Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

November 2003, Pierce

“We need to be proactive about our research, not just let things we don't understand collect dust on a shelf.” Alexander Pierce watched Fury carefully for his reaction.

“It's my experience that things we don't understand sometimes are best left that way.” Fury eyeballed him back.

“I have the backing of the World Security Council on this one. We can't afford to let opportunities be wasted.” Pierce thought back over the reports he had been reading of the uses for tesseract power over 50 years previous. Technology had moved on and Howard had allowed this to be hidden away all that time.

Fury sighed. He looked out of the window into the distance, then back at Pierce. “I hope you know what you're doing.” And handed the briefcase over to him.

There was excited chatter in the conference room where Hydra’s best and brightest had gathered, waiting for him. Pierce looked over the crowd, ticking off résumés in his head, confirming that all here were loyal.

He set the briefcase down on the desk at the front of the room, leaving a hand on it.

“We all know what was achieved through this by Schmidt half a century ago. It is now back in our possession.”

He opened the case, allowing the blue glow to light up his face, then turned it so that it shone over the whole room.

“I expect results.” 

December 2003, Sitwell

“What if we try pulsing the gamma radiation?”

“We tried that, no joy.”

“What about bombarding with high energy electrons?”

“Johnson tried that last week.”

“Have we tried long wave radio?”

“We've been through the whole spectrum by now I think.”

“Anybody got an alpha source?”

“Yeah, Mitchell brought one over from physics yesterday. Readings stayed steady all night.”

“How about…..”

Jasper Sitwell shook his head at the gathering of scientists around the glowing blue cube as he prodded the Asset ahead of him into the laboratory space. It’d been weeks since the Secretary had dropped his package off, and the lack of results from the brainy bunch was starting to make the whole base nervous.

The Asset moved slightly sluggishly, possibly still defrosting in places. He prodded him with his boot towards the Chair. “Sit.”

The Asset sat. Sitwell nodded to the nearest technician, his name might be Overton? It was unimportant. “The usual.”

The technician looked torn, wanting to continue taking part in the group discussion, and probably not wanting to go near the Asset. He couldn't really blame him, it was shivering slightly, dripping in places and smelled awful as it often did as it thawed. 

Over on the other side of the room there was a flurry of movement as the scientists rearranged their equipment, and set up yet another new test on their prize.

“Now.” He looked meaningfully at the tech and glanced at the clock behind him on the wall. 

The tech squeaked briefly as he jumped up to strap in the Asset, put the mouthguard in and place the electrodes.

“Stand back.”

Sitwell gave him a scornful look and looked pointedly at his feet, firmly behind the line on the floor showing safe distance from the machinery.

The tech squeaked again and scuttled over to the computer terminal controlling the procedure.

The hum of the machinery changed the general sound of the room, combining with the hum of equipment they have set up around the tesseract. As the electricity started sparking around the Asset’s head, Sitwell sighed and braced for the noise it made during this process. Honestly, this was not the best part of the job.

The screaming started to wind down, then there was a shout from the group of scientists. Sitwell looked over and saw some excited finger-pointing at the various screens around the equipment, then turned back to the Asset as the Chair finished its job.

The tech was watching the group again. Couldn't they get someone who wouldn't get distracted? Sitwell tapped the tech on the shoulder, impatiently, and was rewarded by him jumping a foot away from him. “We’re on a schedule here. Is it done?”

The tech nodded, and fumbled to release the machinery around the Asset.

Sitwell retrieved the book from the biometrically-locked safety deposit box in the wall of the vault (only a handful of Hydra personnel had authorization to activate the Asset) and rattled through the codeword sequence, satisfied with the Asset's response.

“Солдат. Co мной.”

As they left the room, he could hear the scientists still chattering excitedly among themselves.  Upstairs, the strike team was gearing up.

Sitwell picked up the brown file folder from his pack and pulled out a picture of their target.  He turned and held the picture up in front of the Soldier’s face. “Long range strike.  No witnesses.”

The Solder nodded and waited for further instructions.  It was a useful tool, but it did get tedious having to spell everything out for it. “Gear up.”

The Soldier reached for its usual body armor and strapped it on, along with an assortment of small weapons.  Then it moved to the rack of rifles and pulled out its preferred modified long-range rifle.  Last, it moved past one of the strike team agents to grab a scope for the rifle who jumped briefly, then hissed.  Sitwell looked at him disparagingly.

“Static shock,” Rumlow grunted. Sitwell rolled his eyes at that, clearly unimpressed.  It wasn’t the first time the residual effects of the wipe caused a static electric spark off the Asset.  They didn’t exactly hurt .  The Soldier snapped the scope onto his rifle and strapped it onto its back then stood waiting for yet more orders.  Internally, Sitwell sighed.  “Chopper on the roof.  Move out.”

Two days camped on a building rooftop in Johannesburg had left Sitwell irritable.  They were in a communications blackout, having been dropped by the chopper at the outskirts of the district.  The humidity was not helping.  Babysitting the Soldier on a stakeout was one of his least favorite kinds of missions.  Uncomfortable conditions were just the icing on the cake.

The target had finally been seen entering the building opposite at street level an hour previously.  Hopefully they’d at least get to move soon.

The Solder shifted position.  Good, it must have spotted the target in the upper windows.  Sitwell could almost forget it was there sometimes with how it stayed so still.  He looked through his own scope and saw the target and also another man visible.  The second was of no consequence, other than being a witness. “Eliminate both targets.”  He kept his voice low, but knew the Soldier had heard him.  He kept watching.

He kept half an eye on his scope and watched the Soldier.  What was he waiting for?  The primary target was moving through the apartment.  The secondary was pacing by the first window - ah. The man was on the phone.  Sitwell approved of the Soldier’s attention to detail here.  No witnesses.  He panned the scope to watch the primary target, making sure they didn’t lose him.  No - he was heading back to where the secondary target was now, carrying something.  Wine glasses.  Sitwell wished he had one here.  Later, he promised himself.

The Soldier shifted again.  Tiny movements even Sitwell wouldn’t have spotted if he hadn’t been right next to it.

The primary target had returned to the first room and the secondary was still on the phone, leaning back against the window.  Sitwell watched the primary hand one of the glasses to the secondary.  Red wine by the looks of it.  That’ll make a nice stain on the carpet.

The secondary target pocketed the phone and clinked his glass against the primary target’s glass.  Sitwell glanced down at the Asset again.  Surely it had the shot lined up now?

The primary target moved closer to the secondary.  Oh, gross.  He really didn’t need to see that.  Right up against the window?  Sitwell struggled not to look away.

At last, the shot was fired. Sitwell was watching and saw both targets fall.  Huh, got both with one shot.  Well at least you could say the Asset was efficient with the ammo.

“Отлично, Солдат.” It was like a dog, you could almost see the ears prick up at the mission-complete phrase.  Sitwell reached past the Asset to pick up his own gear, and felt a vicious spark arc between his hand and the Asset’s arm.  Yeesh, that metal thing must have built up a charge in all the humidity.  He at least didn’t jump like Rumlow before the mission, even though that was surely stronger than when he’d previously felt one off the Asset after a wipe.

He wiped the sweat out of his face, glad that they were finally getting out of this place.  “Move out.”

Back at base.  About time too.  He couldn’t wait to have a shower.  And decent food.  After days on a mission he should get the evening off once the reports were filed.  He was already planning a call to his favorite take-out.

He messaged the technicians to prepare the Asset for cryo.  “Rumlow, you can babysit the Asset cleanup.” He got a glare for that, but he was in charge and that meant he got to call dibs on having the first shower.

He watched Rumlow trail after the Asset as it disarmed and stripped.  The technicians were already running the hose before it stepped in.  Brrr.  Nope, he was headed off for his own nice warm shower.  As he moved through the hallway to the communal showers, he kept his ears open for anything interesting.  It paid to keep up with the gossip around here.  He heard Young and Richardson muttering in one of the offices over frequencies and interference and other complicated shit.  Huh, sounds like whatever had the lab coats all excited when they left hadn’t been as big a break-through as they’d hoped. Callorway was apparently off sick, although Martinez was sniggering in the locker room that it was a hangover from a poker night last night.  

He had a gloriously hot shower but didn’t push it to a long one.  As commander it was his ass on the line if anyone else messed up with the Asset, so he quickly dressed again and headed back to the cleanup area where he found the Soldier dressing again into the monitoring suit it wore in cryo.  Sitwell picked up his weapon to cover the Soldier as he ordered him through to the vault lab area.  He nodded at Rumlow and dismissed him.  The rest of the team were already off-duty.

The scientists were clustered around a different bench today, closer to the bigger power supplies on the wall, near the Chair.  They’d better not have ‘borrowed’ anything off the Chair for their experiments or it was going to take hours longer to get the Asset processed and back in storage.

“Ok, flip it back on?”  

Sitwell could see sparks lighting up the bench the scientists were working on.

“And now off again?”  

The sparks stopped and he could see one of the scientists shaking his head.  A couple of them scurried to fetch a piece of equipment from the side of the room they’d been on last time.

“Солдат, sit.”  As the Soldier sat in the contraption, Sitwell pointed the nearest technician at the metal arm.  “Check it, don’t think there should be any damage but it did seem to hold static more than normal.”

The Soldier sat, staring forward as normal as the technician opened up a panel in the arm and plugged in a cable.  The other technician grabbed a multimeter off the desk and started poking the probes into the open hole in the arm.

Data scrolled down the screens as the first technician pored over it.  The second technician kept moving the probes and comparing numbers on his multimeter with the screen.

Sitwell shifted his weight.  He kept half an eye on the Asset, but allowed his attention to roam while he waited.  He noticed the scientists looked a little worse for wear - been pulling some all nighters had they?  They certainly hadn’t been cleaning up after themselves, it was even more chaotic in here than normal, and there were empty chip packets and sandwich wrappers lying around.  Eyeing them a bit closer, Sitwell recognised the packets from the vending machines two floors up.  The scientists were just plugging in their new equipment and arranging it around the blue cube.

“There’s nothing out of place, sir.”  Ah good, the technicians were done already.

“Then wipe it.” The technicians strapped down the arm they’d just put back together along with the flesh one, and lowered the electrodes into position.  The Asset accepted the mouthguard calmly.  At least something was working properly around here.

The technician sat back at the desk and looked round at him, Sitwell pointedly looked down at where he was standing - behind the line again.  A flurry of keystrokes later and the second technician stepped back to the desk as the hum started up.

“Wait!”

“Unplug the-”

Braced again for the noises the Asset would make during the procedure, Sitwell noticed that sparks were showing not just around the Asset, but around the blue cube, which was definitely glowing brighter.  Lights started flashing on the monitors all round the blue cube, with some excited scientists frantically tapping away at keyboards.  More and more lights flashed on, and more and more scientists started getting out of their seats.  Then an alarm wail started up. “Everyone out!”

“What the hell?”  Sitwell wanted to put his hands over his ears; it was so loud. Some of the scientists were running straight for the doors, while others pulled their colleagues away from the equipment.  The hum kept increasing in pitch, and the inhuman yells of the Asset were like claws in his ears. 

“Sir, we need to evacuate-”

“What about the Asset?”

“The tesseract’s overloading, it’ll take too long to get the Asset out.  Look, you wanna die in here?  The energy readings are already off the charts-”

“Shit.” Sitwell legged it for the stairs.  He got through the gates, down the hall and halfway up the stairs to the next floor before he heard a dull thud, and then the lights went out.  He slipped on the next step in the dark and rolled back down to the bottom.

Fucking hell that hurt.

Dazed, he sat up.  Slowly.  Fortunately, he had a torch in his pocket, as the base emergency lighting didn’t seem to have kicked in.  He could hear a couple of shouts and scuffles as the rest of the evacuating lab personnel fumbled around in the dark.

At the bottom of the stairs he could see darkness in one direction, and a faint blue glow from the direction of the lab.

Shit.  The Asset.

He grabbed the last retreating scientist before they all disappeared up the stairs.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know, it started radiating energy, at exponentially increasing levels!”

“Is it safe to go back in?”

“I don’t know!”

His head hurt, and his back ached. He did not want to end up being flayed alive by Pierce if something damaged his favorite Asset. “Power’s off.  How do we check if it’s safe?”

“Um…there should be some older meters in one of the store cupboards.  Maybe a Geiger counter?”

“Right.  Go get some.”

“Can I have the torch?”

“Oh, for the love of…” he grabbed the scientist by the arm.  “Which way?”

The guy pointed.  Sitwell pushed the scientist ahead of him, shining the torch ahead of them both.  Beyond the stairs along the hall, and then a door on the right.

After a short rummage in the cupboard, the scientist emerged with one small box with a wand attached and a handheld device that looked like another multimeter.

“Right.  Ready?” The scientist switched both on and the small box suddenly started making crackling popping noises. 

They both jumped. “That’s not good, right?”

The scientist looked more closely at the box and heaved a sigh of relief.  “It’s, uh, just calibrated to be really sensitive.  That’s only background.”  He changed a couple of dials and the noise reduced to just occasional pops.

They back-tracked towards the vault lab, keeping an eye on the readings.  Carefully peering round the corner, the scientist poked the wand round the corner of the wall first, but the occasional pops from the machine didn’t change.  He then pushed the multimeter-thing through a gap in the gates so that he could see the screen from this side of the corner.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“Looks normal.” The scientist pressed a few buttons on the multimeter just as they heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

“You sure?”  Sitwell turned to see several members of his strike team in haz-mat suits arriving. “Rumlow!”

“Sir!” The reply was muffled by the suit, but, damn, Sitwell was glad he had back-up. “We’ve been told to get anyone exposed into decontamination.”  Shit, and there goes his evening of pizza and trash tv.

“Asset’s still in there. But brains here tells me it’s safe now.”

One of the haz-mat suits, oh look it was Hughes from medical, grabbed him and the scientist and pulled them down the hall towards the door next to the cupboard they’d rummaged in earlier.  “Emergency shower is in here, sir.”  Hughes pushed the scientist in through the door, gave him a bright yellow plastic bag and told him to put all his clothes in it.  Then he peered more closely at Sitwell.  “Shit, you’re bleeding.”

“What - wait! Rumlow, check on the Asset for me.”  There was rustling from the shower, suggesting the scientist was getting on with stripping his clothes off.  Hughes was examining his forehead where he’d gashed it on the stairs in the dark.

“You have any other open wounds?  I need to close or cover those before you shower.”  Ouch,  Hughes was wiping the wound on his forehead with what looked like baby wipes.

Sitwell looked at Hughes and honest to god had to think about it. “Uh, my back, maybe?”

He saw another of the haz-mat suits, holding a more complex version of the multimeter the scientist had found, slowly opening the doors to the lab again.  “Clear so far.”  That was Rosenberg.  He heard water running through the doorway to the shower.

As Rosenberg slowly moved into the lab, checking his multimeter all the time, Rumlow peered round the door.  “Fuck.”

“What?!”

“It’s not moving.”  Rumlow waved forwards one of the other haz-mat suits - damn those suits, he couldn’t tell who it was - to enter with him.

“Sir, put your shirt in the bag, and turn around.  I’ll take a look at your back now.”  Hughes had finished taping over the wound on his forehead and was pushing a yellow plastic bag at him.

“Right.” He pulled off his gear from his top half, and put it all in the bag.  Small mercies it was all above the belt.  Hughes then took another wipe and worked on the scrape on his back.  Sitwell kept his attention on the doors to the lab as the rest of the haz-mat team filed in.  A shout came back from the last suit in the doorway, “It’s out cold, but alive.  They’re gonna bring it in for decontamination.”

Thank god for that. Sitwell grabbed the yellow bag from Hughes and headed into the shower.

Pierce was pissed.  Not that Sitwell was exactly happy about the situation, but Pierce had really given those scientists a piece of his mind.  He’d not been best pleased with Sitwell either, but he’d at least escaped punishment beyond not getting to go home.  And he also hadn’t died of radiation poisoning or whatever had happened in that lab.

He looked up at the monitor showing the inside of the Asset containment room in the basement vault.  Damn thing was still out.  Medics and technicians had looked it all over and drawn a blank, although several had complained of static shocks.  They reckoned it could wake up anytime, so here he was, waiting, on babysitting duty again.  At least he’d had a spare set of clothes in his locker.  His previous clothes had probably been burned.  He certainly didn’t expect to get them back.

Word on the lab was that it was back to normal.  The damn cube had been sitting, happy as Larry, on the bench when the decontamination crew got in there.  They didn’t know what had set it off and nobody was all that keen to risk that sort of reaction again.

Instead Sitwell had heard mutterings from the technicians that were hovering to check on the Asset when it woke that Pierce was hunting for some old 1940s era Hydra tech powered by the cube to give to a new batch of lab-coats and expected them to replicate that.  Phase 2 it was called.  He guessed Phase 1 was now canceled.

Babysitting was even more boring when it was unconscious.  Or whatever the Asset was right now. His mind wandered to projects his time would be better spent on.

The door behind Sitwell opened, and he checked the clock.  Right on time, the next medic to look at the Asset.

“No change?”

“I would’ve sent for you if there had been.”  He wasn’t stupid, he wasn’t gonna be able to check much beyond ‘is it breathing’ and ‘does it respond to the code words’ or even ‘is it going to try to kill everyone’.

The medic - Sanders - nodded and moved through to the locked door.  He punched in the passcode and the door locks shot back.  On the screen, the Asset twitched.

“Woah, wait, I think it heard that.”  Sitwell picked up a gun and the manual and walked up to the door, nodding to Sanders to open it once he was in position.

Gun up, he advanced into the containment room as the Asset sat up.  Keeping his gun trained on the Asset’s flesh shoulder, he watched it carefully.  “Report.”

A small twitch.  That wasn’t a good sign.  Normally the asset had a rigid control over itself and always responded to commands.  Except…

“Cообщите.” <Report.>

“Я готов отвечать.”

A miniscule smoothing of the Asset’s facial features.  Ah, factory reset mode.  It had happened before when it got over-fried and reverted to Russian responses only.  Sometimes the techs got sloppy with the wipes.  Sitwell relaxed slightly and opened the book to run through the full code word sequence, keeping the gun handy just in case.

“Alright, check it.”  He motioned Sanders in.

He brought the gun back up while Sanders worked.  “All clear.  I’ll go get Morris to check over the arm.”

Sitwell nodded, and continued to watch the Asset, who sat staring at the wall again for another 5 minutes until Morris appeared with the usual tools.

This procedure at least was clearly recognised and accepted by the Soldier, who held out its arm for inspection when prompted.  Morris gingerly approached, then got to work. “No problems.”

Internally, Sitwell heaved a sigh of relief.  Now at least, he could put the Asset back in storage and go home.  He had definitely earned a decent dinner, and maybe even a bottle of wine for all the troubles of this mission.

Chapter Text

Cold.  It can never tell how long the cold lasts, but it is always the last thing it feels and the first thing it feels.

Then, into the cold, sound.  Little cracks as the ice begins to thaw.  A rushing in the ears as blood starts to flow again.

Then, whispers?

It can hear tiny indecipherable whispers on the edge of hearing.  That…is not normal.  Is it?  What is normal anyway?

It also has a feeling that it hadn’t had so many questions before.  Before what?

Light.  It opens its eyes.  Slowly.  The door to the cold box is open and a man in black combat gear stands outside.

The man speaks. Indecipherable.

