Bucharest was just another city. Another hole-in-the-wall apartment with peeling paint. Another day spent walking streets that never felt like his. Bucky Barnes was a ghost wearing skin—half-remembered fragments bouncing through his head like broken film reels. A face here, a voice there, blood on his hands he couldn't wash away. He lived as a shell, too hollow to be alive, too stubborn to die.

Until the coffee shop. It was supposed to be simple. Order black coffee. Pay. Leave. But when the barista's hand slipped, scalding liquid spilling across his jacket and clothing, something cracked inside him. He should have walked away—angry, cold, detached—but instead stood frozen, watching the panic in her eyes as she stammered apologies, fumbling napkins, cheeks burning with embarrassment.

It was in that moment that it happened. For the first time in decades, the programming shifted. Not kill. Not assassinate. Not destroy. Protect. Protect her. It clicked into place, a command in his brain that would never again shut off. A new mission that led him to move into the apartment directly below hers, memorizing the rhythm of her days and nights. Listening through walls. Bugging her apartment. Following her every step.

When a man put his hands on her, Bucky fixed it. Now that man rests at the bottom of a lake, drilled full of holes so he'll never float back up. No one is looking for him. No one will ever find him. Because Bucky made sure of it. That's what protection looks like. That's what love looks like. And Bucky Barnes has never failed a mission.

But watching isn't enough. Guarding from the outside isn't enough. So he strikes in the dead of night, slipping through her bedroom window with practiced silence. A small injection of lorazepam ensures she won't wake as he lifts her soft, pliant form in his enhanced arms. The drive is long, every mile between her and that filthy city feels like cleansing. By the time he lays her down again, they are nowhere anyone could ever reach. Safe. Hidden. His.