Chapter Text
Making a deal with an assassin probably was not his smartest move but it wasn't even the dumbest thing he'd done in the last 72 hours so he'd pretty much just settled on the fact that this whole week was probably a write off at this point. He found himself sighing as he listened to Steve tell him that this was so far off of their plan that they wanted to send in a tac team for backup. Immediately both he and Natasha had refused it. Neither one of them played well with others but he was worse for it than she was.
She worked with others more than he did even if she did prefer to work alone, she had allies and friends whereas him? He was solely a solo act except when he worked with her or he had to work with Barton and Bobbi. Occasionally, he worked with Steve or with Logan but aside from that Bucky Barnes preferred to go in alone because he knew that if he got his dumb ass killed it'd be his own fault but if he got someone else killed in the process he'd have to live with that.
He lived with enough guilt.
It was a clear night overhead, the stars were bright but there wasn't much of a moon so the natural light was dim at best which was probably for the best; the comms fell silent after about 20 minutes as they both watched Ana make her way into the facility, making her way past the guards almost lazily. She didn't look remotely phased which Bucky found amusing. She reminded him of Natasha when Natasha was younger. She had the same reckless attitude way back when.
She still did on occasion, she had this indifference and it bothered him. She didn't care what happened to her if she got the job done in the process, she'd take a bullet gladly if it meant that she at least finished what she'd started first; he wished that she'd believe her life was worth more but so far, she really didn't. She had once. She had started to believe that she could be made whole but that seemed to have been taken away right along with them.
He had the same problem though and he knew it; he couldn't lecture her when he knew that his own shortcomings matched hers almost to perfection. He didn't much care what happened to him anymore either. He had, back when he'd had her he cared very much because he had something to go home to, and now? Now all he had was the job and he'd thrown himself into it with such fervor that it was bordering on stupid and he knew it.
Steve had told him it was enough times but he didn't care. The job was all he had now. He needed something - anything - to focus on that wasn't the fact that he'd failed.
"I still don't trust her," Natasha commented offhandedly.
Bucky looked over at her and shrugged. He agreed. He didn't trust her either because all she really cared about was money but they were out of options; they'd blown themselves because they'd wanted to try to save the kid. They had to find a way to salvage this that wasn't an all-out assault because casualties were one thing but children? That was another matter entirely He wasn't that cold. Natasha wasn't that cold.
Ana wasn't that cold.
"We don't have much of a choice right now," he sounded about as thrilled about it as Natasha did.
He heard Ana huff.
"Y'know, I could just leave you two to it and not help, right? I play nice and I get what I want, you two however? You're screwed if I don't help you. You can't get inside this place without me," she sounded arrogant.
It made Natasha angry and Bucky could see it.
"You can hit her later," he mouthed.
She glared at him. She wanted to do a whole hell of a lot worse than that and he knew it. He couldn't blame her of course, Ana had taken a shot at her and while it had been a sloppy shot at best it was still a shot and he could see why that'd piss her off. He'd be the same if it had been him, but she'd taken a shot at him before too. He knew she was far better than she'd let on last night. She hadn't intended to hurt anyone which was interesting. She could have.
Maybe the fact that it was him had given her pause.
"No, we can't but you need us just as much as we need you. If he finds out we're not dead, we both know you are so how about we just play nice and we can work out who owes who what later?" he replied, trying not to sound as irate as he felt.
Focus. The mission was more important.
He fell silent after that and so did Ana, at least until she began to converse with their target and both he and Natasha listened in on the conversation; she reported them dead and he spoke to Ana like she was a good little dog that had brought her master a bone. Bucky could imagine quite vividly how pissed off she'd be right now. He knew Ana well enough to know that she hated being treated like that, she was no one's little errand girl. He heard her click her tongue.
"You owe me extra for that." She was trying to keep her tone even.
Their target agreed. Bucky reached for the binoculars that were next to him and he watched through a very dirty window that didn't offer much by way of clarity but it was at least eyes inside, sort of. He watched as their target walked over to what appeared to be a safe room at the back of the room and then the door opened.
"You have three of them?" Ana spoke, her calm was quickly fading.
"Ana, breathe," Bucky reminded her. She couldn't react.
She could not blow this.
"Little mutants make good money on the black market," Their target commented, sounding a little too indifferent for Bucky's liking.