Its limbs are stiff.  Heavy.  Weak?  The left arm moves more easily than the others.

“Солдат. Выходий.” <Soldier. Out.> The man is a handler. It feels…relief? The cold holds it down, and only the left arm makes it out of the box, grabbing the edge.

The handler pulls it fully out of the box.  Its feet follow, almost not quickly enough. It steadies its legs and follows the man out of the room, into a larger room. A…lab?  The whispers grow louder.  Almost like scratching inside its skull. It shakes its head.

The handler has raised a gun to point at it. Instinctively it knows it could disarm him. It holds still.

The gun motions further into the lab.  The legs grow less stiff as it moves. The lights in here are uncomfortably bright to the eyes.  The screens around the room oddly more so.

In front of it is the Chair.  The mind blanks.

“Солдат, cиди.” It sits.

A technician flutters around it.  The mouth opens to accept a piece of rubber. Metal presses against the face.

Numbers float to it in whispers as the technician presses buttons on the keyboard. 800V. 1.8A.

All of its muscles tense.  The muscles remember something.  The body starts breathing faster.

Light, everywhere.  Not harsh, painful light as it expected though.  This light is…softer. The body makes noise, it was expecting pain? Whispers grow louder inside its skull.  It can feel…more.  Whispers from all over the room.  Numbers and letters and numbers.

Darkness. Or…just the absence of the extra light. Slowly the room comes back into focus.  The muscles relax. The breathing slows.

The whispers are not so loud, but they are…clearer now. Numbers from the left arm loudest and clearest. Positioning. Strength. Diagnostics. Fainter numbers from the technician’s workstation. Voltages. Heart rate. Resistance. Strings of numbers streaming from near the handler. Time and date. Something in its mind can feel a location. Coordinates?

“Желание.” Its attention focuses on the handler.

“Ржавый.” 

“Семнадцать.” Somewhere deep down in its mind-

“Рассвет.” -familiarity.

“Печь.”

“Девять.” What is it?

“Доброкачественный.”

“Возвращение на родину.” If it could just-

“Один.” -remember…

“Грузовой вагон.” Blank.

“Я готов отвечать.”  Everything is…muffled.  Sounds.  Sensations.  The handler is the only thing in focus.  His orders.  And the whispers.

The Asset follows the handler out of the lab, following the strings of coordinates, always telling it where the handler is. 38°52'26.4"N 77°00'23.7"W.

There are images in the whispers now.  It can see the handler from the other side, walking towards it with the Soldier behind him as they enter the room. The Soldier doesn’t waver, but the image blurs with what the eyes can see making it disorientated.

The handler thrusts a folder at the Asset.  Mission.  Maps.  Blueprints of an industrial building.  Covert infiltration and elimination of target, close quarters.  Strike Alpha in support.

The Asset assesses the Mission information and available equipment in the room runs through its head.  Combat jacket. Boots. Armor. Mask. Goggles. Holsters. Knives. Extra knives for close quarters mission.  Pistol. Submachine gun. Silencers - covert elimination. Tools.  All of these would be useful.  It does not move to take the items.

“Gear up.” The handler’s voice resonates through its thoughts and the Asset starts to move.  

When it reaches for a knife with the left arm it feels a simultaneous jolt through the arm and a spike in the whispers which cut through the haze. It straps the knife on and continues arming itself.

The whispers are distracting.  Silence is imperative on a covert mission.  The strike team would do well to remember this. The Asset can hear them.  On the other side of the building.  Sigh. There are whispers also coming from the earpiece behind its ear.  It tunes these out as not relevant to its current task.

The Asset moves smoothly and silently up the trash-filled alleyway between two warehouses. The one on the right is dark and empty.  The one on the left is mostly dark, and mostly empty.  The Asset has already seen the flashing red light of a security system. As it approaches, it can hear it whispering.

There is a door towards the end of the alley.  Next to it, a keypad. It moves between piles of refuse to reach the doorway. The Asset hears a number in the whispers from the security system. It peels back the covering over the keypad and pulls out a pair of wire cutters from a pocket. After spending thirty seconds assessing the wiring underneath the keypad, the Asset makes a single snip with the cutters and the red light stops flashing.  The whispers stop. The Asset almost feels…regretful.  Pulling some small tools out of another pocket the Asset quickly opens the door with no damage and no noise, then winces internally as the two strike agents break in through the roof access, not so silently. What the hell are they playing at up there?

Moving through the building, the Asset stays in the shadows.  Stairs.  The blueprints showed the offices in the basement.  There are whispers coming from down there also.  The Asset checks the hallway beyond but, seeing no light, stealthily heads down. From the other side of the building it can hear small whispers from where the handler is descending through the building with the other agent.  The coordinates drifting to it in the whispers tell it where the handler is.  It’s almost…comforting?  They have their own objective in the upper levels.

The first office on the right has a woman in it, only one light on.  Not on the target list, working late probably.  Hasn’t noticed anything.  The second office is on the left.  Dark, empty.  The whispers are getting louder. Bank numbers. Money.  There is a third office at the end of the hall.  Two men inside.  Both on the target list.  This is the objective.

The Asset draws a knife from its sheath.  With the woman down the hall, even silencers would draw attention.  Watching, it waits until both men are in optimum position away from the door and slips in, unseen.  The closer of the two is absorbed in his workstation. It could probably stand up and wave and he wouldn’t notice.  Numbers whisper at him.  Investment accounts.  The Asset ducks smoothly past into the shadows behind the desk.  The other is staring into space, smoking.  The smell of cigarette smoke jolts something in the Asset even through its mask. There is something…no. Back on task.  

Staying in the shadows, the Asset maneuvers around behind the second man, until it is close enough to reach out and touch.  Ready.  With one smooth movement it clamps its left hand over the man’s nose and mouth, and cigarette.  The right slices the knife through the left carotid artery.  The cigarette burns through the fingerless glove on the metal hand before the Asset silently lowers the now-still body to the floor.  

The first man is still absorbed in the numbers, utterly oblivious. On silent feet the Asset retraces its steps to the desk.  This time the knife stabs up into the brain from under the chin.  It gently moves the body onto the floor behind the chair.

It can feel the numbers whispering at it. It has a mission for these numbers.  The numbers from the mission file fit so neatly into the whispers. The Asset admires the pretty pattern as the numbers on the screen dwindle to zero.  It didn’t even have to touch the keyboard to complete its task.

Above, the coordinates of the handler still whisper to it.  It hopes the woman doesn’t give it a reason to kill her before he rejoins the handler.

The handler is only one street away. The coordinates are easy to follow.  It does not need to use the noisy earpiece.  The shortest distance route is deeper through the trash-filled alley it traversed earlier.  Mission direction indicated rendezvous was another street further over, but also indicated to regroup without delay. The conflict is bothersome, but delay is generally punished.  The deeper regions of this alley are…squelchy. The Soldier enjoys the challenge of keeping its movements silent through the filth, if not the odor.  It avoids stepping on the solid refuse, or the piles of noisy crinkly plastic bags.  Other residents of the street choose to make crinkly noises moving through the plastic bags to avoid the filth. They do not notice the Asset.

The handler and the other agent are carrying a heavy-looking box, mostly successfully. They are not yet aware of the Asset. Moving ever so slightly into the light, it waits for them to notice. The handler’s eyes scan the street carefully as they move, and he clearly jolts when he (finally) spots the Asset. “What the fuck?” He mutters something about malfunctions.

“May as well be useful then. Take this to the truck.”  He takes a second look at the Asset’s gear, a mix of blood from the targets and refuse from the alley is smeared in different places. “Don’t get any of that mess on it.”

The box is heavy, but not as heavy as the handler and agent had made it look.  Assessing the least filthy areas of its body, the Asset carries it with the metal arm and slides back into the shadows, following them to the rendezvous point and the vehicle they arrived in.

The journey back to the base is…dull?  The handler and agent keep their distance from the Asset once the truck and team are loaded onto a cargo plane and in flight.  It sits in silence, except for the whispers. It listens to whispers from all over the plane, and from the airfield, before the whispers from the ground all fall away. It is nice, to have something to listen to.

There is a feeling.  Of…space?  The Soldier can feel the world around it moving.  No, it is moving through the world, but it can feel how and where it is moving.  Not just the whispered coordinates from where the handler is and from the front of the plane.  There should be names for the places it feels.  But the mind can only produce blanks.  The Soldier probes at these blank spaces. Nothing.  It thinks of the places it does have names for.  Mission location. Handler location. Base location…s.  Hmm. There are several of those?  It is aware of the base it left recently, but it can also feel…other bases.  Home? The agent and the handler talk of ‘home’, but it doesn’t know if it has a location for that.  Some locations feel more…solid?...than others. Closer? As if they are bigger in the mind.  Some flash images, feelings to it.  Rooms. Buildings. Trees. Water. Snow. Faces-

“Солдат. Внимание.”  <Soldier.  Attention.>

The eyes snap to the handler in front of it and the body stands to attention.  When had the handler moved so close to it?  The handler is wearing non-combat clothes.  It must have lost time while the handler and agent cleaned up on the flight.

“Pay attention you dumb shit.” The handler prods it in the leg with a stun baton. It sparks against the material of its pants and there is a surge of warmth. The loss of time warrants the reprimand.

“Get that down to research.  New toys for them to play with.” The handler nods at the box recovered on the mission. “Then report for cleanup.”  He sniffs in the direction of the Asset and mutters, so perhaps the agent does not hear the last, “God, that stinks.”  The blood on the Asset’s gear has gone cold and congealed on the long journey.

It delivers the box to the vault level. It feels…there is something missing.  There was something…blue here?  The whispers are loud again down here. Distracting. There are two men wearing white lab coats that approach.  One of them gags, while the other holds a hand over his nose. “Wish they’d clean it up before using it as a delivery boy.” The Soldier barely hears the comment over the whispers of pressure-wavelength-time-date-intensity-flux streaming numbers. Dismissed from the lab, it retreats.

Returning up the stairs, two technicians and the handler are talking by the clean up area.  Whispers stream from the technicians’ workstation. The handler is no longer streaming coordinates.  Only time-and-date.  They point it towards the hose area.  It removes all weapons and clothes.  The technicians avert eyes from its body and turn on the hose.  The cleaning involves chemicals that sting the eyes and skin.  The stinging cuts through the distraction of calorie-intake-time-duration-body-mass numbers. After, it tenses the muscles to prevent shivering as it drips dry. They direct it to void the bowels.

There are clean pants and a shirt.  It puts them on and the technicians prepare the white liquid sustenance.  It tastes of nothing.  The stomach feels slightly…bloated. 

Whisper time-and-date.  An alarm beeps on the handler, he looks at his wrist. “Alright, move out, with me.”

The handler leads it to a large gym area.  A group of 4 younger agents are waiting.  “Brass says you think you’re hotshots and want a spot on a strike team.  Time to put you to the test.”  The handler stands in the center of a large floor mat, relaxed.

“Солдат. Defend me. No lethal force.”

The Soldier puts its body between the handler and the agents.  Weight on the balls of its feet.  Limbs loose, but ready.  Eyes on the agents. Assessing.

Front of the group is clearly the leader. Above average height. Cropped brown hair. Clean shaven. To the left is the shortest, but stocky.  Muscles - strong. On the right - blond hair, bouncing on his toes, cocky.  Slightly behind is a set of darker features, nervous.

“Unarmed, sir?” Leader is eyeing the few weapons arrayed around the room.

“Blunt instruments only.” The Soldier is very aware of where the handler is behind it. He has discarded the whispering numbers now.  It must track him by the sound of his breathing and peripheral vision.

Nervous darts across to grab a stun baton and switches it on. Leader nods, and the others also arm themselves with batons.  The batons buzz slightly inside the mind.

The Asset pivots slightly to keep all agents in sight, but slightly advances the left arm in front of the body.

Unspoken communication between Stocky and Nervous.  They move to the left together, creating two groups. Cocky steps forwards first.

The Soldier holds ground.  The handler is to be defended.

Cocky swipes in with the baton. The Soldier ducks sideways, alert, but not moving the feet. Nervous darts in from the side, aiming for the handler. The Soldier kicks out, full force, and Nervous flies back across the room.

Leader and Stocky take advantage of this, presumably thinking it is distracted, to move in in a pincer movement.  Cocky jabs forward with the baton. The Soldier brings the left elbow back into Stocky’s face.  Feels a crack.  Sweeps the right arm through the baton to deflect it into Leader’s shoulder.  Ducks under a blind swing from Stocky, sweeps a leg round through Cocky’s feet and brings him down to the mat. Nervous is up and approaching behind the handler. The Soldier punches up with the left arm under Leader’s chin, rewarded with a loud clack of teeth, with a slight crunch indicating something broke.  Stamps down at the same time on Cocky’s arm, another crunch, then grabs Cocky’s baton with the right hand and throws it close past the handler directly into Nervous’ right eye. A raised eyebrow from the handler.

Leader gets arms around the Soldier’s torso from behind and pulls the baton’s live end in to the sternum. The buzz is…warm. Not painful. The Soldier kicks forwards at Stocky and uses the momentum to fall back onto Leader, twisting to land Leader on top of Cocky, eliciting a groan from both.

The Soldier yanks the baton out of its sternum, breaking a finger on Leader’s right hand, and his grip on the Soldier.  It slams its head back into the Leader’s, then flips back upright, checking in on the expression on the handler’s face.  Watchful, not moving.

Assessment. Leader is out cold. Cocky is partially trapped underneath Leader’s body, gasping for breath. Double buzzing behind the handler tells the Soldier that Nervous now has both batons up and ready.  Stocky feints towards the handler, too much weight still on his left foot to truly be moving in that direction. The Soldier lowers his head and charges into Stocky, carrying him off his feet towards Nervous. Stocky takes the full blast of both stun batons set on maximum and shrieks.

The Soldier drops Stocky and leans back, out of reach of a high kick from Nervous. Pivoting on the right foot, the Soldier brings the left hand up to Nervous’ throat and squeezes. His hands scrabble at the metal fingers ineffectually.

The Soldier surveys the room. No further attacks toward the handler. 

“Отлично, Солдат.”

The words make a shiver of something the Soldier can’t put a name to go up its spine. It has done well. Nervous slumps in the grip of the metal arm and it lets go, dropping the gasping man to the floor.

“Which is more than I can say for you lot.” The handler sneers at the bodies on the floor. “I'll have to ask the brass for another list of recruits.”

“Солдат, with me.” The handler leads the Soldier back through the hall, stopping to accost a medic in a nearby first-aid area and send them to revive the agent candidates. Then downstairs into the vault.

“Sit.” The Chair again. The mind blanks in anticipation. The whispers of the workstation almost…comforting. Familiar. Filling in the blank spaces left in the wake of the dread. Yet, as the hum winds up and the taste of rubber in its mouth overrides the mind with impressions of pain and bright lights, it is only the light that flashes through the eyes and not the pain that arrives. The muscles still tense and the breathing accelerates as the body remembers, but the throat is not so sore from shouting.

As the hum winds down again it catches the handler frowning at it and its heartbeat spikes–the Soldier awaits punishment. But the handler looks over the technician’s shoulder and checks the screens, apparently finding nothing amiss there. The numbers whisper in the corners of the mind. 800 V. 1.8 A. 97 bpm.

But the mind is not blank. The mission is still there, with its coordinates and bank numbers and blueprints. The world still touches the edges of the mind. Heavy, solid locations press images into the Soldier’s thoughts, and some distant, lighter, fluttery locations tickle also with fleeting impressions just out of reach.

The code words suck the Soldier back into the dark spaces in the mind. The Asset responds, “Я готов отвечать.”

And again, the last thing the Asset knows, is cold.

Chapter Text

September 2005, Sitwell

“I’m relying on you to put this right. Make an impression. Take the Asset.”

Sitwell nodded once and took the mission packet from Pierce.  Annoyingly indiscreet politicians.  Hydra already paid off plenty to get them in position, and they still had to clean up their messes? It didn’t seem worth defrosting the Asset.  Granted, the Asset was the worst kept secret in Hydra; the Winter Soldier was basically the bogeyman for many.  Particularly if they were second or third generation Hydra, it was actually their childhood nightmare figure.  Using it helped to remind them to keep in line for next time.

He turned and made his way down to mission ops.  Put out a call to requisitions to pick up the required supplies and to the technicians to start the defrost procedure. Leafing through the mission packet, Sitwell grimaced. They'd need to recover the incriminating photos as well as taking out the blackmail gang. At least it was local to DC. No long haul flights. He picked up his own gear and checked he had all he needed.

He arrived downstairs in the containment rooms just as the technicians popped the door on the cryo chamber. He eyed the frosty figure inside. Another 30 seconds probably before it'd even hear him properly. He readied the stun baton just in case and waited for a nod from the technician checking the monitors.

“Out, Soldier.”

The figure stepped unsteadily out of the chamber. It'd do to get it to the lab. “With me.”

The technician, Overton, trailed after them as he led the Asset through to the lab at the front of the vault. Most of the benches were covered with an array of components, each with colored labels. Two scientists were standing by a large whiteboard, scribbling away at what looked like a mind map. Occasionally one would draw an arrow connecting different blobs on the diagram, or wipe one off.

Prodding the Asset into the Chair, Sitwell braced himself for the onslaught on his ears as Overton started up the program and the hum began. He wondered if the scientists would even notice the raw screaming the Asset made during a wipe, they appeared so immersed in their work. A grunt from the chair, a groan, but not the regular screaming he had come to expect. Sitwell checked over the Asset; strained muscles as usual, jolting movements and sparks from the electrodes suggested at least something was happening. Did the tech not get the bite guard in right and it had managed to bite its tongue again? That hadn't happened for a while, and damage to its tongue would slow the mission down as it made it that much harder to check it had its orders right. He couldn't spot any blood dribbling out of its mouth which was the usual consequence of that error.

Sitwell looked over at Overton who was also frowning at his displays. “Are you sure you have that on the right setting? I don't need it malfunctioning in the field.”

The tech was fiddling with some of the dials and peering at the monitor. “It's the same setting as it's had the last 3 years I've been here.”

The hum wound down again, and the Asset slumped in the restraints, breathing heavily. That at least was normal. Sitwell watched closely as Overton removed the electrodes, restraints and bite guard. That last at least had no blood on it, so the Asset shouldn't be damaged. He ran through the code words, seeing the usual tensing again of the shoulders.

“Я готов отвечать.” The Asset sat expectantly. Good, it could still talk intelligibly. He shot a look at Overton. 

“We need a full check on this equipment. Might have to ramp it up higher again.” The tech groaned, but another look silenced him.

He motioned the Asset to follow and made his way back up to mission ops. Grabbing the mission pack he pulled out the location and target details to brief the Asset. Another close quarters mission; he hoped there’d be less cleanup to do this time. He would be sending it in solo to do the wet work and cause a distraction while he recovered the pictures.

Sitwell made sure it had a set of short range comms and set them to the same channel as his. He also pocketed his usual GPS and an additional few gadgets to clear out any digital storage they found and deliver the evidence back to the Senator.

It was uncanny how silent the Asset was on mission. And it seemed extra creepy today, seeming to always know where he was without really looking. 

The blackmailers were part of a gang downtown, and were set up in a grimy garage on the edge of their patch. Sitwell had left the truck two blocks over and directed the Asset to make its way to take out the ringleaders. He was following and would be slipping into the office upstairs once the commotion started. This was not a highly covert mission - the primary point was to send a message to the gang that messing with the Senator wouldn't pay off, although the secondary part was reminding the Senator that Hydra wouldn't hesitate to deal with him if he made more mess than he was worth.

