these back to your lover when he comes back with the food."

Nadine rolled her eyes at the term. Apart from the fact that they've been busy with finding the damned sphere, there still seemed to be a lot of hesitance between them, especially in the physical aspect of their relationship. "I never asked you where you got these."

"I had it made a month ago, when I realized his stay was becoming something more permanent." She placed the clothes back where they belonged, and set the bag on the corner of the room. Despite her cool demeanor, Nadine could see she was trying to distract herself.

"Kaia," Nadine called. The woman looked at her, eyes full of fear and betraying her stoic gaze. "You don't have to pretend."

"I'm scared," Kaia admitted, her long, thin hands getting lost in her thick hair as she massaged her scalp. It was rare that she'd wear it without any protective hairstyles or wigs -her way of changing her identity- but it wasn't easy to forget how beautiful she looked with her natural, dark hair.

Nadine was scared too, but then her mind flashed to Dante's cold eyes. She couldn't admit it. "I know."

"Taj may be a pain, but he is a brother to me. He has filled the void that Adelaide left."

Adelaide, her sister. The one murdered because of her father's greed. She never learned the details; it was a topic that was off limits to speak about because it brought Kaia too much sorrow.

"And Dante, mon dieu..." Her eyes were brimmed with tears, but she rubbed her hands over them to stop the tears from falling. Kaia didn't like being emotional, so she tended to hide it. When it came to Dante, though, he was her weakness, even if she didn't like to admit it. Unfortunately for her, it was pretty obvious.

"He cares about you too, you know," Nadine muttered softly, which earned her a scowl from Kaia. "I know you hate talking about it, but I've seen the way he looks at you."

"He rejected me because he felt like he was betraying Yuna and Mateo. Why do you think he left for Italy?"

Yeah, that sounded like Dante.

"I'm sorry."

Kaia waved a dismissive hand, as if she didn't care. She did, but her pride prevented her from admitting  it. "I am not going to wallow over his rejection. I know my worth. But I would rather he reject me a thousand times over if it means he is doing it out of his own free will."

Nadine wanted to say something, but the door opening interrupted her thoughts. Bucky walked in with a bag that filled the air with different scents, like onions.

"Okay, I brought some meat and some kofte. I wanted to bring some soup but I think it would have spilled all over probably," he said as he carefully placed the bag on the small coffee table across the room, leaving the door open behind him. For someone who was considered lethal, he seemed to forget how to lay low. It was actually amusing.

When he finally turned towards them, his light smile disappeared immediately as he noticed Kaia's depressed demeanor. "Everything alright?"

"Everything's fine, Soldat. I'm heading out. If we are to die by the Bratva's gun, might as well enjoy a bit of Istanbul. Do not wait up."

"Kaia-" Nadine called as she stood, but Kaia ignored her. She took something from the bag of food and headed out.

And just like that, Kaia was gone.

"Okay," Bucky drawled. "Did I interrupt something?"

Nadine didn't even know where to start. "It's complicated."

Sighing, Bucky settled himself on the bed, which Nadine was quick to imitate. His smile quickly appeared as he saw her face. "Hey."

"Hey," Nadine replied, chuckling softly.

"How're you holding up?" he asked, his fingers tracing her bandaged hand. Her palm was healing pretty well, and though Fong advised to let the wound breathe so it could scar, she still left it in a bandage during the mission so it would be protected.

"My injuries won't stop me."

"It's not the injuries I'm worried about," he replied softly, almost like she was a ticking time bomb. She didn't how to feel about that. "You need to get your head clear, doll."

He was right. Her body may be healing, but her brain still felt like it'd endured a hurricane. All she could think about was Taj and Dante, brainwashed and ready to kill at Kristina's command, and whether or not they could find the very thing that could reverse it before anyone else gets their hands on it. There was a big part of her that was terrified of the implications of never finding the sphere. Then there was another part that dreaded the idea of it being used at a bigger scale. The Bratva, The Hand, hell, even the U.S. Government... she didn't trust any of them with it.

"What if we can't find the sphere?" she blurted out, her mind working overdrive now that she opened that can of worms. "They'll be stuck like that forever and then there's the fact that anyone could get it and use it for something far far worse. Can you imagine a president using it? Like at the U.N.? God, the international implica-"

"-Dina... Dina, look at me." The bed shifted with his weight as he moved closer, his fingers delicately brushing her hair out of the way. "Hey, everything's going to be fine. We're going to be fine."

His hand rested on her cheek, and she couldn't resist closing her eyes. The small gesture seemingly made all of her worries go away. It was sort of frightening how easily Nadine stepped into this new phase in their relationship and even more frightening how comforting it felt to just lay there next to him.

And Bucky called her Dina. As far as she could remember, he'd never called her that. It felt like another piece that just fit.

"What are you thinking about?" Bucky asked, prompting Nadine to open her eyes again. Her breathing was normal now, but her heart rate picked up every time she made eye contact with him.

"Nothing, I just, I like how you call me Dina," she said, his thumb caressing her cheek. He would be the death of her, probably. "Do you want to do something?Just to get our minds off of everything?"

"Depends, I mean, if your idea's to rob a bank, I'll pass," he drawled. If Bucky was surprised by her sudden change of topic, he didn't show it.

"I was thinking about the pool."

His brows pinched together in confusion as he watched her sit up, and he mimicked the notion to look at her. She smirking. "But we don't have-oh, oh."

He made it really difficult not to laugh.

"You up for some reckless adventuring, Barnes?"

_____________________________

A/N: What's this? Another random months later update? Oh la la dearie me I can't believe it. It's a Christmas miracle!

Hey guys lol, it's been a while. Y'all are used to this already so I'm not even gonna say anything lmao

You know how it is, writer's block, procrastination, a deep need for therapy. It's all there!

Seriously though, I'm sad that I've been so burnt out. I do love this story and want to see it to the end. It's just so difficult when your brain and life get in the way of it.

No matter, I hope you enjoyed this chapter :) it's actually a predecessor to one of my favorite chapters ever. I hope Nadine and Bucky don't bore y'all now that they're pretty much together, even if they still haven't figured out labels.

But damn, I can't believe that there's legit a few chapters left? Say it aint so! Maybe I'll finally get to the end come next year.

We'll see lmao

Also! If any of y'all are interested in knowing what Nadine's suit looks like, it looks roughly like this:

Big thanks to ororotchalla for showing me this doll maker game lol

Thank you guys again for your patience and for making this story so wildly popular. I can't believe it has like 150K views???? Pretty dope if you ask me! So thank you, thank you for not giving up on it, and thank you so much for giving it a chance. I'm eternally grateful for anyone who even reads this.

Happy holidays to you all, and see you soon!