From the look on Natasha's face she didn't like it either. She reached for the rifle and he placed his hand on the barrel and shook his head. There was no way in hell she could shoot, not now. Not yet.
"You can take that shot as soon as I get inside and get those kids somewhere safe." He'd decided on going in alone.
He hadn't told her that he'd decided on going in alone until now and she let out a short laugh and shook her head in a definitive No. She wasn't going to sit idly by on the sidelines and let any of this happen without being in there to help. It wasn't anything beyond her wanting to see a mission through to the end and he knew that but-- He sighed and shook his head.
But nothing. But wasn't a factor.
"I'm coming in with you. Screw your protective shit. I don't need you to protect me." She yanked the gun back.
The quick movement caused friction against his hand. He knew that she was right of course, she'd never needed anyone to protect her but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to try, it didn't mean that he wasn't going to have her back no matter what happened and he didn't care if she knew that or not. He didn't care if she wanted him to or not.
"Do you have a buyer?" Ana spoke, snapping them both back to their focus.
"Mm, yes and no. Our Japanese friend pulled out but there are other options." Both Bucky and Natasha knew those other options were nothing good.
They knew just what was out there for kids that could have a use to someone.
"You never said anything about kids." Ana was quickly losing her composure.
Natasha took three swift shots and the guards out front went down right after she shot out the security camera. She was always quick, she wasted no time at all and she was one of the best marksmen in the world. She could hit shots that others would have considered impossible but the impossible was just another day at the office for people like them. The front was clear.
"What does it matter? You get paid either way. You weren't complaining about morals when you killed the Interpol agent," he muttered, sounding half-amused at Ana's seemingly abruptly developed moral compass.
"He wasn't a kid, asshole." That was it. She'd snapped.
Bucky heard the shots over the comms and he cursed in Russian to himself. It was a distraction that he didn't need because Natasha was already gone. A string of profanities broke his lips as he vaulted down the side of the building and joined his rather pissed off partner on her crusade.
"Please tell me you're alive," he was talking to Ana now.
"Yup. Four more guards down. You're facing eight on the way in, then you've got four to the right and three more to the left before you enter into here. Code for the door is 182774. Move." And then he heard the telltale sound if distortion as she pulled the comms unit from her ear.
As she'd said, there were a total of 15 guards on the inside, Natasha dispatched a few with far more brutality than she needed to; a few clean headshots would have done it but she'd made a purpose of snapping necks anyway. She was pissed.
By the time they'd gotten through the door both of them were angry as hell and about ready for all of this to be over. Ana had a gun on their target and three children huddled together in the corner of their makeshift prison.
"Get the kids." He looked at Natasha as he spoke; he didn't want her losing her cool.
She wanted to argue and he could see it but she wanted to keep them safe even more and so, his orders won out. Not kids. Never kids. Kids were a surefire way to set something off inside of Natasha Romanov that few other things could trigger. Hurting him had once been one of those things.
"Buyers names, now." Bucky pointed his gun at the mans head.
"All three of you are dead," he laughed.
"You have two guns on you and no backup so uh, I'd say your math is a little off," Ana replied, taking out his knee with her foot. Her hand closed around his throat as he fell to his knees and she pressed her gun against his temple again. "You heard the man: Buyers names," she pressed.
"I'm dead either way," the man muttered through gritted, bloody teeth.
He was right, he was. Ana had no intention of letting him walk out of here but he suspected Natasha wasn't either. See, the two of them had more in common than either of them thought.
"Then you may as well make your last actions here on this earth something half worth redeeming yourself," Bucky glared at him then.
"What do I care about redemption?" He laughed. He didn't seem to grasp what was going on.
"Oh buddy, you really don't understand the shit you're in, do you?" Ana was growing tired of his crap.
"No, the three of You don't. Me? I'm just one cog in a goddamn big machine and you're just a minor inconvenience. Even if you make it out of here alive - Big if, by the way - you'll be dead soon enough and I have no incentive at all to talk to you. I talk to you, my bosses kill me if you don't have the chance to first." He was right, he had absolutely no incentive.
But Bucky hadn't any intel on his bosses, either. They were in a predicament.
"Oh, whatever." Natasha rose her own gun and fired straight between his eyes.
"We'll get what we need from the computers and his cell," she shrugged.
There it was again, that recklessness that Bucky was quickly growing to hate.
"Nice shot, Red." Ana complimented as she made her way over to the computer console.