He paused as the Asset reached the entrance to the building. It stopped, checking its guns, then looked right at him. Damnit, how did it do that? It didn't even scan around, just looked dead at him. He nodded and turned the corner to go round the back of the building. As he approached the fire escape for the premises before the garage, he heard the first bang of the Asset bursting into the front of the garage. He sped up and pulled himself up the second fire escape ladder as the first shots rang out. He heard a few windows around being closed as the neighbors hunkered down out of sight. It was that kind of neighborhood.

He could see movement inside the office as the leader of this group ran out of the door, presumably to back up the rest of his group. The rest of the office was empty. More thuds and crashes sounded from below. Sitwell smashed the window and opened it, then climbed in. He moved directly to the desk at the back of the office. A laptop. He opened it up and plugged in one of the gadgets he'd grabbed back at the base. This particular one rapidly decrypted any available data and re-encrypted it, to a Hydra algorithm set by Hydra’s highest order technology. Reputedly set by the vaunted genius Zola himself, although Sitwell couldn't believe that would still be up to date. Didn't he die years ago? Pierce had sworn it was unbreakable without the program key held by Hydra.

Sitwell left that running and scanned the office for a lockbox or filing cabinet or…aha. Bingo. Not very well hidden behind a cork noticeboard on the wall was the edge of a safe. More gunfire from below, followed by a scream that ended abruptly - the familiar sound of someone having the life squeezed out of them by a metal hand.

Pulling the noticeboard off the wall, he pulled the other gadget from his pocket and stuck the sucker on the safe next to the lock. Another shout followed by an enormous crash came from below him.  Sitwell plugged a small screen into the sucker and switched it on. Turning the lock on the safe lit up the screen with a frequency scan as the lock rumbled around past the tumblers. A large spike on the screen showed the thunk of a tumbler inside the lock. He started turning the lock the other way.

The stuttering fire of a submachine gun rattled downstairs, chasing from left to right. Another tumbler thunked into place. Sitwell heard running footsteps up the stairs outside the office door and was just dropping the gadget to bring up his gun when the back of a man’s head appeared through the wall to the side of the door, having been smashed through by the Asset's metal arm. The head disappeared, but was promptly followed by the rest of the man - who turned out to be the leader who'd disappeared downstairs earlier - being kicked all the way through the wall. Sitwell picked the gadget back up and worked on the last tumbler as the Asset pulled a knife from its belt and stabbed the group leader in the eye. Finally the safe opened. There was probably other juicy gossip in there, but they were specifically only supposed to recover the photographs of the Senator. He flipped through the pages in the safe and found the right stash. Wow. He never imagined the Senator to be so…kinky.

The Asset stood up wiping the knife on its pants. “Clear.”

Sitwell stowed away the papers he needed and turned back to the laptop. He pressed a thumb onto the device plugged into the laptop to unlock it. From there he found the electronic copies of the files and set them to eradicate - not just delete from this drive, but if they had been transferred online the program would find them and remove them. 

When done, Sitwell unplugged the device and pocketed it. The Asset looked to be listening to something? It was more concentrated than its usual thousand yard stare. 

“Move out.” The Asset snapped to attention and headed down the stairs. Internally he shrugged. Probably just a glitch; it was still obeying orders anyway. He followed the Asset back out to the truck, surveying the violence of the scene downstairs. There wasn't much left of the contents of the room, several bodies buried under rubble of furniture and bits of the car that had been in there as the gang’s business cover.

On the other side of the city, Sitwell parked the truck underground under the political office of the Senator, the Asset silent in the back. He got out and banged gently three times on the side of the vehicle. It slipped out into the shadows, as per orders. Pierce didn't exactly want this connection advertised to outside parties.

Late at night as it was, it wasn't that hard to sneak up to the third floor where the Senator was ‘working’ late. Sitwell prodded the Asset into the office ahead of himself, unnoticed, creating a perfectly ominous atmosphere when he deposited the photographs onto the guy's desk with a “Hail Hydra.”  He swore the guy almost pissed himself when he looked up to see the Fist of Hydra glowering at him.  Sitwell reveled in the superior feeling the Senator’s fear gave him.

“W-were there a-uh-any digital um copies?” The cheek of it. As if they hadn't just saved the guy from a career-ending balls-up.

“There were. The only remaining copies will go to the Secretary.” Sitwell paused. “For safekeeping of course.” He could see the Senator’s eyes darting between him and the shadow behind him.

“O-of course.” The Senator gathered up the evidence from his desk. “Hail Hydra.”

Downstairs, Sitwell handed the drive over to the Asset. Pierce always enjoyed seeing it in person. Seemed to give him a kind of power trip, even though he kept himself distanced from the dirty work he had Sitwell doing with it.  And it would save Sitwell the extra journey across town.  “Take this to Pierce. His place.” Before it turned away, he added, “Don’t be seen.”

Pierce would send it back to base when he was done gloating.

September 2005, Pierce

Pierce entered his study to replace a book on the shelves, idly considering his next read. He was in the mood for something light.  He poured himself a brandy whilst scanning over the spines. Turning to replace the decanter on his side table, he spotted the extra shadow behind his desk.

He lifted his glass in salute.  “Hail Hydra.” The Asset reached over to put down a decoder thumb drive on the desk.

“Zola’s been making himself useful again I see.” He moved to pick up the thumb drive and took a sip of his drink, perching on the edge of the desk. “Mission report.”

“Twelve targets eliminated. Structural and property damage sustained to business at mission location. Papers recovered and delivered to destination. Data extracted.”

“Stern is well-placed to assist Hydra’s goals, but he is not irreplaceable.  It was a good lesson for him. Holding on to the leash will give us better leverage.” He stood up, tapping the drive on the desk as he did. “Your work has been exemplary. I will take care of this.”

He looked back up at the Asset, still unmoving behind the desk. “Go home. Return to base.”

Stepping back from the desk, he watched the Asset.  Getting to see this powerful being moving under his command was always a delight. So satisfying. He took another sip of his drink.

The Asset stood slowly, then vanished.

Chapter Text

The Soldier watches the commander enter the room, but is also still listening to the small device it has delivered.  There is a voice in the whispers that feels familiar.  The quiet part of its mind shivers. Then the commander says a name and a face flashes into its thoughts. The mind feels slightly adrift.  The name evokes memories it didn’t know it had. Of locations it doesn’t fully remember. Somehow it knows exactly where each location is. It seems as if they are only just out of reach.

Mission report. The Asset responds to the commander automatically.  The commander is pleased. This is good.

The Soldier can still feel the many locations of its memories pulling at its attention when the commander tells it to “Go home.  Return to base.”

‘Home’ and ‘base’ both pull it in multiple directions. One place feels like both words.  The Soldier stands.  Reaches for the coordinates it can feel in the memory. They are just…over…there…

Darkness. Silence.

And then the Soldier is here. Facing the Chair. Did it lose time again?

The room is not quite the same as the memory.  There are fewer people.   It is quieter.

There are still cryo tanks at the sides of the room. Some still clearly hold people. A memory itches inside the mind.  There are whispers from the full cryo tanks and their monitors. Heart rate. Temperature. Also from a camera and speaker in this room. White noise. An image of the Soldier in front of the chair.  And further away there are quieter whispers…distant images of other rooms in this base, agents talking, coordinates, weather reports…

A shout comes from behind the Soldier. 

“Злоумышленник!” 

The Asset is not an intruder. It was ordered to go home, return to base. This is a Hydra base. It knows this base.

An agent advances carefully towards the Soldier, gun raised. The Soldier is confused. 

There is a lot of chatter whispering from the agent's ear. Asset…containment…book…Karpov…Americans…

A second agent approaches from the left, this one holding a more familiar stun baton.

“Солдат, сообщите! Какова твоя миссия?” <Soldier, report! What is your mission?>

The Soldier has already given the report to the commander. “Миссия выполнена. Oн возвращается на базу.” <Mission completed. It has returned to base.>

The whispers carry a snigger from the agents’ earpieces. It is odd to hear it from both sides at once. They think the Soldier is lost. It knows exactly where it is.

There should be technicians here by now?

The agents approach more closely and direct the Soldier out of the cryo chamber and into the containment area behind. Maybe there will be another mission. Or training. It thinks of the people in the cryo units and is sure there was training here before.

It is quieter in the containment area.  They seal it in. They did not even remove its weapons and armor.  Other faces come to peer at it, some with oddly cheerful expressions. No technicians enter the cell. A pang in the stomach makes the Soldier think of the tasteless white liquid.

There is a whisper getting closer.  A whisper that sounds like the commander. A voice also. “Do not bullshit at me.  Or we will keep it.”

The Soldier can hear the commander’s voice both in the whisper and through the phone being held to the newcomer’s ear. “You will return it to me at once!” The voice of the commander sounds unhappy. This is rarely a good thing.

The phone is held by a man…no, a handler? A commander perhaps? The Soldier knows that voice. That face. There have been orders from that voice…it is certain. He is holding a book. A familiar, red book.

“You will take better care of it, yes? Or it will be coming home to me again.” A chuckle. The Soldier’s eyes are fixed on the book. “I will send your lost wolf home to you. But I expect a present in return.” The handler puts the phone away and turns to face the Soldier.

“Как будто у меня день рождения!” <It is like it is my birthday!> Another chuckle, then he opens the book.

“Желание.” The Soldier knows him.

“Ржавый.” 

“Семнадцать.” It knows these words.

“Рассвет.” In this voice.

“Печь.” 

“Девять.” A memory.

“Доброкачественный.” Many memories.

“Возвращение на родину.”  A name.

“Один.” Karpov.

“Грузовой вагон.”

The mind stills.

“Я готов отвечать.” A nod from Karpov. He is pleased (how does it know this?).

“Добро пожаловать домой, Зимний Солдат.” <Welcome home, Winter Soldier.>

It is like the mind is…disconnected from the body. The Asset focuses on the handler. Karpov. It is ordered to disarm. This takes several minutes.

Karpov calls someone in to take away the weapons. The handler himself is watching the Asset closely, studying it. The close scrutiny worries the Soldier, but it has not been given any orders and it does not move.

Whispers fill in the quiet in the mind, little snippets of number strings, requisitions, air traffic locations, images of some of the rooms in the base. It studies them while still carefully watching the handler, watching the Asset. The base is operational, but there are fewer personnel than it thinks there should be. They are now scurrying around, it can follow agents through the base in the images, studying particular images in turn whilst ignoring others. It does not like seeing the Asset in a picture, and pushes that one far away.

Shortly after, it can hear frantic words in the handler's earpiece. The agents had apparently been watching the Asset and handler in that picture too. They send in a technician to look at the camera, but cannot find a fault.

Time passes strangely after the code words. Part of the mind can accurately count the seconds, minutes, hours (particularly given the helpful time-and-date whispers that come from many places around the base), but the Asset quietly waits for orders and time without orders is…meaningless.

The handler does not stay in the room all of the time, but leaves several times, leaving an agent in his place. The Soldier can hear the whispers of conversations with other agents. Arrangements being made.

The Soldier does not like waiting. Waiting is…boring. 

There are interruptions in the waiting. The handler takes it back to the Chair in the main hall. The code word haze overrides the mind’s blankness and the Asset sits in it.  Is strapped down. Takes the mouthpiece.  The body remembers pain, but there is only brightness. The Soldier watches the body shudder from the image in the camera. It doesn’t like watching, and turns the image off. Karpov, it thinks, does like watching. 

After, he reads the code words from the book again.

The Asset needs orders to fill the blankness in the mind.  But it is sealed in the containment cell again.  More waiting.

Another interruption in the waiting brings a technician, and the tasteless white liquid. The stomach rebels briefly, jittery after the wipe and lack of orders, protesting this addition. The Soldier does not want to make a mess.  Messes are…bad. It knows Karpov will punish mess. The mind holds no specifics, but it can feel…something. Swallowing carefully, it keeps the white liquid inside the stomach.

Eventually there are orders to move out.  The whispers have already told the Soldier of the arrangements, even if Karpov did not, so the agents escorting it to the airfield, then into a plane, do not surprise it.  The coordinates of the flight plan show where they are going.  Back to the US.  To the other base and the other handler and the other commander.  It can feel that other location, it remembers it, but does not reach for it.  Orders are to follow the agents on the plane.  Karpov does not board the flight, but watches it leave. The Soldier thinks the handler would have liked it to stay. It feels…relief, but also loss.  Will it lose the memories again when it has left? It knows there are still many blanks.

Waiting on the flight is less boring. The Soldier can feel the world moving around it.  The sensation is…pleasant.  There are many locations that call out to it.  Locations that stir flickers of memory in the mind.  Memories of sensations. Trudging through deep snow. Dizzying heights of mountains. Crowded streets. Forests of trees. Boats filled with soldiers. Mud. Blood. Gunfire. The heart is beating faster than normal. Bodies. A table. Needles.  Breathing faster also.  A number. 3255… The number is important. The metal arm recalibrates, the plates shivering down to the fingertips. There is more to the number…3255…7… A voice, repeating the number.  Over.  And over. His voice? 32557…0…3…8. What was that number? Repeating the number calms the body somehow. 32557038. The number pattern pushes away the flashes of pain and fear that came with the sensations. The breathing slows some.

The Soldier realizes they are over US soil. It has lost time again. It is lucky to have come back to itself before the agents noticed.  Locations below them now are also familiar.  Memories stirred by these are mostly less…sharp. Blurred and hazy when they do come, but less painful when they impose on the mind.  Streets. Shops. A park. Also a few sharper images; targets, stake-outs, bases.  There are more of them than the Soldier had thought.

Whispers tell the Soldier that they are about to land, agents in the cockpit conversing with air traffic control. As they get lower, the Soldier can hear the other planes and ground systems whispering too. There are agents waiting for them. The other handler…Sitwell? He is there, he is in a picture from a hangar camera. Pierce is not.

There are more agents waiting outside the plane than the Soldier thinks is normal. The Russian Hydra agents on board the plane seem to find this amusing.  The Soldier is very aware of the number of stun batons they carry. They direct it into the back of the vehicle that the Sitwell-handler is standing next to. As soon as the Soldier is sat inside, the two closest jam their stun batons into the torso. It endures, but the body shudders slightly.  Unacceptable. A third agent jabs something sharp into the back of the neck.  A needle. Ugh. Needles are…not…

The Soldier is…here.  Blink.  The Soldier has lost time?  It is restrained.  There are the whispers of the Chair monitors.  Oh.  The Soldier is in the Chair.  The mind blurrily objects.  The left arm will not move.  It is numb.  More numb than before.  Blink.  The arm…itches?  There are two technicians wrist deep inside the workings of the metal arm.  It twitches.  The technicians flinch away.  The Soldier wants to rub the itch in the arm. It twitches again.  An agent (where did he come from?  Why did the Soldier not notice him?) pushes the left shoulder down with a stun baton.  Buzzing.  The itch is worse.

Shouting.  The technicians jump back to the arm with hurried movements.  There are several cameras in the room.  An image of the Soldier in the Chair.  Another angle of the same.  An image of wires and components.  This last image is moving, disorienting to the slowly clearing mind.  Its thoughts are…slow.  Oh, drugs.  It shakes the head.  The technicians flinch again and the image jolts around.  The stomach protests.  The image is…the inside of the arm?  There isn’t much space in there.  The agent is talking into an earpiece.  Summoning the handler.

Inside the arm a new component is being maneuvered into place.  Sharp pain.  A soldering iron connects it to the inner workings of the arm and the power supply.  Coordinates suddenly whisper to the Soldier.  It shakes the head again.  A blow strikes the face, hard enough to make the ears ring with the lingering fuzziness.  Inside the arm, the image is twisting and turning.  The Soldier pushes the image away.  The technicians pull an instrument out of the arm and give it a shake, pushing keys on the monitor.  One shrugs and puts the camera to one side.  Sparks spray from the mini-welder the other technician uses to seal parts of the arm, with the usual burning sensation of maintenance.

“...it’s already been wiped by the Russians.  We may not get any answers.”  The Sitwell-handler has arrived.

“We won’t know if you don’t try before we wipe it ourselves. I want to know what happened.”  The Pierce-commander also.

The commander approaches the Chair. “The transponder is in place?”  Satisfied with the response from the technicians, he looks directly at the Soldier. “Mission report.”

The Soldier scrambles to work out what the mission was. 

“Mission report.”

“Transfer to US base Washington DC complete.”

The Sitwell-handler glances at the Pierce-commander. Was that not the correct answer?  The last orders given to it were from the Karpov-handler, to return to the US base on the plane.

“I am not talking about your return to this base. Mission report September 19th 2005.” Oh, the commander means a report on the mission given by him.  It would be easier if they gave more precise orders.

“Twelve targets eliminated. Structural and property damage sustained to business at mission location. Papers recovered and delivered to destination. Data extracted.” The Soldier takes a breath…it is uncertain if there was lost time in the mission at this point. “Data delivered to commander. Returned to home base.”

“And what is the location of the home base?”

“58 degrees 2 minutes and 16 seconds North, 129 degrees 24 minutes and 48 seconds East.”

A slap to the face.  The commander is not as strong as the agent who hit it with the baton earlier.

“The future of Hydra is in America. This is your home now. I can’t have you running off to Siberia when I need you here.  More importantly, I need all of your talents.  We are still building to our final phase and we need to use all the resources available to us, or Hydra won’t be able to realize its goals. Now I need you to tell me how you got to Siberia.”

The Soldier thinks of the dark silence between the commander’s home and the Russian base. “Unknown.”

Another slap.

“Wipe it. Test it. Take it apart if you have to. I don’t want it to disappear unless I order it to.” The commander turns to leave. “Tell me when you have results.”

The Sitwell-handler mutters, “What a disaster.” Then points at the technicians. “You heard him. Wipe it.”

Chapter Text

October 2005, Sitwell

Sitwell slurped his latte, washing down the last of the pastry he'd grabbed on the way into the base. At least today they weren’t expecting to be doing anything too invasive to test the Asset. Last week his breakfast had ended up down the toilet at the Hydra medical facility they were borrowing after the scientists had decided to fully open up the damn thing's skull and poke at the brain matter. Not that Sitwell hadn't seen brains before, but only on a mission where he was vaguely prepared for that kind of thing and then it wasn't still pulsing.  He preferred missions that didn’t involve exposing internal organs. And the smell when they then applied a high enough voltage that they basically fried it…no, he wasn't going there or he'd end up losing today's breakfast too.

Supposedly it would have fully healed by today and should be back in the vault. He'd take the medics’ word for it; they had the files from the Russians about what it had survived before, and plenty of data on how quickly it healed. Pierce wasn't going to be pleased with the progress the medics hadn't made. He'd been breathing down their necks wanting answers to how it had managed that disappearing act. As yet they hadn't managed to get it to repeat it. Although they were all a bit scared it was going to end up in Siberia again - it had been humiliating enough the first time getting the Russian arm of Hydra to send the Asset back to them. They always seemed to feel that the Asset was only on loan to the American branch and that it truly belonged in Russia. Huh, guess the Asset possibly believed that too seeing as it returned ‘home’ there.

