A/N: Amidst my adventures through the interwebs, I noticed there was a distinct lack of non-slash Winter Soldier fanfics. This is my remedy to that situation. :) Enjoy!

"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December."

~ J.M. Barrie

"You have got to be kidding me," Avery muttered as she slapped her hands on the car's dashboard in aggravation.

This was the third time this week that her beat-up Camaro had broken down on her way home from work. When she had received the used car for her sixteenth birthday a couple years back, she had been thrilled. She had spent about an hour just admiring it in all its paint-chipped glory. Now, however, she had to pause a minute to dramatically question the sky, Why me?

Tripping clumsily in her annoyance, Avery threw the door open, careful to watch for any cars speeding by that might clip her. Traffic in D.C. could be brutal, and crazy drivers were an all-too-common thing to encounter. She traipsed around to the front of the car and yanked the hood open, only to be greeted with a face-full of steam.

"Ugh."

She took a quick step back and waited for the smoke to clear. Leaning over the open cavity, Avery looked around a moment, then quickly decided she had no idea what she was doing. She suppressed a bitter laugh at her own incompetence before pulling her cell phone out to call her mom.

Avery closed the hood and leaned up against the car as she listed to the phone ringing on the other end. She ventured a glance around, and noted with discomfort that her car had chosen to break down in one of the more sketchy parts of the city. The fact that the sun was beginning to set did not make her feel any better.

"Your call has been forwarded to an automated answering machine. The number you dialed is not available. Please leave a message at the tone."

Avery heaved a frustrated sigh before composing herself to leave the message. Her hand wandered up to get tangled in her tight brown curls, a habit she had when she was nervous.

"Mom, it's me. The car broke down again, I need you to come get me. I'm on Southeast Capitol Street, right next to the Thai restaurant. And please hurry, because I'm a little freaked out. See you soon?"

Avery hung up, and noted with distaste that she had somehow gotten oil on her jeans. She looked around again, not even attempting to brush it off. To her left, a handful of men sat on the steps of an apartment. A few glanced her way, but they seemed to not have any interest in her as they talked among themselves. On her other side, she was greeted by multiple storefronts that lined the road.

What felt like hours passed. Avery didn't dare move from her spot on the hood of the car, fearing that her mom would drive right by if she wasn't visible. It was getting darker and darker. The traffic had thinned out, and the men she had seen on the steps earlier had gone inside. Avery gnawed at her nails, and again looked furtively around, still nervous about her predicament.

She picked up her cell to try calling her mom again. As she entered the passcode to access her contacts, a metal glint in the corner of her eye caught her attention.

She looked up, and zeroed in on a haggard man about twenty feet away, stumbling his way across the street. He looked slightly dazed, as if he had just been in a fight. Brown hair hung in his face, and he wore a military style jacket. A pistol was strapped to his thigh. But all of this Avery noticed later. For the first thing she saw was a gleaming metal arm that hung at his side.

Her eyes widened as he flexed his metallic fingers. It was no ordinary prosthetic-it moved and worked so well that, for a moment, Avery thought he just had some kind of tin foil sheet wrapped around his arm. But as she watched, she heard a mechanical whirring that resembled a broken piece of machinery. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that the metallic arm was dented and cracked in a few places. His good hand clutched the upper part of the arm, as if to keep it from malfunctioning.

His foot dragged behind him as he walked, and even from a distance, Avery thought she could see blood seeping through his pant leg at the thigh. Something was very wrong.

She was so absorbed in watching the strange man that she barely noticed as a green van came speeding down the street. The force of the car ripping by caused her to leap off the hood of her Camaro. Her stomach lurched. The van was heading right for the man in the street, who had become painfully slow in his attempts to cross. It showed no sign of stopping or changing course.

Before she could even think, she was running toward the man, yelling, "LOOK OUT! HEY! THERE'S A C-"

The man's head jerked up. His eyes locked onto the car speeding toward him.

Faster than Avery could contemplate, he catapulted off the ground, flipping in mid-air over the van. Time slowed. His metal fingers scraped the roof as it sped under him. He landed again in the street, cracking the pavement with the force of his descent.

His shoulders rose and feel once, twice, before he looked up toward the direction of the voice that had warned him.

Avery stood, wide-eyed, almost in the middle of the street, mouth hanging open. Her curls whipped around her face in the wake of the van, which was continuing its course at breakneck speed down the street. Their eyes locked. The man slowly stood up, never breaking his stare.

His eyes were cold, clear, and jarring. Normally, their shade of blue would have been thought of as beautiful, but to Avery, they were unnervingly empty. No trace of emotion flickered across his face.

A tingle at the base of her spine gave her the feeling that this man was someone who should not be seen. He belonged in the shadows, an echo, a deadly whisper. She fought the urge to turn and run away.

A car horn sounded right behind her, making her jump about fifty feet into the air. She spun and saw that her mom had finally arrived. Avery waved in distracted relief. She turned back to where the man had stood.

But he had already gone.