The facility was screaming with alarms and if that hadn't distracted then maybe he'd have noticed the two men stood on the catwalk above them. One had all three of them on their knees within seconds - A mutant Bucky guessed from the screaming pain in his head - and the other? Three shots. Three. Bucky took a shot to the stomach, Natasha to her chest and Ana in the bottom of her neck. His hand raised and he fired at both of them before he felt the blood fill his mouth and he watched the eldest of the three kids run over to put pressure on Natasha's chest wound, the youngest - the girl - put her hands over Ana's neck and he spoke shakily over the comms.
"We're down. We need a medevac." Now.
He remembered absolutely nothing until he woke up at SHIELD hooked up to machines with a ripping pain across his stomach and Steve Rogers sat at his bedside looking worried. He released a shaky breath as he fought to sit up; Steve put his hand on his arm and stopped him immediately.
"I wouldn't if I were you, the bullet missed your artery by millimeters. The repair work was extensive," Steve warned gently.
"Natasha and Ana?" Bucky asked weakly.
"Natasha took a shot through her lung, she was in bad shape. Massive internal bleeding just like you had, but she's alive. She's not awake just yet, we're keeping her sedated until we're sure she can breathe on her own." He could tell Steve hadn't wanted to tell him that his soon after he woke up.
"Ana? How's Ana?" Bucky asked again.
"Alive. Barely. By the time we got there she'd lost a lot of blood. If the kid hadn't literally had a hold of her artery she'd be dead."
Good, all three of them had survived.
"And the kids?" he questioned sounded quite naturally worried.
"Safe, they're with Xavier," Steve replied soothingly.
Thank fuck. It hadn't entirely been a bust after all.
"Do we know who the two others were? I don't think I hit them when I shot..." The pain seeped into his voice. Literally. His body felt like it was on fire.
"Don't worry about that." Steve squeezed his arm and offered his best friend a smile.
"The hell I'm not worrying! They nearly killed us." And they'd gotten away.
"We've got access to the footage and we're running them through every database we have. If they're in any system we'll have information soon enough," Steve sighed then.
He wished that Bucky would just rest. He knew all too well that the next thing out of his best friends mouth was going to be a request to go and see Natasha and so, Steve shook his head gently and glanced around at the machines.
"You need to stay here and rest," he warned. Whether or not Bucky would listen was another matter entirely.
"I need to see if she's okay." He could hear the pain in Bucky's voice.
"She isn't. Not yet. She will be, she's tough. You're the only one out of the three of you conscious right now." He knew what Steve was saying: There was no use going just yet.
There was. There really was. He could be there if she woke up so that she didn't have to wake up in a room alone with no one around her that gave a fuck.
"I promise you if anything changes with either of them you'll be the first to know."
He didn't want to accept that, he didn't want to accept that the only thing that he could do was stay here and heal when the love of his life was unconscious in some room on this endless corridor of hustle and bustle with people that didn't know her. He couldn't stand to think that she'd wake up alone, she didn't deserve to wake up alone; she'd sat by his bedside when he'd been almost killed and she hadn't left. Not even for a goddamn second though he knew people had told her that she should.
"She stayed with me." He fought for strength. He really did.
"I know, but only one of you was hurt then. You need to heal. You're no good to her if you're like this." Steve was dead set against him moving.
"If anything happens to her--" he replied stubbornly.
"Then I'll come and get you myself." Steve could tell that it wasn't going over well.
He watched the way that Bucky fought a war inside of his head, he watched the shifts in his expression and the way that his hands balled into fists at his side so that he could focus on something; he watched the way he tried to hide the pain on his face. Steve Rogers released a gentle sigh as he patted Bucky's arm.
"You should know that she had a seizure when she came out of surgery..." Steve spoke carefully.
"What the hell happened?" This wasn't helping. This was making him more worried.
"Blood clot." Steve flicked blue eyes to Bucky's face then.
"They managed to fix it but... It took a lot out of her. She was already weak." Shit. Shit.
"Buck, you gotta let her rest. I know you love her and you wanna make sure she's okay but she needs to rest. She needs to get better. You need to let her heal. If anything changes, I'll tell you. I'll get you when she wakes up but right now she's not in a good place. Her or your friend. Both of them were hurt bad. Both of them need to heal and so do you."
Fuck. Fuck all of this.
She shouldn't have come with him. She'd be safe if she hadn't come with him.
Naturally, Bucky Barnes blamed himself.