He’d had a few days reprieve from watching the scientists try to figure out what had happened to the Asset, as he'd been out on a SHIELD mission. Getting out from Pierce’s scrutiny to be under Fury’s wasn't much of a trade up, but at least he got to keep up with the gossip.  Double-agent work was so much harder when you were out of the loop.

He pulled up the reports from the technicians looking after it while he was away. Looks like it had healed even faster than they expected, so they'd brought it back early and stuck it back in cryofreeze. They didn't like having it out of the ice for too long or it tended to malfunction more often. As far as he could tell, it was a bit like turning a computer off and on again. A miracle cure-all. He paged the technicians to get it started warming up.

They hadn't fed it before cryo either. That was unusual. Normally it had its disgusting-looking liquid diet after missions. Sitwell always figured that was some kind of reward system cooked up under the Soviets. You couldn't just not fuel a weapon like that if it was out in the field (Sitwell had seen the reports of the mess that happened when a team had failed to take its ‘food’ with them on a longer mission. It had become nearly more of a Liability than an Asset. Some of the reports suggested to Sitwell that the ‘food’ wasn't just about nutrition; he'd swear it sounded like a detox, or even withdrawal. Whatever was in it wasn't in his clearance to know.), but sometimes on base they had it on a lower consumption rate. Usually they'd make sure it got a dose before putting it on ice, so it was plenty fuelled for the next mission. He made a mental note to make sure it didn't get skipped for too long. God knows what mess that could make.

Throwing his coffee cup in the trash, he headed downstairs to the basement vault level that housed the Asset containment and cryo unit behind the lab. He nodded at Callorway on guard duty already. The Asset was just being pulled out of the freezer and still not fully awake.

“Right, let's get it wiped.” He dismissed Callorway, and prodded the Asset to follow the tech - Morris today - through to the lab and the Chair. They'd used the Chair so many times in the last few weeks Sitwell was starting to get used to the noise of it. The hum wasn't so bad and even the yelling of the Asset seemed less grating. It seemed to be having an effect on electronics around the base in general though. They'd had a high rate of glitches, particularly in the cameras in the lab. It was cranked up to such a high voltage now it probably caused a drain in the power supply for a block or two around the base. Frankly he wouldn't be surprised if it got picked up by nearby businesses and made the local news. Then maybe they'd have a different job to do.

He was, however, starting to wish someone else could have the job of activating it. He'd probably start reciting the code words in his sleep soon. Pierce was not easily available, and he didn't like sharing his toys. There were only a couple of people still on base that could access the book, and he always seemed to draw the short-straw. The Asset responded as normal though, so they could proceed to today's planned testing.

Ordering the Asset to follow, he took it through to the second lab where Morris hooked it up to a mockup of the Chair. This one they'd built while they were poking and prodding the Asset's insides. It was essentially a copy of the Chair, but instead of a single set of electrodes designed to deliver one enormous shock, this one had lots of electrodes to both measure electrical activity and, if the techs wanted to experiment, deliver more targeted shocks to the subject. Or so Sitwell understood from what the scientists and techs had reported.

“Sit.” The Asset didn't show confusion as a rule, being a blank slate most of the time, but Sitwell thought he saw a glimmer of it here. Granted, it was hardly normal routine to wipe it twice, in different Chairs. And this one did look very similar to the one they'd just left.

Asset in place, it took a lot longer for Morris to set up the electrodes in this version of the Chair. Sanders joined them to look over the readings from the electrodes. As far as Sitwell was concerned he was looking at a bunch of wobbly lines. Looked like the visual from a radio receiver set on static. As more of the electrodes got hooked up, they started wobbling more and showing frequent spikes.

Richardson arrived, bring with him a bunch of papers and a few gadgets. Sitwell accepted a packet of papers from him, already briefed on the plan the scientists wanted to run. In his packet he had a pile of pictures of places they wanted to observe the Asset's reactions to. First in the pile was Pierce's home where it had disappeared from. The Secretary had been livid, describing the way it disappeared; there one minute, then the next something like a blue shadow washed over it, leaving nothing behind.

They'd been over the house with a fine-tooth comb. Forensics, tech-specialists, you name it. Hell, he’d even heard that Pierce had brought in psychics to try and see if there was something in the house that had caused the Asset's disappearance. Nobody had found anything amiss there. The conclusion, given the Asset's report that it'd completed its mission to return ‘home’ (and hadn't that riled Pierce up again) was that the Asset was most likely responsible. Not that anybody had any clue how it'd done it. It unnerved Sitwell that something so dumb might have that sort of power. It was bad enough as it already was, juiced up on Zola’s serum and decked out with the metal arm. If they couldn't keep it contained because it disappeared off, who knows how soon it would malfunction and not return?

They'd bugged it with a transponder now of course. Sitwell had a GPS unit to track it if it did disappear. And he'd make sure it regretted it.

Morris signaled that the new Chair was ready. Sanders and Richardson were avidly watching the readouts.

Sitwell held up the picture of Pierce's house. “Where is this?”

The Asset's eyes scanned over the image. “Commander's home.”

“Where is this?” This time the image was of the DC base.

“Hydra base, Washington DC.”

“And this?”

“Triskelion, SHIELD headquarters.”

This time he folded out a map of the US. “Where is this base on this map?”

This time the Asset takes a little longer to scan its eyes over the paper. Out of the corner of his eye, Sitwell can see Richardson leaning forward to keenly observe the screen, making notes.

The metal arm was restrained as in the regular chair, but they had left the flesh arm free.  This now moved to point at the location of the base.

He proceeded to ask the Asset to locate several other bases in the US. Even ones it hadn't been to for several missions, and therefore several wipes ago. Sitwell frowned. Richardson was hurriedly scribbling notes.

Next, Sitwell pulled out the image of the Siberia base. He'd never been there, and was glad of it. Looked fucking cold. 

“Winter Soldier base, Siberia.” Fuck, that was a problem. 

Sitwell grabbed his stun baton and put his full strength into a jab in the Soldier's stomach. “Not your base. Your base is here.”

The Asset dropped its gaze to the floor. “Yes, sir.”

He held up another picture of the Asset containment cell in the vault. “This is your home. Any order to go home, you go here.”

“Yes, sir.”

He glanced over to Sanders and Richardson, got a small nod to proceed, and moved on to pictures and local maps of other Hydra bases and locations of recent missions around the world. London. Cairo. Cape Town. Jakarta. Seoul. Berlin. Prague. Buenos Aires. By the time he got near the end of the packet he'd about had enough of this guessing game. 

“You got enough for now?” Richardson flicked through his notes and nodded. “Right.” Time to move on to a more proactive program.

He made a call to the rest of his strike team, getting them set up in different locations within the base that the Asset was most familiar with.

“Солдат.” Now he'd held up the picture of the Asset containment cell again. “You know this. Go to containment.”

The Asset started to rise. It was a little encumbered by all the additional electrodes with their connected wires. He could see Morris twitch over by the monitors, probably protective of his precious equipment.

“No. Not like that. Don't walk. Go.”

The Asset hovered, half-stood up above the Chair. Maybe it needed more encouragement. He brought the stun baton round in a vicious strike against its ribs.

“Containment. Now.”

The Asset seemed to twitch, somewhere between trying to get up and stopping itself from doing so.

“Удерживающие клетки. Сейчас.” <Containment cells. Now.>

The Asset's eyes seemed to defocus. It stood up again, preparing to step forward.

“Нет!” Sitwell swung the baton into a knee this time, buckling it. He readied his gun. “Иди к удерживающие клетки.” <Go to containment cells.>

Damn it was stubborn. The blow to its knee had only paused the movement to stand. It started to pull at the restraint on the metal arm.

Sitwell signaled to Morris, who punched a few commands into his workstation. The Soldier tensed as a voltage was applied across some of the electrodes. He didn't know or care which. That was Morris’ job to figure out what buttons to push.

“Иди.”

The Asset’s fingers twitched, and it blinked. Then it just…vanished.

If he hadn't read Pierce's report of what he'd seen the first time, and if he hadn't been trying to get this result, he’s not sure he would have believed his eyes. 

Sitwell immediately called over comms to Callorway, back in the containment area. “Do you have the Asset?” At the same time he pulled the GPS unit from his pocket and switched it on to see it reading the coordinates for the base.

“Affirmative. I have the Asset. Repeat, the Asset is in the vault.” Sitwell internally sighed with relief. 

“Acknowledged. On my way.”

He looked over at Sanders, Richardson and Morris, who all looked dumbfounded. “Did you get that?”

He had to repeat, “Did you get that?” more forcefully before Richardson jerked and paged through the screens in front of him. Many of which were now showing static again. Some were instead showing a flat line. Morris looked not entirely happy. He guessed whatever it did messed with his new Chair.

“Got something.” Richardson was still staring at the screens. “Don't know what, but it's something.”

“Good. Sanders I want you upstairs in mission ops.” Satisfied for now, Sitwell headed swiftly for the vault where he found the Soldier standing in its usual favorite corner when on standby. 

“Отлично, Солдат.” There it was. That infinitesimal relaxation of the shoulders when it was told it had done well.

Sitwell still had the next sheet in his hand. Mission ops. “One more. You know this place.” He gave it a second to look over the image. “Go there.”

Once again it went to move its feet. He pulled his gun quickly and fired a round into its foot. “Not like that.”

The Asset barely flinched at the wound in its foot, although it did stop moving forward. Clearly they needed a way to make this order different to just getting it to walk somewhere. Well, the oldest commands were the most reliable. And it had worked to get it here… “Иди.”

There was definitely a flicker in its eyes. 

“Сейчас. Иди.” Then it was gone.

“Davis, do you have the Asset?”

“Asset in mission ops, sir.”

“On my way.” Sitwell made quick time up the stairs to find Sanders already assessing the Asset. “Отлично, Солдат.” It looked, if possible, paler than usual. 

“Doc?”

Sanders had replaced a few monitors on it that had gotten left behind in the mark II Chair, and was just grabbing a second vial to draw more blood. He paused to look up at Sitwell. “I'll know more when I've run a full work up on these and the data from downstairs, but it needs sustenance at least. Initial blood work is showing ketones. I'll deal with the GSW in the foot. Should take a couple of hours to be at full capacity I'd say.”

He nodded at Sanders. Finally, they were getting results.

December 2005, Sitwell

“I was disappointed in the setback last month.” Pierce had called Sitwell into his office in the Triskelion before, but it wasn't a common occurrence. Audiences with the Secretary always made him slightly nervous. According to SHIELD his direct command came through Fury.

“We’ve made a lot of progress since then.”

“Yes, this latest report says you think it's ready for a field test. I may have something for you in that regard.” Pierce was leafing through the report Sitwell had sent in two days ago. “You are certain you've solved the home coordinates problem?”

They'd had the Asset in and out of the freezer for several weeks, drilling it to test its ability to ‘go’ where it was told. Before that they'd reinforced the point that the Washington base (specifically the vault) should be considered home until he almost thought he might end up there after a drunken night out, let alone the Asset.

Returning ‘home’ so far had had only a few hiccups. Fortunately not as far as Siberia again, but it didn't always arrive at the same location within the DC base. And on one memorable occasion it had gone instead to Pierce's house. It had unfortunately been the only exercise Pierce himself had overseen. They'd been pretty severe in making sure it understood when it had arrived in the wrong place. This was the other cause of delays getting to this point.

“Yes, sir.”

They'd run exercise after exercise, first inside the base, then moving on to going between Hydra bases throughout the US. It didn't so far seem to have any limitation on distance. Accuracy was better the less time it spent out of cryo. Which was why it had been such a slow process to get to this point, where they needed a simple, real mission to test it out on.

“I have something for you. It should suffice for your purposes.” Pierce handed him a file. Within the Triskelion, Hydra files were either carefully guarded paper, or highly encrypted.

Sitwell read over the details. The target was a minor irritant. A reporter getting a hair too close to truths Hydra would prefer to keep hidden. “Using the Asset seems almost overkill.”

Pierce nodded to him. “You need to test it. It is important that we get this right. Hydra needs its best weapons in full working order. I won't have my plans disrupted.”

“We're ready, sir.”

“Good. I trust you will clean up after yourself if anything goes wrong. Conversely, if this goes well, I may have a new position for you here in the Triskelion.”

Sitwell knew he’d cracked the problem.  Pierce had finally noticed his skills.  He was going to make this count.

In an ideal world he'd just be able to send the Asset out on a simple job like this and wait for it to get back. Of course, in an ideal world, that Hydra was working towards, there wouldn't be a need for jobs like this because any dissenters would have been strung up before they got a chance to be a problem.

Because they couldn't just let it off the leash, he'd had to fly up to Boston with it and most of a strike team, in case of disaster, and was now watching it, watching the target. He had the GPS monitor with him, because there was always the possibility it might go off-script.

They began their surveillance on the target at the tabloid offices she worked at. Her movements during the day suggested she was careful, but not especially paranoid. He eyed the target one last time through the scope again, watching her pack up for the end of the day. Time to move. They'd been over the mission parameters and it knew they didn't want this to look like the hit it was.

As the target emerged from the building opposite and headed out along the street, the Asset followed along the rooftops. Sitwell watched it briefly, but quickly lost sight of it as it melted into the shadows. Checking the direction that the GPS was showing the Asset moving, he made his way down to street level.

The target was still visible, but Sitwell didn't follow too closely. Several blocks later, she stopped in at a store, then emerged again with a bag full of groceries. Two bus rides later, they arrived at the target's home address, the Asset completely invisible but clearly still keeping pace according to the GPS.

Sitwell found himself a spot across from the house to observe.

Lights turned on in different rooms as the woman moved through the house. Sitwell checked the GPS location, and tried to spot the Asset. He couldn't.

Keeping one eye on the dot on the GPS, he watched the windows of the house, training the scope on the target. Presumably the Asset was doing the same. They'd done dry runs of this procedure in their drills. Pointing the Asset to a location it could see in a scope and telling it to go there.

It wasn't until the target headed into a bathroom with a towel that the dot blinked and reappeared.  From the approximate distance and direction from his location, presumably inside the house. The door to the bathroom closed and even guessing that the Asset had just appeared in there, Sitwell couldn't see any sign from where he was.

The street around was fairly quiet. An occasional car or pedestrian going past. One of the occupants of the house Sitwell was skulking beside came out to take out the trash, but didn't notice him. 

Minutes passed, before the GPS dot jumped again. Looking through the scope, Sitwell barely made out the shadow of the Asset moving around the house, gradually switching off lights. Putting the scope on night vision mode, he could see motions that must be the Asset arranging the house to sell the story of a presumed suicide or accident.  Sitwell heaved a quiet sigh of relief.  Finally it was managing to get something right.

Their intended rendezvous point was at the edge of the city, by the private airfield they’d arrived at.  Sitwell started making his way there, and a few streets over hailed a taxi.  Shortly after, the GPS dot blinked again.  He expected it to reappear at the rendezvous point, where they’d left the plane, but was surprised to see it was close to his own location.  Aw crap.  Just when it had all been going so well.  He tried to peer out of the window of the cab, but didn’t see anything.  Not that he really expected to.

Then the GPS dot blinked again.  Was it…following him?  Another jump, again in line with the route the taxi was taking. How the hell was it doing that?  Surely it had to be a coincidence. It blinked again, still following. He knew it was capable of going as far as the airfield directly, but maybe there was a reason it didn’t and was just going as far as it could see with each jump?  Whatever it was, it gave Sitwell the creeps.

It took another ten minutes for the cab to drop him in a neighborhood just next to the airfield.  No point leaving any avoidable trails.  In that time he kept wondering if the next jump of the GPS dot would be the one that would mean he’d have to call in the rest of the strike team from standby. He held off, knowing any report of anything going wrong would put paid to Pierce’s promise of a promotion.  It kept jumping mostly towards the airfield, although with a definite lean that looked rather like roads the taxi was taking. Sitwell could hardly breathe every time it jumped.

He hiked the last mile to the airfield and decided he could get away with not reporting it.  The end result was the same, and it hadn’t disobeyed the command per se.

On arrival, the Asset was nowhere to be seen.  He made his way into the plane and was about to check the GPS again in a panic when he became rather suddenly aware of the Asset behind him.  Jesus. When his heart regained its usual rhythm, he stowed his gear on board and turned back to it. “Mission report.”

“Target acquired at premises of Boston Star newspaper.  Target proceeded to purchase goods at a minimarket in Roxbury. Target then traveled to known home address in Dedham.  Infiltration of home address successful.  Target incapacitated, then exsanguinated in bathtub, inside locked bathroom. Removed fresh food items. Inserted prepared suicide note on target’s home computer. Returned to rendezvous point.”

No mention of the Asset’s scenic route to get back to the rendezvous point.  Well, then it was probably nothing to do with his own route back.  And wouldn’t show up in any report to Pierce.

“Отлично, Солдат. Go to containment at Washington DC base.”

Sitwell called up Rumlow, heading up the other half of the strike team back at the base. “Asset inbound.  Tell me you got it.” He watched as it disappeared right in front of him.  He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that.

“Confirm Asset has arrived. Give us more warning next time won’t you?”

Sitwell smirked, picturing Rumlow pissing himself when the Asset appeared.  They could handle it from there. “Stick it back in the freezer, and give Pierce the all clear.”

Internally, he rubbed his hands with glee. He had his ticket to the Triskelion.  Time to train Rumlow up on Asset handling.

Chapter Text

Awareness returns, slowly.  First is still always cold.  Cold, everywhere.

But when the cold starts to recede, there are now whispers.  Even before it registers sound, these come.  With each awakening, the whispers comfort it.  They start close by.  Coordinates drifting from the left shoulder; pressure, temperature, angles from the arm.  Tiny whispers from the cryofreeze chamber and its monitors.  Then slowly, more join in from further away, from all over the base.

The blood starts pumping.  It can hear the beating, rushing in its ears.  Slow, then progressively faster.

As it revives, memory comes to it.  It has done this countless times before.  More, it suspects, than it can yet remember.  Memories are triggered by a sense of…position.  Location.  A world around it.

It knows, before it opens the eyes, where it is.  Precisely where it is.

Light.  The new handler is back.  This handler is shorter and more heavily muscled than the previous.  There will be a mission.  But before that, the Chair.

The routine is…comforting.  The Chair is no longer as full of pain.  Shocks seem to travel through the body, but they do not…erase the mind.  The body still tenses, still shakes, shudders and shouts.  But inside the mind it is quieter.  Brighter.

It can hear from all around what the base is doing today.  It changes the numbers in the Chair, but the technicians change it back.  There are scientists working.  They have energy taken from the blue cube.  They also have readings from the Chair, looking at waves from the Soldier.  There are agents training in the upper levels.  There is a radio playing in the security office, where agents are watching the body shuddering.  The Soldier reaches out and turns off the camera.  It listens to the radio.  It finds-

“Желание.” It was distracted by the whispers and-

“Ржавый.” -hadn’t noticed the handler retrieving the book.

“Семнадцать.” There is a sense of-

“Рассвет.” -dread, coiling in its gut.

“Печь.” The words are-

“Девять.” -louder than-

“Доброкачественный.” -whispers-

“Возвращение на родину.” -or thoughts-

“Один.” -or-

“Грузовой вагон.”  Blank.

“Я готов отвечать.”

The Asset is focused on the handler.  The rest of the world feels…far away.

The handler leads it up to mission ops, hands it a file with mission details.  Maps.  Targets. 

