for bucky.

[marriageable]

[ She should really be heading home.

It’s the same thought she’s been having for the past hour — everybody else had filed out long ago, the hour hand on the wall ticking past eight. The museum had been closed three hours past already; she was sure to hear it from her mother for being late again to supper. It was not like Daphne to be late anywhere, save for the acceptable tardiness when one was being fashionable, or giving the host time to freshen up.

But she likes her job, and she really doesn’t mind the tasks handed to her; she’s the youngest of the curators, after all, eager to prove her worth.

Even if not absorbed in her work, she would think anything of a creak, or a shuffling noise in the distance. Maintenance came in at night, and old buildings make all sorts of noises.

None of it registers, until she shoulders her purse and flicks the lights off. A rustle, followed by a thud. In the dim hallway, she casts her eyes over toward the open door to the director’s office.

Something stills her from moving forward, but she calls out anyways, because it’s nothing, naturally, just another weekday night — ]

I’m heading out now, Dr. Porter. I’ll see you in the morning.

Comments

[ostavil]

( Dr. Porter isn't there. His body is, the muffled thud that Daphne heard through the door, but he is no longer alive and the Winter Soldier's mission is complete. No witnesses, no complications. He kicks the wooden door of the office open (he had entered through the ceiling panels) and once he's in the hallway, he smells something. It's floral, warm like jasmine - omega. He hasn't smelled one in decades because HYDRA had been very careful about not letting him getting a whiff of one in all this time, knowing it would likely derail his programming.

The programming is unwinding now, leaving only instinct in its wake. He stalks toward the scent and finds it - a small woman with red hair. )

Come here. Now.