The whispers give more details.  London.  Tracking an upcoming meeting of a gang of local criminals with some international arms dealers, reputedly trading some black market technology that Hydra would like to get their hands on.  Some Stark tech, some Hammer tech computer-guided missiles, and also some older weaponry and power sources from continental Europe, going back as far as the 1950s.  The Asset will be assisted by a local Hydra cell who will be able to retrieve larger pieces of interest.

The handler holds up an image.

“Highest priority on this mission is to extract this.  No witnesses.”

The Asset observes a low-resolution image of a small power pack.  There is a faint blue glow inside it.  The Soldier feels a small…itch inside the mind.

Armour.  Knives.  Mask.  Goggles.  Pistol.  Submachine guns.  Rifle.  Grenades.

“These are coordinates for the local Hydra base.  Go.”

The Asset observes the maps in the briefing, and the coordinates displayed by the handler.  It recalls the London base.  It…has been there before.  Central.  Underground.  Old train tracks.

It can feel where the Asset is, and the world between itself and these coordinates.  It reaches for the new location.  A feeling like stretching to feel something just out of reach in the dark-

Silence.

Then dim light.  There are two agents in this brick-walled room.  Two exits.  It can hear…lots of whispers, but most are far away.  Muffled.  

It nods to the agents.  Both are dressed identically, ready for the mission and the taller of the two hands it an earpiece.  The noise in the earpiece mingles with the whispers in an annoying echo effect.  It wears it anyway.

The Soldier knows its way through the base to the street level.  The agents follow it.  As it moves closer to the surface, the whispers grow less muffled.  There are conversations in the whispers, times, locations, images, money, data for everything.  It is…too much.  The Asset pauses before exiting the base, pushing the whispers to one side inside the mind.  It picks out the ones that are useful, and keeps listening to those.  It is late afternoon, but the summer sun is still up, making stealth, especially in a busy city, more difficult.  

The mission briefing told it where to go next.  The agents have a vehicle prepared.  They join the slow-moving traffic.  The Asset thinks it would have been faster outside of the truck, if less stealthy.

As they make slow progress, the two agents talk about non-mission-related topics.  These seem to mostly involve sports and a previous occasion of drinking beer.  The taller agent, driving the truck, expounds on the recent misfortunes of a team called ‘West Ham’.  The other, more well-built than the other, is dismissive of football entirely and argues that ‘Harlequins’ are superior.  It seems to be a well-worn argument.  The Asset tunes them out, concentrating instead on their location.

It has been to this city before.  This it knows, but some details are indistinct.  There have been missions, recently, using this base.  As they drive through the streets there are occasional flashes of images from the mind.  Some include other agents.  Some clearly targets.  Sniping nests.  Infiltrating kitchens to deliver poison from a heavy container.  Some streets appear the same, but with different, older styles of cars.  Some…inside a bar?  The faces feel unfamiliar, but this is a memory?  There are men, drinking.  A woman with dark hair in a red dress.  Another underground bunker, not unlike the Hydra base, with maps and location markers.  Older style uniforms.  There is something…a face that should be there that he can’t see…the images are fleeting, and frustrating.  No.  The Asset cannot be distracted.  The mission is the only thing.

The truck parks up in a quiet side street not far from the expected meeting.  There are apartments above the row of shops, a few people coming and going up and down the street, but otherwise quiet.  Eyeing apartment windows and the few shops still open, the Asset slips out of the vehicle, down an alley and climbs the back of a block of garages.  On the roof it slinks into position, hidden in shadow, watching the opposite row of garages.  It can feel a camera watching these garages also.  Higher security than a run-down garage like this would normally have.  This is where the gang are operating from.  The Asset squashes the camera image to turn it off.

The Asset is good at waiting.  Waiting was…easier…when the whispers did not always try to intrude.  There are whispers everywhere.  Every person walking down the street is trailing whispers.  Every apartment nearby also.  The city is so loud. 

Also the memory flashes that started on the journey don’t stop.  It is as if they had opened a window inside the mind and now won’t stop trickling out.  The faces bother it most.  Who are these people?  They should have names, but it doesn’t know them.  The same faces reappear many times, as if seeing them once pulled on a thread to unravel more.  Drinking in a bar.  Laughing at some unknown joke.  Trudging through mud.  Sleeping in tents.  Lots of mud.  Gunfire-

Movement.  With difficulty, the Soldier pushes the memories aside and focuses on the garage in front of it.  The light has faded slightly now, but it has picked a good viewpoint. 

A sleek black van pulls up by the garage, slotting itself between a silver hatchback and a blue van that has an advert for Mr Duck’s plumbing on the side.  There is a strange high-pitched whisper coming from inside the van.  Familiar, in a way that makes the Asset tense all over.  Grating, like tinnitus.  More time passes waiting for the other party to show.  The whisper puts the Asset’s teeth unpleasantly on edge. 

The Asset carefully watches any passers by, but is disappointed until two men in dark clothing stop at the garage door the Asset has been watching for the last couple of hours.  One of them pulls a set of keys from a pocket and starts fiddling with the padlock on the door.  It taps the earpiece to signal to the Hydra agents in the truck to be ready.

The garage door slides up with a rumble, and a light flickers on inside.  The man with the keys disappears inside the garage, while the other, heavily muscled and wearing gloves even in the August heat, pauses at the entrance as two men emerge from the black van.  One, wearing a suit and well-groomed, moves directly to the open garage, nodding at Muscles on the way past.  The other, wearing more casual clothes and showing tattoos on his arms, opens the back doors of the van and climbs in the back, mostly obscuring himself from the Asset’s view.  It considers the relative benefits of being able to see further into the van against being able to see the occupants of the garage sooner, and silently shifts across until it can see Tattoos and dark shapes that look like a variety of boxes and crates in the back of the van, whilst still keeping an eye on Muscles.  It can hear indistinct voices inside the garage.

The whining whisper from inside the van irritates the ears.  The Asset shakes its head slightly, trying to get away from the feeling.  It has felt something like it before.  It feels for the sound inside the mind and tries to squash it like it did the camera image.  The whisper…pushes back.  It refuses to be squashed.  What the hell?  It manages to become even more…grating.  It prompts thoughts of blue light.  Blue flashes.  The Soldier almost ducks reflexively, trying to evade the blue flashes.  The flashes are…dangerous.  It has seen soldiers cut down by those flashes.

The Asset grits its teeth and forces its attention back on the open garage door again.  Is this transaction actually happening?  It must confirm the presence of the powerpack before it can make its move.  Finally Keys and Suit emerge from the garage.  Keys is carrying a briefcase.

Suit signals to Tattoos, who picks out a crate from the back of the van and carries it out for Keys to examine.  The Asset can see a variety of munitions within.  Its sharp eyes can identify Stark grenades and pistols.  Keys motions Muscles forward to take the crate inside the garage.  Tattoos retrieves another crate from the van, this time containing Soviet rifles from the 1970s.  The next item out of the van is not a crate, but a case, which Keys opens to inspect the contents.  Mid-range missiles, also Stark tech.  A few more crates, containing a mixture of submachine guns (Hammer tech), grenades and shells (British, various ages), and landmines (Chinese, Korean war era).  Following this Suit waves Muscles into the van with Tattoos to assist with a larger box.  Keys’ inspection shows it to contain Gulf war-era rocket launchers.  The next box also requires both Tattoos and Muscles to carry it, its contents even older than the others.  The weapons inside carry the Hydra symbol.  The Soldier tries to suppress the images flashing into its mind.  Blue flashes from these weapons killing swathes of soldiers.

Suit pulls a smaller object from the box, and slides it into one of the weapons.  The whine intensifies.  The Asset recognises the mission priority.  Time to go.

The Asset signals again to the Hydra agents.  Time for them to get off their butts too.  Keys takes the now powered weapon from Suit, exchanging it for the briefcase, and precedes Tattoos and Muscles with the box into the garage.

The Asset drops down from the roof and silently slinks from shadow to shadow towards the open garage.

At the end of the street, Agent Harlequins sneaks less silently around the corner.  The Asset grimaces. It glares in the direction of the agent even though it knows he won't be able to see it.  Fortunately Suit doesn't seem to have noticed and is watching the scene inside the garage rather than the street.

As he approaches, Tattoos makes another trip to the van for another box - this one looks like it holds plastic explosives - and Muscles appears in the doorway again.  Keys is still inside the garage, with the mission priority.

The Asset holds position until the moment when Tattoos is passing the box to Muscles.  The first shot goes straight through Suit’s head.  Almost instantly the Asset is in position behind Tattoos and lands a heavy kick in his lower back.  That move should have landed him on top of Muscles in a pile of tangled limbs, but it turns out Muscles is quick. He's already dodged sideways out of the way and has brought out his own firearm.  The Asset deflects shots with the metal arm and advances.

Tattoos is already rolling back up to his feet.  The Asset tracks the movement as it pushes the muzzle of Muscles’ firearm upwards, kicking now at the man’s solar plexus.  Muscles clearly embodies his name even there, but the strength of the Winter Soldier still winds him and throws him back into the wall of the garage.  The Asset fires towards the now upright Tattoos and is satisfied by the resulting spray of blood from multiple hits to the chest.

The whine in its head pulses suddenly, causing the Soldier to duck, fortuitously allowing the bolt of blue light to pass over it and hit the roof of the van outside.  Another memory flickers across the mind, of a tank exploding with the same blue light.  The movement takes the Soldier towards Muscles, who has recovered and swings the firearm back down to cover the Asset.  Stepping into the momentum of its previous movement, the Asset engages with Muscles again, grabbing the firearm and crushing the barrel.

Another pulse in the whine has the Asset pulling the bulk of Muscles in front of it.  Muscles jolts with the blue light and sags limp on top of the Asset.

An engine starts up at the back of the garage.  Keys has mounted a motorcycle and has the weapon with the mission priority still pointing towards the Asset.

The whine pulses again just as the Asset has extricated itself from under the body of Muscles.  Keys has terrible aim, but there's not a lot of space inside the garage.  The Asset is forced to slide further into the space as the motorcycle starts forward and skids as it turns out of the entrance, narrowly missing Agent Harlequins rounding the corner in the other direction, pistol raised.

Sadly, Agent Harlequins’ aim isn't much better than Keys’.  Certainly not up to the task of tracking the accelerating bike.  Why do they surround the Asset with incompetence?  It will get the blame for any lack of results.  The motorcycle engine noise combined with the blue flashes jogs more memories loose inside the head.  Before it can be overwhelmed, the Asset reaches for the rooftop it had been watching from earlier - flickering through the dark and silent space between - and catches sight of the motorcycle heading north on the next street.

It can still feel the whine of the mission priority.  The Asset focuses on another rooftop ahead of the motorcycle, as it moves onto busier streets, and reaches again.  From this vantage point it can watch the motorcycle weaving through late night traffic, not quite as frantic as Keys perhaps believes he has lost pursuit.  Mission imperative requires no witnesses.  These streets are too busy for a confrontation, so the Asset continues to follow the route of the motorcycle from the rooftops, sighting a good spot ahead each time before it reaches .

Following would have been simple anyway, but with the whine shouting the mission priority’s location constantly it is downright easy.

As the motorcycle reaches a quiet street, one side of a large green area, the Asset pulls a rifle off its back and takes aim.  It doesn't want to risk attracting too much attention, or causing damage to the mission priority.  The blue weapon is slung on Key’s upper back, leaving him less exposed than he could be.  The shot lands as intended in Keys’ upper right thigh.

Reflexively, Keys swerves the bike to the left.  He glances behind, then abruptly runs the bike up onto the grass area to the side, angled towards a wooded area.  Perfect.  The Asset raises its gaze higher as it tracks the movement of the bike, and reaches again for a spot not far into the shadows of the trees.

Keys has the blue weapon in his hand but is glancing behind too frequently to spot the threat ahead of him.  As he passes the second tree the Asset steps out, wrenches the handlebars of the bike towards another tree with the right hand, and twists to grab the mission imperative with the left.

The whine intensifies as soon as it touches the blue weapon.  The Asset barely registers the fiery crash that results from the motorbike’s collision with the third tree.  Memory flashes assault it one after another.  The smell of a forest.  Mud.  Sighting enemy soldiers through a scope.  Blue flashes.  A motorbike roaring along a narrow track.  Explosions.  A shield moving between trees.  The shield is important.  The person carrying it is important.  The Soldier cannot see the face.  Doesn't know the name.  If he could just reach a bit further to see–

A flicker of darkness and silence.

Trees.  In all directions there are only trees.  The ground is sloping down to the east.  The whine has dimmed slightly, and the only real sounds nearby are rustling in the undergrowth and occasional owl calls.  Even the whispers are quiet here.

It thinks it knows these trees.  There will be enemies within them.  The Soldier straps the blue weapon to its clothing to allow both hands to be free.

The Soldier moves stealthily from tree to tree.  The person with the shield could be in trouble in enemy territory.  He must find them.

Mission.  The Asset checks the blue weapon containing the mission priority, keeping it safe, despite the whine it can still hear.  It is certain it left no witnesses; Keys would have died from that collision.  Local police would find the burned wreck of the motorbike and assume an accident.  Agents Harlequins and West Ham were at the garage to recover the other weapons and tidy the scene.  The Soldier is now a long way east of their position.  The earpiece is not powerful enough to reach them from here.  Mission requirements for the Asset now are unclear; it has acquired the object, but the man with the shield must be protected.  No witnesses.  It must remain hidden.

A few hours making progress through the forest, and the Soldier has not encountered any enemies.  It has not seen any civilians either.  The person with the shield must be found.  This is the priority.  The Soldier does not know where this priority comes from.  It moves faster to cover more ground.  The whine is hurting its head.

There are more memory flashes as it moves through the trees.  More faces.  It was part of a team?  Walking, running, trudging through these same trees.  Carrying heavy gear.  Finding an enemy stronghold - that was northeast of here.  It changes direction to find it again.  The sky ahead is starting to brighten.

Whispers.  A helicopter overhead.  The Soldier changes course to avoid it.

The men in his team get more familiar as it gathers more memory flashes.  There were four of them?  Five?  Six?  A bowler hat and large mustaches.  A small man speaking only incomprehensible French.  A dark skinned man who translates to English (why could he not understand the French? He feels sure the Soldier has used that language before).  A British man with thin mustaches.  An Asian man smoking a cigarette.  And the man with the shield.  His face is somehow the hardest to see, but also the flashes feature him most of all.

A second helicopter.  He hasn't found the man with the shield yet.

It is nearing a break in the trees.  There are buildings and whispers over there.  Civilians.  The Soldier skirts the area and disappears back into the forest.

Both helicopters are now circling the area.  It can hear the whispers between them - they are looking for the Soldier.

Between the confusion of uncertain mission parameters, the pounding in the head from the constant whine of the blue weapon, and intrusive memory flashes the Soldier cannot focus.  The metal arm recalibrates as it wavers between realities.  It cannot identify if the helicopters contain enemies.

It hides. 

The helicopters get closer.  In the whispers it can hear an echo of the coordinates from the metal shoulder.  They are tracking it.

Focussing, the Soldier can hear footsteps through the undergrowth in the direction of both helicopters.  They've dropped troops. 

The earpiece crackles in its ear.

Soldiers approach from all sides, guns raised, although they have not seen the Soldier.

This is enemy territory.  The Soldier prepares for a fight.

The new handler’s voice comes over the earpiece.  The Soldier cannot remember a name for him.

“Солдат! Stand down.”

It shakes the head, warring instincts in its head.  It cannot stand down surrounded by enemies.

One of the approaching soldiers holds position.  “Hail Hydra.  Zurücktreten!”

The handler's voice comes again.  “Mission complete, Солдат.  Stand down, and return to base.”

The mission is not complete.  He has not found the man with the shield.

Swearing comes over the earpiece.

A soldier comes within range holding a stun baton.  Instantly the Soldier is moving, out of the hiding spot, pulling the stun baton out of the soldier's hand and putting him off balance.  The Soldier then kicks out at his head, knocking him out instantly.

The other soldiers have now all spun to face the Soldier, but do not approach further.  It does not wait for their move and launches itself at the soldier on its right.

Shots ring out in the quiet forest.  It deflects two with the metal hand.  One bites in the right thigh.

The earpiece cuts in again.

“Желание.”  It reaches the next target–

“Ржавый.” –knocks his weapon to direct fire at another soldier behind the Soldier–

“Семнадцать.” –sweeps a foot through his legs–

“Рассвет.” –stamps down onto the soldier’s face–

“Печь.” –dashes around a tree towards the next target–

“Девять.” –skids below a spray of bullets–

“Доброкачественный.” –shoves the stun baton up into the next target’s groin–

“Возвращение на родину.” –a bullet sprays splinters of the tree over the Soldier–

“Один.” –it pulls a pistol from a holster and aims at another target–

“Грузовой вагон.”

Fog permeates the mind.  The Asset lowers the pistol and stun baton, and drops to its knees.  The whine is ever so slightly dimmed.

“Я готов отвечать.”

Another bullet slams into its lower back, but the Asset does not move.

“Return to Washington DC base.”

The Asset considers the base location, the containment room it has been ordered to return to countless times previously.  It reaches through the silent dark–

The new handler and another agent are standing in the containment room.  The agent immediately levels his weapon at the Asset.

After a tense minute standing with the handler’s sharp eyes on it, the handler roughly removes the Asset's mask and goggles.

“Солдат, mission report.”

The handler’s words are clipped.  He is angry.  The Asset ignores the blood dripping down its legs from the two bullet wounds.  “Targets acquired at expected location.  Confirmed presence of mission priority.  Three targets eliminated at initial location.  Fourth target broke containment with mission priority; eliminated after brief pursuit.  Mission priority acquired.  Pursuit of fifth target abandoned.”

The handler twitches near the end of the Asset's report.  “Identify fifth target.”

“The man with the shield.”

A stun baton is jammed, sparking, into the Asset's throat.  It remains standing, but the mouth is foaming pink with blood and spit.  The empty stomach churns unpredictably.

“There was no fifth target, you stupid fuck.  Why were you out of position?  Why did we have to deploy an extra team to recover you as well as finish cleaning up your mission?”

“He should have been there.”  The words rasp in the throat.

This time the stun baton connects viciously in the Asset’s lower abdomen.  Combining with the bullet wound on the back, the pain causes the knee to buckle slightly on that side.  The Asset sways but just manages to keep balance.

“Where were you going?  Your orders were to return to base.”

“To find the target.  To protect the target.”

“In fucking Germany?!”  The handler speaks so forcefully he is spitting with his words.  “Why did you then engage with the recovery team?  That’s gonna cost us months of recovery for a bunch of agents.”

“Enemy territory.”

“Explain, Солдат.”

“Unknown soldiers in enemy territory.  Presumed enemies.”

This time the stun baton impacts on the Asset's genitals.  It thinks this particular handler has a tendency to direct blows there.  The Asset cannot prevent the torso from bending forwards protectively.  Blood, spit and bile bubble out of its mouth onto the floor.

“You dumb shit, they identified themselves as Hydra.”  He shook his head and sighed, holding a hand out.  “Gimme the weapon.”

The Asset has many weapons on its body.  It pulls itself upright and moves to hand over the pistol and stun baton in its hands.

“No, not those, oh for fuck’s sake.  The mission priority?”

The Asset drops the pistol and stun baton, sacrificing proper weapons protocol for speed to follow the directive.  The other agent flinches at the movement, firing a round into the Asset's left foot.  More blood is now leaking out of the body.  It is able to function at the current rate of reduced blood volume, but it will impair thinking if untreated before too long.

The handler glares sideways at the other agent, still holding his hand out for the mission priority.  The Asset places the blue weapon in it.  The handler presses a button on his earpiece.  “Hughes, meet us at the Chair.”  He waves a command for the Asset to follow, and moves out of the containment cell towards the lab.

As it moves, the Asset leaves a trail of blood.

There is a medic and a technician in the lab, no scientists.  The handler speaks to them, giving orders, then pulls a phone out of his pocket.  He points the Asset at the Chair.  It sits.

The medic approaches gingerly.  It keeps its gaze directed forward, attention still zoned on the handler.

A small sharp pain.  A needle.  The liquid burns in its neck, turning the muscles sluggish.  The mind reaches out to the whispers in the room.

The commander's voice is in the whispers.  It says a name.  Rumlow.  Oh, the handler is speaking to him through the phone.  They argue.

Pain.  Tugging.  Squeezing.  The medic mutters about non-ideal conditions while he patches up the holes in the Soldier's body, removing the bullets. The body feels small and far away from the mind.

The commander does not like the Rumlow-handler's report.  He has now said this twice.  The Soldier thinks this is inefficient.

Another needle prick.  Pressure on the abdomen.  Sutures.  The trickles of blood running down the legs slow.  The Soldier wonders if its boots have overflowed.  It does not move to look and the cameras cannot see the boots.

The handler expands on his report, referencing the Soldier's own report.  The Soldier is not sure that the two reports entirely agree. 

The medic clears away a large pile of bloody swabs and nods to the technician, who moves to strap the Soldier properly to the Chair and places the mouthguard between the teeth.  The Soldier chews the guard slightly.  It ponders if the taste of rubber improves the lingering taste of blood and bile on its tongue.

The commander doesn't believe either report.  He thinks the man with the shield is dead.  The Soldier shouldn't know him.  But he does.

The technician fiddles with the controls and the hum of the Chair starts up.  The body tenses and jolts.  The mind floats with the whispers, sliding the numbers this way and that way and up and down.

The handler thinks the Chair is not working properly.  The Soldier is inclined to agree, it does not feel the same as it used to.

The technician is worriedly looking at his monitors and rapidly changing dials as lights flicker all over them.  The patterns in the numbers are soothing.  The Soldier likes to rearrange them to make them more comforting.  703 Volts.  0.38 kΩ.  There are more.  55 Hz.  325 MHz.  Then the current stops.

The commander wants the handler to make sure the Asset does not remember.  It winces internally.  The Soldier should not want.  But he wants to not forget the man with the shield.

The handler glares at the Soldier, puts the phone away, then motions the technician to take the mouthguard.  The technician looks unwilling, but reluctantly takes it, covered with blood and foaming spit as it is.  The breathing eases without the obstruction in the mouth.

The handler looks directly at the Soldier.

“What is your mission?”

It can only reply with truth.  Even if it knows it will cause more anger.

“Protecting the man with the shield.”  The words come out with a spray of spit and blood that has been welling in the mouth.

The handler’s face morphs between disgust and rage.  “There is no man with a shield!”

He reaches over to the technician, picks up the mouthguard and rams it back into the Soldier's mouth.  He then wrenches round one of the dials and starts the Chair going again.  The technician stutters in disbelief at the settings but the handler won’t hear it.

The body judders against the restraints.  The skin is being rubbed raw.   The stomach convulses.  More blood, bile and spit bubble out of the mouth.  The bladder releases involuntarily, adding to the bodily liquids leaving the body like rats from a sinking ship.

The mind soars higher.  It can reach more whispers than before.  There is a radio playing music in mission ops.  There are conversations between people over phones between numbers.  There are conversations between computers, exchanging numbers in packets.

The current in the Chair stops but the body continues shaking, the muscles contracting against each other almost rhythmically.  The eyes are rolled up inside the head, but the Soldier can see the movement on the camera as the handler barks at the technician to check the machine is actually off.  It is.  The handler waves at the medic, who only looks at his watch while the body still jerks and judders, keeping time.

The body finally stills.  The electrodes move away from the head but the head sags forward, the Soldier unable to hold it fully upright.  The lungs attempt to drag air in but catch on the foam in the mouth.  Coughing turns to retching and bile forces the mouthguard out onto the Soldier’s lap.  It forces the eyelids open only to see the medic’s fingers attempting to pry them apart and shine a light at them.  The flinch is small, it barely has the energy for it, but it knows the handler saw.

After what is probably a few minutes, it manages to do more than just sag against the machine.  The technician is removing the restraints and it barely manages to not fall forward out of the Chair.

The handler is closer than it thought.

“Who is your target?”

The mouth takes longer to respond than normal.  Long enough for a slap to be delivered to the face.

“What is your mission?”

The throat feels shredded.  It can only manage a low whisper.  “The man with th’shield.”

“Fuck!”  The handler spins away from the Asset, then turns back to the technician and medic.  “Take it upstairs, clean it up.  Then stick it back in the freezer.”  

They share looks of distaste.  Touching it as little as possible, they prod it towards the doors.

As it drags itself into the containment room, the Soldier can hear the handler reporting to the commander over the phone. 

“Sir, there’s something wrong with the wipe procedure.”

Chapter Text

September 2008, Rumlow

Brock Rumlow tapped his fingers against his leg nervously.  Then stopped, irritated at himself.  He was not normally a nervous person, but he hated waiting.  Waiting for the Asset to defrost was normally boring, yet now nerve wracking with Pierce breathing down his neck to get his pet back in working order.

The various lab-coats had been scouring through the notes from procedures carried out on it going back to when the Soviets still had it.  They’d had to change the settings on the Chair since then of course.  It was like a cockroach.  It just kept adapting to the new conditions so you had to try harder to squash it the next time.  Pierce was wigged this time though.  Apparently this man-with-the-shield was some old reference that should have been long buried.  A decades-old mission that wasn’t relevant now.  Whenever he’d worked with it before it’d never seemed to be able to remember people at all.  Stared straight through you as if you didn’t exist unless you were the handler or a target.  He shivered internally.  It might be a fast track to getting up in Hydra (he thought of Sitwell’s transfer over to a cushy high profile office in the Triskelion), but being the focus of that stare as its handler wasn’t any better than being ignored.  It was fucking creepy.

They’d assumed back in ‘06 when it disappeared off to the motherland that it had kept the previous mission details because the Russians hadn’t used the newer protocols.  That still might be the case, but it seems they’d need newer ones again.

There was a hiss as the cryo chamber finally opened.  A wave of cold air washed across him and Rumlow nearly shivered.  It was 80 degrees outside and he was stuck in here freezing his ass off with a malfunctioning piece of Soviet hardware.

“Out, Солдат.”  It was like watching a corpse come back to life.  Didn’t smell much better either.  He’d swear it creaked as the metal arm reached out first to pull itself out of the chamber.  As soon as it had staggered fully out of the chamber, he turned for the door.  “With me.”

Once through the doorway he looked back to check it wasn’t still waiting for orders, only to nearly recoil at how close it was behind him.  Even in this state it managed to make almost no noise.  It was seriously unnatural.

In the smaller lab Sanders was waiting with Morris and the new tech, Williams.  Supposedly they had a plan to try and fix the problem.  They were using the tricked out chair with extra monitoring and targeted electrodes or some such.  As far as Rumlow could see it had a lot more possible settings than the normal one.  He only hoped they didn’t have to try them all, although he was aware it was a distinct possibility.

“Sit.”  Rumlow pulled a file with notes of the Asset’s previous missions.  Or at least the ones since it’d been under Pierce’s control anyway.  He had an array of photographs of people, both targets and agents.  Picking a few from different years, he tested the Asset.  “Identify.”

“Unknown.”

“Identify.”

“Unknown.”

“Identify.”

A pause. “Target eliminated January 30th 2001.”

“Identify.”

“Unknown.”

“Identify.”

Another pause. “Target eliminated March 9th 2003.”

“Identify.”

“Target eliminated July 5th 2004.”  Interesting.  No pause.

“Identify.”

“Target eliminated December 27th 2007.”  Definitely quicker responses for these more recent missions.  Guess those wipes hadn’t been working for a while.

Rumlow signaled to Morris to set up the first attempt at a wipe.  No drugs this time, just the shocks.

Once the restraints were in place, Williams flicked the switch and the hum started up. Rumlow could never decide if this process was fascinating to watch, as the Asset went through visible stages of resignation, fear and pain, or slightly sickening, with the resultant bodily fluids as it often foamed at the mouth and sweated profusely.  Or even if he should just marvel at the way the serum allowed it to survive the process.

Sanders and Morris were watching the monitors closely.  As the current shut down and the shuddering of the body slowed, he peered over their shoulders.  May as well be written in ancient Greek for all he could get out of it.

He turned back to the Asset and ran through the identifications again.  Same score.  So, hadn't wiped anything more then, but they'd kind of expected that.

“Round two?”  Morris nodded at him and adjusted the dials on the desk.

The Chair’s hum starts again with the Asset tense and breathing heavily.  From Rumlow’s perspective there doesn't seem to be any difference to the last time, but hopefully the techs do actually know what they're doing.

As soon as the Asset stopped shaking and opened its eyes, he ran the test again, varying the faces for identification slightly.  Again, the older ones mostly remained unknown, but anything in the last 6 or 7 years got at least some recognition.

Next round, they stepped it up again.  Same result.  Then again, with Morris pointing and muttering with Sanders.  He hoped the equipment wasn't failing again.  He wasn't really satisfied with the reports from the techs checking over the regular Chair while the Asset had been in the freezer.  They'd used a bunch of long-winded tech speak, but as far as he could make out it just meant they couldn't find a reason for it to have gone haywire on the previous wipe.  Or for it not to be effective.

The tests were starting to feel routine now after a few rounds.  He didn't really expect different results.

“Identify.”

“Unknown.” The Asset's eyes were skittering between Rumlow's face and the picture he held.

“Identify.”

“Agent, name unknown, mission November 1st 2006.”

“Identify.”

“Target eliminated, March 9th 2003.”

“Identify.”

“Target eliminated, August 2nd 1999.”  If anything, it was getting better at answering these.

“Identify.”

Pause.  “Agent, name unknown, mission October 18th 2002.”

It definitely hadn't gotten that one earlier.  Shit.  He turned to Morris, waving his sheets of paper.  “Thought we were supposed to be making it better not worse?”

“It's not exactly proven science you know!”  Morris shot back at him.

Sanders weighed in, “Time to step it up another notch anyway.  We’ve nearly reached the level you threw at it before.  And these readings just don't match anything we would expect.”

Morris turned to Williams.  “Set current to 2.5 A.  Leave the voltage as it is.”  After setting the dial, Williams shoved the mouth guard back at the Asset distastefully.  It was even more disgusting than usual, after several rounds of use.  They’d have to check it soon for tears.  These tests would be even more tedious if the damn thing couldn't speak.

Shortly the hum began again.  This time the groans and jerking motions of the Asset were accompanied by significant flickering of the lights.  Rumlow glanced up and then back at the techs.  They had to have the Chair at a fairly central base to be able to pull the power for it.  It was convenient being based in the middle of the city but they were going to put noses out of joint if they caused a brown out, particularly in the banking district.  It was bad enough with anything electrical in their own base potentially glitching whenever they ran a wipe.

Normal protocol didn't indicate consecutive wipes like this partly for that very reason.  If it wasn't even effective at wiping the memory, they were going to find it difficult to justify to the Secretary.

Rumlow ran through more questions.  It was definitely getting more right, and from older missions too.  Another adjustment, another wipe.  The same progression of increasing correct responses.  He eyed the Asset after the next round.  It was visibly starting to sag against the restraints, and was taking longer each round for the shuddering jerks of its body to stop after the current cut off.  This time there was a dark stain on the crotch of its pants and an ammonia smell reached his nose.  Drool was slowly dripping out of the slackened mouth around the mouth guard.  Gross. 

This test was definitely slower, the Asset fumbling slightly over its words.  But the answers it gave were correct.  Sanders was poring over the readings on the monitors in front of him.

“This isn't working.”  He put the papers down on the desk.  “We're going to put it out of commission but still not actually wipe it at this rate.  What’s the next plan?”

Sanders nodded.  “We've tried refocusing the electrode positioning and current reinforcement through constructive interference but it's either just built resistance somehow to the technique or it's using a different part of the brain to store memories and we're targeting the wrong area. I can't do an fMRI because of the arm.  So unless we want to risk it losing motor function by randomly targeting other areas, we've got to try something else. I want to get some electrolytes into it.  Dehydration may be reducing the effective current.  Also, it needs nutrition or we're going to be heading into hypoglycemia territory with the convulsions we've been seeing.  Then, we can start working on some psychoactive stimulants to try to boost the effect of the wipe.”

“Right.”  God, were they going to try getting it high?  He'd need backup for that.  Rumlow touched his earpiece to contact his team on standby upstairs.  “Rollins, get yourself to the medics’ station in mission ops.  Close observation on the Asset.”

Releasing the earpiece, he turned back to the team of lab-coats.  “Get it and this chair cleaned up before the next round too.”

He watched the technicians remove the restraints, then snapped his fingers at the Asset in the chair.  “On your feet.  Upstairs to mission ops.”

It swayed slightly, listing a little to the left as it led the way upstairs.  Rollins was already in place and it looked like Sanders was involving one of his underlings in the basics of the cleanup. 

While they were dealing with that he sent a brief update to Pierce, to prevent him from descending on them to get one, then finally got himself a coffee and a sandwich.  It was the bog-standard swill in mission ops, but it was better than nothing.  He sipped and idly allowed his mind to wander as he watched Williams nervously prodding the Asset around.  He snorted to himself.  Newbies were always intimidated by the power of the Asset - he had been too once.  But in reality it had so little left upstairs that it wasn't going to do anything it wasn't told to.  Sometimes he wondered if it was even worth going to all this effort to stop it remembering.  What was it going to remember that would make any difference now?  The Russians had had it for decades so most of what it might remember would be ancient history and missions.  The code words worked either way.  The likely end case was that it'd get stuck in Russian mode again.  He'd already boned up on his knowledge when he pulled the handler gig.  But Pierce was insistent they keep to the protocol handed over by the Russians in the ‘90s.  He was not going to be pleased with their lack of progress.

Back downstairs they had one more go at wiping it now it wasn't looking quite so gray with the fluids Sanders had pumped into it, and a dose of the slurry they fed it.  He'd smelt that stuff before and it was gross.  No improvement on the test after.

Sanders had brought a whole cart of drugs down with him this time.  It was a junkie’s wet dream.  Rumlow distastefully watched as Sanders stuck it full of something, keeping a hand on a weapon and making sure Rollins did too.

The next wipe had the lights flickering again, and his earpiece crackled.  Rumlow looked dubiously over at the monitors and saw a brief look of concern on the faces staring at them.  Hands reached sharply for the dials to make adjustments. 

The machinery died down, but the Asset kept shuddering in the Chair for a full minute after.  That was going to be an inconvenient side effect if they ever needed it in a hurry.  Once it was still, he found its eyes kept moving past him and the test images, as if it were looking at things he couldn't see.  Rumlow glanced in the direction it looked, but there was nothing there.  Just the ceiling.

“Identify.”  When it finally focused on the image, the response was immediate with a correct answer.  And the same with the next.  He kept going through image after image, and it kept getting them right. 

Sanders gave it dose after dose, or maybe different drugs each time, and they ran the machine again and again.  The Asset’s responses were quick, but varied in accuracy.  Sometimes it gave spontaneous extra mission details, or details from another target from the same mission.  Once it even gave details of another mission Rumlow didn’t even have a file on.  He had no idea if that one was classified above his level or if it was just too old for the records he’d pulled.  Even with the copious amount of stimulants in its system he didn’t believe it could make shit up, surely.  He would previously have said it didn’t have the imagination, but seeing its glazed eyes tracking nothing across the room he couldn’t be certain.

The flickering of the electrics was getting worse, blinking the lights from off to far brighter than usual.  Enough rounds in that he’d lost count, there were sparks starting to fly not just from the electrodes on the chair but the monitoring station as well.  They were going to have to call it quits, they couldn't afford to-shit.  The power died completely, with a crackle and a shower of sparks from the Chair, plunging them into darkness.  After a couple of seconds the backup power kicked in and emergency lighting came on.

“Sir!”  Rumlow had been looking over at the lab-coats for a reaction when Rollins’ shout drew his attention back to the Chair.  It was empty.  Fucking bollocks.  Instantly he drew the emergency GPS unit from his pocket and flipped it on.  Thank God it ran on batteries.  Although the satellite signal was almost nothing down here in the basement with the relays not powered.  A faint blip, somewhere north of here.  Turning to the door, he tried his earpiece, trying to raise the rest of his team.  “Anybody upstairs, trace the Asset and send a team immediately!”

A response came through, but most of it was crackles and static.  Rollins followed as he ran first for the book in the main lab, and then the stairs.

They dashed up to mission ops, mercifully finding others of the team already assembling and gearing up there.  “Taylor, where’s the Asset?”

Taylor looked up briefly from the mission comms pack he was working on.  Looked like he had it connected up to the satellite network already.  “Asset is being tracked, sir, but it's still on the move.  We got pings from it in the financial district in New York first.  Then Pakistan.  Now Johannesburg.”

He doubted it was coincidence that those locations all featured in the missions he had spent the day asking the Asset to identify.  Rumlow rubbed a hand over his face tiredly.  There was no point chasing it while it was ping ponging around the globe revisiting old missions.

“Can you get me specific locations on those?  I have a theory.”

“Yes sir. It appears to be in the central high-rise district, just off…no wait, it's gone again…London now.”  He looked up at Rumlow.  “It’s in an older safehouse.”

“Get a list of safehouses and mission stakeout locations it’s been to in the last 10 years and get a local team on their way to each of them.  I want them in constant communication with us.  Anybody spots the Asset, they get me on the line and we’ll get it under control again or tranq it.”  Rumlow turned around.  “Rollins, I want you coordinating the techs here to get this place back online.”

Rumlow was pleased with the way the team jumped to it.  Safehouses should be quick to get teams to.  Some of the mission locations might take a little longer.  For his part he went over the mission locations he already had with Taylor and kept an eye on the Asset’s location.  They had a team en route to the safehouse in London, but it jumped from that location shortly before they got there.  Maybe the team there was sloppy and spooked it into evading.  God knows what mission it thought it was on.  It was probably high as a kite.  Scanning the screen, the blip showed up in Afghanistan.  Well they definitely had units out there.  Checking more closely, it was not far from one of the teams.  Not in a safehouse though, the team would be exposed trying to reach it.

He dialed up the relevant channel on the comms and barked into it, “Strike team Charlie One Niner.  Asset should be approximately 1.2 miles south south east from your position.  Civilian building.  Do not let it see you coming.”  

“Acknowledged.  On our way.”

The lights came back on, and the strike agents still in the room cheered.  At last, something was going right.  He started up the workstation nearest to him.  They could finally get full satellite data.  Sadly, it being night over in Afghanistan at the moment there wasn’t much point trying to get satellite imagery of the immediate situation.  His phone rang.  Pierce.  “Sir.”

“You do know that this is supposed to be a secret organization, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then why in God’s name have I had members of the World Security Council on the phone asking why three blocks of Washington have lost power and money is hemorrhaging out of the Lehman Brothers bank seemingly to nowhere?”

Rumlow gulped.  He glanced at the monitor in front of him, looking specifically at the location the Asset first jumped to in New York. “Sir, we had a malfunction with the power while recalibrating the Asset.  We are recovering it now–”

“We’re going to need more than the Asset to clean up this mess.  I’ve got agents now at the Dow to redirect world attention and turn this to our advantage.  I need to know that you’ve got your end under control.  We can’t have any more mistakes.”

“Yes sir.  Power is restored and we’re bringing in the Asset shortly.”

“You’d better.  I won’t be able to keep Fury distracted twice.”

Rumlow heard the not-so-subtle hint that he’d take the fall for any further problems.  He put the phone away and concentrated on the screen, knowing that the strike team should be approaching the Asset’s position.  It hadn’t moved in a while, hopefully it would stick around a bit longer.

“Strike team Charlie One Niner here.  We’re approaching what we believe to be the position.  Can’t see anything yet.”

Rumlow looked over at Taylor.  “Have we sent them the direct telemetry?”  A nod.  Through the comms he said, “Just get close. If you can get within earshot without it bugging out I can try the code words through your comms.”

Sadly, it hadn’t been wearing comms at the time (or they’d have been fried in the Chair anyway) so they couldn’t just patch into those as they had the last time it went AWOL.  An oversight they’d need to address somehow.  But that was a problem for after they got it back here, and under control again.

Switching channels, he called for Rollins.  “Good work with the techs.  Now get yourself and anyone else free into position to contain the Asset when it returns.  I want eyes in all known arrival locations in the base.”

He could see the dot for the strike team approaching the dot for the Asset on his screen. It must either be inside or on the roof.  He'd bet roof; that had been its sniper nest for the mission in ‘02.  That meant it was probably right above them.  He switched back to the main channel.  “OK.  Go for it.  Patch me through to a loudspeaker.”

“You are go for the loudspeaker.”

He was glad he'd had some practice with these. He’d learnt some basic Russian as a strike team member under Sitwell, but it wasn't the easiest to get the pronunciation right.  Normally he'd be in controlled conditions and without so much of an audience, or such high stakes.

“Желание.” 

“Wait– it's not there anymore.”  Taylor was peering at the screen again.  Rumlow hissed and slammed the book shut again.

“Where this time?”

Taylor was zooming in on the blip on the map when their comms crackled.  “This is Strike Echo One Two.  Asset located.”

“Got it.  Right into the safehouse in Bratislava.  Good call there.”  Taylor kept working on the unit as he talked.  “Patching you straight through.”

Rumlow quickly opened the book again, relieved that they finally got ahead of it.

“Желание.” 

“Ржавый.” 

“Семнадцать.” 

Inside the safe house they had cameras.  Taylor pulled up the image.

“Рассвет.”

“Печь.” 

Rumlow could see it.  It was huddled in on itself, in the center of the room, strike agents positioned at the exits.

“Девять.” 

“Доброкачественный.”

It was still there.

“Возвращение на родину.” 

“Один.” 

“Грузовой вагон.” 

Rumlow paused only briefly, then continued, too wired to wait.  “Доброе утро Солдат.”

The figure on the screen slowly stood up.  Its voice was croakier even than when it was first out of cryo, but to Rumlow it was the sweetest thing he’d heard all day.  “Я готов отвечать.”

“Return to base, Солдат.”

On the screen the Asset appeared to wobble slightly in its upright position, then a blue shadow replaced it briefly as it vanished.

Rumlow dashed back to the stairs, switching his comm channel back to local.  “Give me good news Rollins.”

“It's here. Containment cell.”  A pause.  “Might want to bring a medic.”

He turned to Sanders who had been rewatching the footage of the Asset in the safehouse.  “Come on.”

Downstairs, they found the Asset attempting to stay upright.  It was shivering, which in itself was unusual.  As a rule it didn't seem to notice the cold, or much else of climatic conditions.  Its skin was also rather more gray than any other color.  There was blood under its eyes, and obvious traces of vomit on its face, in its hair and on its boots.  Christ.

“Sit.”  He pointed at the basic bench at the side of the room.  Once in position, he also ordered, “Stay there. Do not leave this room.”

He waved Sanders over, who rapidly got a kit out to plug an IV in, but after several minutes clearly couldn't raise a vein in the flesh arm. Giving up, he tugged off a boot and after poking around for a bit finally got a line into an ankle. The medic then also took a vial of blood and stuck a bunch of monitors to it.  Displays on the laptop in the corner started lighting up, mostly in red.

The Asset was still shivering so hard it was almost vibrating.  Rumlow figured it must be on a come-down by now from all the drugs Sanders dosed it with earlier.  Probably ought to wait before interrogating it.  Then it was going back in the ice while they came up with a better plan to fix the wipes.  For now, he guessed he ought to report back in to Pierce that the Asset was contained.

January 2009 Rumlow

Rumlow nursed a double strength coffee and let the quiet chatter around him in their small break room wash over him.  New year, old problems.  At least the coffee should deal with the lingering tiredness and hangover from the new year break he’d taken.  There had been a lot of missions, both for SHIELD and Hydra in the last few months.  Double agent sometimes meant pulling double duty.  The financial crisis meant SHIELD was busy trying to stabilize the world, meanwhile Pierce was deprived of his favorite toy and Rumlow would swear he was wreaking revenge on his team to make up the slack.  

Hopefully that issue was going to be solved; if not today, then soon.  Sanders had quietly been ‘disappeared’ after the fiasco in September.  Martinez was now medical lead on the Asset, and had enforced a much slower testing schedule.  The detox period had been rough. He’d been glad that Pierce wanted to pull his team out on missions to steer the course of the latest world crisis just to get away from the situation in this base.  They’d stuck it in cryo as soon as it stabilized, as Strike had been needed outside of the base.  That turned out not to be helpful as it hadn’t actually got all the crud out of its system and the next time they woke it up it was in even worse shape.  They hadn’t even had it in the Chair before it started convulsing.

Once it finally was lucid again, it seemed none of the previous interventions had made any progress anyway as it was still malfunctioning.  Dangerously so at times, being significantly more aggressive to the techs and distracted from any interrogation or training sessions they tried with it to test it.

Martinez had managed to finagle the use of SHIELD medical facilities for a whole day to run a PET scan on it.  He’d then pulled in every Hydra medic he could to take a look at it because apparently its brain was like nothing they’d ever seen before.  Rumlow had little idea exactly what it was that got them all so excited over a bunch of rainbow pictures of a brain.  He’d even managed to get a second day in the facility early in December where they actually smuggled in the cryo chamber and the Chair to let them image it while defrosting, and before and after a wipe.  Strike alpha had to be sent to Greece to incite trouble there to distract Fury in addition to the mess in Iceland so that they could get it in under his nose.

As he understood it, the nerds had been able to see activity shifting from one area of its brain to another after a wipe.  The advanced regeneration meant that it was adapting faster than any normal human ever could.  As far as Rumlow was concerned this confirmed that it was a sneaky little shit on the inside as well as the outside.  However, in cryo it didn’t have the opportunity to do this as all processes were frozen.  Or so the theory went, which was why they’d been building a new machine to perform the wipe while it was still at least partially frozen.  It was finished just before the holidays, but he had put his foot down for him and his team taking a break before they tested it.

He glanced at the time and downed the last of the coffee.  Rising caused the chatter to diminish as others in the room realized the time also. “Showtime.  Move out.”

Down in the vault, Martinez was going over the settings on the new machine with a gaggle of technicians.  They'd brought in Johnson and Lee as well as Morris on the project.  Since they were planning on wiping it from frozen, they obviously couldn’t expect it to unbend enough to sit in the normal chair arrangement.  And they would have to let it defrost enough to remove it from the cryo maintenance systems and monitors, or those would get fried in the process. So there was now what looked a bit like a mortuary table in the Asset containment cell next to the chamber, with an arrangement of restraints and adjustable electrode plates on arms at one end.

Martinez looked up at him.  “Ready to proceed, commander.”

Rumlow nodded at Morris. “Get it started.”

Morris and Lee moved to two separate panels on either side of the cryo chamber.  Lee pressed a few buttons and Morris was monitoring a small screen on his side.  The low hum of the cryo system changed pitch ever so slightly.  Morris read off the panel, “Temperature rising.  200 K.” 

Normally Rumlow skipped this bit of the defrost procedure as there wasn’t really much for him to do, but they were going to be changing the timings, pulling it out earlier than normal.  Still, there was only so quickly they could go, or they’d risk damaging the Asset more.

“Temperature up to 220 K.”  Martinez peered over Morris’ shoulder shortly after this.  The Asset wouldn’t yet be showing any signs of revival, but maybe he was antsy too.  Rumlow tried not to shuffle his feet as he waited.  From here there wasn’t really much to see.  Just the Asset’s masked face through the frosted cover. Johnson was making occasional notes in a notepad and flicking through the pages of the procedure the boffins had written up.

Morris muttered over some of the other displays on his panel a few times before reading out again, “Temperature still rising.  We’re at 230 K.”  Lee passed heavy gloves to Rumlow and Rosenberg behind him.  They were big, and cumbersome, but they’d protect them in the process of actually getting the frozen body out of the cold chamber. 

Morris called, “Temperature at 240 K.”  There was a hiss as the outer seal released, and a waft of chilled air reached Rumlow.  He shivered.  Morris turned to Lee, saying “Time for the override.”  Lee punched in a code, after which the outer cover started to slide open.  An alarm started blaring on Morris’ panel, but he silenced it quickly.  Clouds of CO₂ billowed out of the chamber, briefly obscuring Rumlow’s view of the Asset.

Nobody moved just yet. Morris watched the numbers continuing to climb.  “We’re over 250 K.  Go.”  Rumlow shivered and put the gloves on.  No way he was risking frostbite moving it while it was this cold.  Lee and Rosenberg followed suit.

Rumlow and Rosenberg were just going to be the muscle in this part of the procedure.  Morris and Lee set about disconnecting several cables and restraints, and more alarms started blaring irritatingly on the panel.  Morris mercifully checked the panel (260 K now) to shut them up before positioning himself at the Asset’s feet and calling out, “Ok, grab hold.”  Rumlow was careful to make sure he didn’t touch it with bare skin anywhere, and managed to get a good grip on the metal shoulder.

“On my mark.  Three.  Two.  One.  Mark.”

God it was heavy.  He was vaguely aware that with the bulk of muscle and the metal arm it wasn’t going to be light, but god damn.  “Watch it!” Rumlow barked as he briefly worried it was going to slip as it lurched from its upright position, but they managed to catch it and haul it the fortunately very short distance to the table.  They held it in position as Johnson activated the restraints.

Lee hustled to take off the mask.  They’d given it a mouthguard under the mask while in the ice, but the mask would get in the way of the electrodes.  Morris was plugging in some of the trailing monitors around the table, and as he did various monitors came to life in front of Johnson, who called out readings to Martinez as they came online.

Rumlow had originally found it a bit freaky watching the defrosting process.  It looked pretty dead when it was frozen.  This time was no different, except they were planning on chucking electricity at it.  He felt like he was assisting Doctor Frankenstein, waiting for the cackle of ‘It’s alive!’  As it was there was no big metal lever to crank to turn this machine on.  Just Morris calling for them to get clear before the arms started to spark and positioned themselves around the head. 

Even the wipe itself felt like a damp squib.  It was still frozen enough that there was only hoarse grunting instead of screaming and minimal movement elsewhere.  Martinez had taken up making notes in the notebook.  Slowly tremors started showing up, and these continued after the current shut off.  They seemed to travel slowly down the body in waves.  Martinez was checking his watch, but they weren't stopping yet.

Rumlow eyed his own watch.  It had to have been at least 5 minutes.  These post-wipe episodes had lasted this long before, but not often.

Martinez was checking over the readings.  It had fully warmed up now and he wasn't happy with the rest of its vitals.  Finally the tremors faded, but it lay on the table fairly limp, breathing heavily.

Concerned, Rumlow pulled out the book, and motioned for Lee to remove the mouthguard.

“Желание.” 

“Ржавый.” 

No response. There was nothing to do at this point but keep going.

“Семнадцать.” 

“Рассвет.”

“Печь.” 

“Девять.” 

Finally, a twitch.

“Доброкачественный.”

“Возвращение на родину.” 

It clearly tensed, straining against the restraints.

“Один.” 

“Грузовой вагон.” 

An unintelligible rumble came from a slackened mouth. He moved closer to get a good look at it. It was staring, unfocused, at the ceiling.

“Солдат.”

“Я… гот’в…от…тве…чать.”

It was a response, but barely, with the words slurring and disjointed. Had they finally managed to fry it properly?  It didn't need to be able to talk to be useful. 

Turning to Rosenberg, he said, “Keep it in your sights.”  He told Johnson to release the restraints.

“Up.”

The metal arm recalibrated.  He hated when it did that.  It was unnatural.  It hadn't moved to get up though.

“Up, Солдат!”

Still just blankly staring.  Well it could clearly hear him, had responded to the code words, what the fuck was wrong with it?  Well, it was worth trying Sitwell's old favorite. 

“Встаньте.” <Stand up.>

The response still wasn't immediate, but it started moving.  His Russian was moderate; he'd have to brush up if he was going to need it after every wipe.  It looked a little less coordinated than usual, a bit like the slurred speech.  “Martinez, what's up with its motor functions?”

The medic was watching closely as the Asset started to move.  It ended up upright, but sagging, head bowed.  “Could be residual effect of the long seizure.  At the usual postictal rate of recovery I would expect it to be fully functional in an hour or two.”

“Let's hope so.”  Pierce would skin them alive if it wasn't fully functional for the field.  In the meantime they could test its memory.  He pulled some images from a file, held one up.  “Опознать.”  <Identify.>

It seemed to have to drag its gaze up from the floor, then took just as long to focus on the image.

“Н…неиз…вест…ный.”

The way it was moving its mouth was like it had been given novocaine.  Russian was not the best language to try to speak in that state, but Rumlow managed to decipher ‘unknown’ as the intended meaning.

He tried a few more.  All got a negative response.  Thank Christ they’d cracked it.  Each response was slightly quicker than the one before.  After a full set of negatives Rumlow raised an eyebrow at Martinez.  “All right, Doc, let's take it up to the gym level for a full motor skills assessment.  You got any tests you want to run first?”

“A couple.  Give me a few minutes.”  Morris poked a probe at the arm, seeming happy.  Martinez took a couple of vials of blood and flashed a pen torch in its eyes, then directed Lee to disconnect it from the various monitors.  “Ok, I want to see how it moves.”

Trying first in English (still no response) and then in Russian, Rumlow directed it to follow him upstairs.  After the first few uncoordinated wobbles its balance seemed to improve, although it still listed slightly to the left.  Rumlow decided that he'd had enough of babying the damn thing and brought out his stun baton to encourage it to improve.  Martinez and Rosenberg followed behind, the latter with his own stun baton in his hands.

In the gym, Martinez first tested reflexes, then they ran some strength tests.  It improved rapidly, which in turn improved Rumlow's mood.  They set it up on the small range to test accuracy, both with knives and with bullets.  It passed that with flying colors, but then it had always had better aim than any agent he'd ever known.  Speech seemed to improve last, although it did start responding to commands in English before it managed to answer clearly even in Russian.  It took a few applications of the stun baton to get it to respond to English commands in English.

Once they were happy the Asset was physically capable, they ran another check of its memory.  Still clear of anything problematic.

Martinez cleared it to run combat drills.  Rumlow called all of the strike agents on standby down to the gym while Martinez fed it its nutritional slop. It looked like liquid chalk, like heartburn medicine.  Didn't smell much better either.  Just the thought of it was enough to turn him off his own energy bar, but he munched it down anyway.

Setting his agents up against the Asset in combat drills was entertaining.  It was a good opportunity to test not only it, but the agents too.  Some agents could do with more drills like this. Getting sloppy.  The Asset performed as it should, which was good news. 

Once a number of the agents had been mopped up off the floor and carted down to the medical station, they tested the Asset on some flight sims.  It was as competent as ever, which was to say it could get pretty much any vehicle where it was told to go, but Rumlow wouldn't want to be in a passenger seat.  There was a reason they didn't get it to pilot unless it was on a solo mission.

Finally they had to test its teleportation weirdness.  At least they had recent protocols for how to test this (thank you Sitwell).  Rumlow sent it to different areas of the base first.  Then, with an agent in position to receive it, he gave the Asset coordinates to a safehouse located in Virginia.  Somewhere nicely out of the way where there shouldn't be any interference.

Before it left he made sure it had a comm in its ear.  And the tracker GPS was set up on the monitor.  And the receiving agent was up on comms themselves, ready to report in.  Still, his stomach still clenched as he gave it the order.

A second later, it vanished.  He waited without breathing for a count of 26 before he saw the dot on the screen appear in the expected position, followed by hearing the agent say, “Asset has arrived.”

Letting the air out of his lungs at last, Rumlow patched through the agent's comm signal to reach the Asset’s earpiece.  “Отлично, Солдат.  Now, return to base.”

There was no confirmation from the Asset, but the blip on his tracking screen disappeared and the agent confirmed, “Asset has gone.”

He waited.  Pulled up the camera feed from the containment room in the vault that was the standard arrival location.  Nothing.  Then looked back at the tracking screen.  Shit, not again.  The Russians were going to enjoy this.

Rumlow pulled up the contact for the Siberian base. 

“Кто говорит?”  <Who is this?>

“Commander Rumlow, US Hydra.  The Asset has just arrived in your base.  I need you to patch my call into its comm device on 273 MHz.”

“Минуточку.” <Just a minute.>

Rumlow kept his eyes on the tracking screen, but the blip appeared stationary.

Another minute and he was impatiently tapping his fingers.  Probably they were having a good laugh at his expense.  Certainly last time it had turned up there Karpov had been happy to rub their noses in the fact that it still considered Siberia as home base.

“Commander.”  Ah and there he was, the self-important ass himself.

“Yes.  Do you have the Asset?”

“Little sloppy, to lose our Asset again, no?”

Rumlow grit his teeth briefly, biting back something undiplomatic.  “I know it's there Colonel.  Let me speak to it.”

“Maybe it likes to be here more?  We have heard about memory problems.”

“The Secretary needs it here.  Hydra needs it here.  Or should I tell him that your loyalty is suspect?”

Karpov chuckled.  “It will go where it needs to be.  Have no worry.”

Rumlow nearly growled.  “Then patch me through and I'll bring it back here.”

There was a click on the line, before Karpov responded, “Солдат can hear you.”

Feeling slightly awkward commanding an Asset he couldn't see, knowing Karpov could hear him and see the reaction before he would, Rumlow carefully thought through his command before speaking it.  “Солдат, return to Washington base.  Coordinates 38° 52' 26" N 77° 00' 23" W.”

The line went quiet briefly.  “Боже мой.”  There was a shuffling sound.  “I heard, but to see this… My Солдат is miracle.”

Rumlow took this to mean it had vanished from Siberia and checked his tracking screen.  Bingo.  He grabbed his comm and called down to the vault, “Rollins, report.  Do you have the Asset?”  At the same time he pulled the camera feed back on his screen.

He caught sight of it in the image just before the reply from Rollins reached him and felt a wash of relief.  Could have been worse.  Rumlow gave Rollins orders to get it prepped for cryo then allowed himself a minute to just breathe as the adrenaline worked its way out of his system before starting the goddamn paperwork.  He needed to report this to Pierce, and also fix the procedures.  And he should get the rest of the strike team to brush up on their Russian if they were going to be able to work with it after a reset.

Chapter Text

It is quiet in the cold.  Peaceful.

Whispers start, quietly at first and unintelligible.  The surrounding ice cracks.  An odd sensation of movement.

Then, pain.  The pain obliterates thought.  There is only the bright burning pain.  It screams inside only.  The body does not move until the ice finally melts, leaving it shaking as the pain recedes.  Numbness fills the spaces it leaves.

There is a handler in the room.  The Asset forces the body upright despite its noncooperation.  The mind reaches out, finding the whispers all around it.

Words wash over the Asset.  Each is like a punch to the gut; the meanings slip through the mind but tug its thoughts back step by step toward the handler, narrowing its focus.

A compulsion fills it, to respond to the handler.  Я готов отвечать.  The tongue feels fat and the lips rubbery.  The words refuse to come out in the right shape.

The Asset follows the handler to a training area, stumbling occasionally on legs that refuse to follow directions.  A stun baton is applied to correct this.  The correction does not immediately improve their responses.  The Asset would like the legs to understand the consequences of noncompliance.

Directed by the handler, the Asset performs physical exercises.  It is grateful that the body has got its act together and compliance is increasing.  The stun baton sees only minimal use.

The Asset is directed to mission ops.  It consumes the tasteless white liquid.  The handler passes a file to Asset.  Three targets.  The file contains names, skills, known recent locations.  Whispers give more details; the targets are former Hydra agents.  Traitors.  Using Hydra intelligence for profit.  Stolen technology, phase two.  Looting in a classified area.  Maximum retribution and recovery.

A Strike team is also assigned to find the rogue agents, but the Asset is expected to cover the most ground.  Strike will be undercover as SHIELD.  The Asset will be invisible, but must stay in contact with the handler and strike team.

The Asset dresses itself in stealth combat gear, gloves, mask and goggles.  The mission will involve tracking the targets through a city, parts of which were destroyed.  It selects a number of firearms, explosives and knives to secrete into various holsters and pockets.  A rifle would be preferable, but moving solo around a city requires maneuverability that is not provided when carrying such a weapon.  Having Strike as backup provides additional opportunities however.  It grabs a sniper rifle.  The rifle is bulky enough to make it awkward on a stealth mission, but it can be left in useful places or with the Strike team.  They would be able to bring it to the Asset should the circumstances require it.  It finds a pocket to house the scope though, and a few other useful tools. 

The handler provides a radio and earpiece.  They are irritatingly noisy.  Whispering all the time.  The Asset instantly feels less stealthy, but attempts to tune them out.

It is given a small tablet with maps of the area the traitors are believed to be frequenting.  More noise. A paper map would be preferable.  But the destruction in the area has both official and unofficial activity changing the landscape too frequently for that to be reliable.  Safehouses in neighboring, less destroyed, districts of the city are highlighted.

The handler pulls up details of one of these.  “Десять часов.  Встретимся здесь.”  <Ten hours.  Meet us here.>

The Asset nods.  There is time to start the hunt before then.  The handler will expect a report.

“Иди туда.”  <Go there.>

It can feel the world around it, beneath the bank above with offices and people and noise.  The Asset can also feel the potential of locations within the tablet.  Can see the map without looking at the screen.  Can reach to where the world matches that feeling.  It is just…

Darkness. Silence.

…there.

The noise here is…oppressive.  There are whispers in all directions.  There is so much of it.

Reports of traffic jams.  Are we meeting at the cafe?  Music playing.  Look at this cute kitty!  So many reporting date-and-time and position.  Sorry I'm going to be late for work.  Library opening hours 10am–4pm.  Ha ha ha very funny.  Running shoes on sale price $90.  Man, they’ve got to get my air conditioning sorted soon.  Crews working overtime to clear rubble to allow space for a muted Independence Day celebration this year.

The Asset puts hands over the ears, but it makes no difference.  After a few minutes of just letting the cacophony flow past it is able to distance the mind from the noise.  It feels like keeping it at arm's reach.  Slowly it can pick out useful information from the muddle.  Maps of the area.  Weather reports.  Security camera footage.

The safehouse is on the 5th floor of an apartment building.  Only one floor above to get to the roof.  Below the apartment floors there is a hairdressing salon and a cafe.  The Asset leaves the sniper rifle in the safehouse.  Current task is only reconnaissance.

From the roof the Asset is surrounded by other similar height buildings.  It is simple to traverse the rooftops towards the area the traitors are expected to be hiding out in.  Very soon, it begins to see evidence of recent destruction, with makeshift repairs.  The buildings that are still standing are taller here and the gaps between them sometimes contain stretches of rubble.  In one or two of these there are construction vehicles clearly working on clearing the mess.

The Asset reaches the last known location of the group.  There is a partially destroyed building where one side has collapsed entirely, but the other is mostly still standing.  In between there are walls and roofs at odd angles.  Some are propped up with beams and blocks clearly taken from the rest of the rubble, others just teeter precariously as if a stiff wind will cause them to finally collapse.  Around this there are makeshift barriers with ‘Keep Out - Danger’ and ‘Unstable Structure’ signs affixed.  This warning has clearly not been heeded by some as there is evidence of recent traffic in and out of the building.

Observing from a stable nearby rooftop, the Asset concludes that there are currently few people in the less damaged parts of the building.  Infiltrating the area in the bright sunshine would be difficult if it wasn't able to reach for the location it can see.

Inside the structure is dusty.  Clear trails show past activity through the halls.  The Asset conceals its own tracks as much as possible by moving within the tracks already present, and reaching short distances where this is impossible.  Completing a full sweep of the building takes several hours.  The traitors are not holed up in this location, but intelligence provided by Hydra clearly shows that two of them were here only 36 hours prior to the mission briefing.  The building did house a bank before its destruction, however, and in the lower levels there are unusual blast marks at the entrances to the vaults.  It takes careful note of these, the handler will want a report on reconnaissance performed.  The additional insight accessed during the mission briefing suggests this may be evidence of the ‘phase two’ contraband.  Several safety deposit boxes have been damaged, the contents missing, destroyed or strewn across the floor.

Tracks from these levels lead out of the damaged structure.  The path crosses several security cameras.  The Asset squashes the current image in these as it passes on the trail, but also follows the signal on several to find footage of the area from the previous two days.  Spending several hours slowly tracing their movements, the Asset comes to the conclusion that the traitors are only moderately skilled at being sneaky.  It is time-consuming to follow the trail, however, and it must rendezvous with the handler at the safehouse.  Making a note of the most promising leads and possible stake out locations, the Soldier recalls the location of the safehouse to return to it.

Returning to the roof of the safehouse building the Asset soon determines that the handler has not arrived yet.  The whispers are slightly less loud up here on the roof.  The Soldier allows its gaze to pass over the skyline of tall buildings around it and lets the whispers wash over the mind.  The destruction of this city is recent.  There are many stories, pictures, videos.  It seems the threat came from a hole in the sky, many creatures flying down from it.  Small ones.  Big ones, that seem nonetheless to be able to swim through the air.  These appear to have caused the worst of the devastation; the videos show the giants swerving into the sides of buildings, and, when felled, squashing them entirely.

Among the array of signals, the Asset hears the handler's voice.  He and a pair of agents are approaching the safehouse.  The Asset moves inside the apartment, listening.

“...said that we had to shift up two blocks to cover for Harris.”

“I thought he had some of those marines on his beat?”

“Yeah, exactly, so he ditched them chasing after a tip on some alien tech and they accused us of shirking.”

“Always reckon they're better than us. Did Harris get anything?”

“Nah, like every other tip it turned out to be another pile of scraps. Nothing salvageable.”

“Callorway’s team of national guard did get one of those downed scooters. Managed to dig it out from under the last of those whales.”

“Rather him than me. That thing reeked from where we were. No way was I getting closer!”

“Someone's got to get rid of it. Guess they're mostly using grunts for that though. We’ve got our hands full as it is.”

The handler opens the door of the apartment, eyes searching for the Asset.   Standing at parade rest the Soldier awaits orders.

“You two take five.  We’ve only got a couple of hours at most before someone at SHIELD notices we’re out of position.”

One agent disappears into the bathroom.  The other starts rummaging through the kitchen area, pulling out some packages from cupboards.

“Солдат, report.”

“Движение цели отслеживается между несколькими локациями.” It rattles off coordinates for the places that it had confirmed the presence of the traitors.  The handler sighs.  The Kitchen agent is munching on the contents of one of the packages.

The handler steps forwards, pauses, then backhands the Asset across the face.  “English.”

The Asset shuffles the words around in its head. Somehow the Russian feels…safer.  Yet the handler is clearly unimpressed. “Target movements tracked.  Several locations.”

“Highlight those on here.”  The handler passes it his own tablet with a map of the city. The Soldier marks up the locations where the targets had entered or spent time, and hands it back.

“Hmm. Two banks, an art dealer, a hotel, two high-tech labs and no less than four embassies.  Ambitious aren’t they?  A few possible hidey-holes too.”

The Soldier has no response for this.  The Bathroom agent returns and opens up another one of the packages from the kitchen.

“Any repeat locations?”

“Targets entered this location twice.  This location 4 times.  This location 5 times.”  The Soldier points to the indicated locations on the tablet.  The handler studies the map and then pulls up live camera feeds.  They feel…close to the locations on the map.

Looking up at the agents, the handler holds a hand out and calls, “Chuck me one of those.”  He catches the package thrown to him by Kitchen agent.

“Right, we’re gonna raid the one they stopped at most.  It’s close to where one of the space whales came down that’s already been cleared.  Lots of rubble still though.  Crews should be heading home shortly; it’s a good time to hit it.  Taylor, Myers, I want you to find and plug any way out of there before I send in the Asset.  Looks like it’s had some damage itself, so there may be gaps they can make use of.”

He opens the package, takes a mouthful of food and groans.  Kitchen and Bathroom agents approach the tablet to inspect the images.

Bathroom agent points at one of the images.  “Looks like rubble on the south side of the building has been disturbed.  I’d wager there’s a way out there.”  Internally, the Soldier agrees.

“There’s a fire escape to the east.  I’ll take that.”  The handler nods at Kitchen agent’s comment, finishing another mouthful.

“Ok, Taylor you’re on the east.  Myers on the south.  I’ll take the main entrance.”  He turns to look at the Soldier.  “Солдат.  Surveillance on the building.  Keep your comms on.  I want to know immediately if they show up.  When we’re in position we will give you the signal to go in and clear the area.”

The Asset nods.  Recalls the location of interest and surrounding buildings.  Surveillance needs to cover as much area as possible.  There are several taller buildings on one side of the target location.  On the other there is mostly a building site.  With cranes.  It reaches for one of the taller buildings to get a better sight on the cranes.  Buildings should still be in the same position as its last visit.  The crane may not be.

From its new vantage point it can only see one side of the building and only one of the entrances.  Not suitable.  There are some people and vehicles still moving around the rubble area.  One crane appears to still be occupied, but another is across from the rubble piled up against the south end of the building.  Pulling out the scope, it gets a closer look, before reaching for a spot among the girders part way up the tower.  Scanning the scope over the building it is pleased with its choice.  All known entrances are at least partially visible.  The trail it followed this afternoon showed the traitors using both the main entrance and the fire escape to access the end of the building closest to the building site.  Presumably abandoned by the previous occupants as being too dangerous.  The far end of the building clearly still houses something…signals are still coming and going from that area.  It settles into position to wait, watching the movements of people and vehicles, and listening to whispers.  The last of the construction workers leave the site.

The Soldier is aware of the handler and agents approaching the scene, even before they confirm positions over the comms.  Even when they're not talking their comms are always whispering.  Kitchen agent is on a rooftop to the Soldier's right.  Bathroom parks a nondescript van on the edge of the building site, within reach of the rubble nearest the target building.  The handler sneaks through the back of the building across the street from the main entrance and watches from the mostly boarded-up shop front.

“Солдат.  Move in.  Detain anyone you find inside.  I want to be able to talk to them.”

“Moving.”  Surveillance had given ample opportunity to consider infiltration of the target.  The Soldier reaches for the top floor room to the side of the fire escape that it has been observing through the scope.

Inside the building is mostly quiet, but there is a faint whispered whine from the lower floors.  There is no power running through this part of the building.  The Soldier can hear the occasional thump of rats both above and below this room.  Moving stealthily it nonetheless made its way quickly room by room through the building.  Most rooms contain only broken pieces of furniture, having been hastily cleared of undamaged items.  Working down the floors, there start to be signs of occupancy in the lower levels; on the third floor there are tracks across the floors, where someone traced a path to different windows.  Good spots for a look-out, but no-one there now.  On the second floor one room contains boxes, mostly filled with papers.  Some of those papers have clearly been examined closely and are carefully arranged on a table.  Another room contains more boxes, this time filled with high-value objects; jewelry, gold, art.  A bathroom with some personal items arranged by the sink.

Moving down again, the whine gets louder. The Soldier discovers first a room with food and dirty crockery, a table and a few chairs.  It can see why the rats like it here.  The noises, though, are not just from rats.  In the next room are two mattresses on the floor, with piles of blankets on them and piles of clothes to the side.  One of these is occupied; one of the traitors sleeping soundly.  The whine is coming from the last room, containing a small arsenal of weapons.  Most are conventional, but a couple match the expected specs for the phase two technology.  Certain that the sleeper is the only occupant of the building, the Asset removes a garrote wire from a pocket.

It moves silently through the doorway to approach the mattress.  The traitor is breathing evenly, unmoving, lying on his back, legs to the left of center, head to the right.  The Asset assesses the surroundings; few potential witnesses, but noise should be minimized.  It picks up a small item of clothing from the floor and balls it up, ready.

The metal fist slams into the traitor’s right ankle, shattering bone. The right hand grabs the throat before sound can emerge, as the traitor instinctively starts to sit up, cutting off the air supply before the left delivers the balled up cloth into the now-open mouth.  The Asset then pushes the traitor over onto his face and pulls both of his arms behind his back, wrapping them together with the garrote wire.  The traitor has started trying to scream, but the sound is well muffled by the cloth.

The Asset searches through the blankets, and finds several weapons that were ineffective against it, also a laptop, but this is quiet and appears to have no power.  These it removes to the far side of the room.  The traitor attempts to wriggle across the floor, but the Asset stamps on the already-broken right ankle, keeping pressure on.  Satisfied that the threat is neutralized, it speaks into the comm again, “Clear.  One detained on ground floor.”

The handler responds immediately, “Coming in. Taylor, Myers, you stay out here for now.  Watch for company.”

The Soldier holds the captive in place, face down, keeping its senses alert for movement.  Only a few minutes later the handler enters the main entrance cautiously.  He pauses at each doorway, presumably checking the other two rooms on this floor, then enters the sleep room, weapon raised.  “Отлично, Солдат.”  The words are a balm, releasing the tiniest amount of tension in the body.

The handler’s weapon moves in a signal for the Soldier to release its hold.  It does so and takes a step back, holding itself ready.

Using a foot, the handler pushes the captive over onto his back, keeping the weapon trained on his head.  “Солдат, bring a chair through from the kitchen.”

The Soldier complies.  The handler then directs it to place the captive in the chair and produces zip-ties to immobilize him.

“So, Cooper.  Thought you’d strike out on your own, did you?  I mean, I know we’re all a bit busy right now what with all this,” the handler gestures towards the building site outside, “but you had to know we’d catch up with you.  The Secretary isn’t known for sharing nicely.  What’ve you done with Thomas and Morales?”

The captive makes noises through the ball of cloth.  The handler pulls it out.  “Oh, sorry, did you say something?”

“Go to hell, Rumlow.”

“Aw, now, that’s no way to speak to a work colleague.  An old friend, even!  Although I guess we’re ex now.”

“Can you blame us?  SHIELD pays shit, and it’s not like Hydra makes up the difference.  Asks you to risk everything but gives nothing in return.”

The handler kicks the captive’s broken ankle, resulting in a sharp shout.  “Only putting the world on the right path.  Is that not worth it?”

“Not…when I can barely pay my bills.”  This is said between gritted teeth.

“Well, you won’t have to worry about that any more.  Now where are Thomas and Morales?”  The captive remains silent. 

“Unless you’d rather the Asset was asking the question?”  The captive’s eyes flicker to the Soldier and back to the handler.  “You know you’re dead either way.”

The handler sighs.  “What about the phase two weapons?  I saw a couple in the front room, but you took more than that.  You got a stash somewhere?”

“They weren’t even using them!  Fury was determined to bury them deep!”

“Fury maybe, but the Secretary has plans for them.  They’re not for the likes of you to play with, and we can’t make more now, can we?”  The handler crouches in front of the captive and grabs his left pinky finger.  “Sure you don’t want to just tell me?”

After a few seconds, the handler wrenches the finger upwards with an audible crunch, causing another shout from the captive, who glares at the handler.  “Honestly I’m kind of impressed.  I wouldn’t have pegged you as the type to hold out.”

The handler stands, and pulls a stun baton from his belt.  The baton slams into the captive’s genitals, and the captive releases all the air from his lungs in a rush.

“All you have to do is give me Thomas, Morales, and the weapons.  Then we’ll make it quick.”  The handler pauses, waiting for a response.  “Until then you’re going to be suffering. Солдат, break him.”  The handler motions the Asset towards the captive.

The Soldier has intimate knowledge of pain and how to apply it.  It draws a knife.

“Much as I’d like to watch the Asset do its thing here, I’ve got places I need to be.”  The handler brushes dust off his clothes.  “Солдат, don’t let him die before you get answers.  And keep your comms on.  Myers, Taylor stay on the perimeter.  I’ll cover for you both.”

As the handler moves out through the doorway he looks back briefly.  “When you’re done, clear out the contraband and torch what’s left.  Then get me the others.”

In the end it only takes the Asset an hour and twelve minutes to break the captive.  It hadn’t even had to start removing digits.  There are now small pools and drips of blood scattered over the room.  Along with several fingernails and a pile of strips of skin.  The stomach is queasy, but stubbornly ignored.  Certain that all relevant information has been extracted, the Soldier gives the captive a merciful end.

The Soldier makes a note on the tablet of locations revealed by the captive.  The captive has also given a schedule of where the other traitors are expected to be in the next 24-48 hours.

Kitchen and Bathroom have been listening (and occasionally commenting) on the comms to the captive’s confession.  They want to examine the papers upstairs before the Asset sets the building on fire.  Bathroom brings his van right next to the main entrance and they both make several trips to take the laptop and the many boxes of papers from the second floor out to it.  The Soldier pulls the boxes of valuables along with it through the silent dark to the safehouse, then does the same with the weapons.

With the building clear of contraband, the agents report in to command outside while the Soldier arranges the body in the blankets and sparks a flame onto them.  At first it seems tentative, but soon the body is engulfed and flames are reaching up the walls.  Time to leave.  The handler briefly talks over the earpiece to recall the agents and order the Asset to continue the search alone.

The Asset spends some time analyzing the future locations of the other two traitors.  Routes between them are limited by the ongoing construction work and the remaining piles of debris.  The exact timetable is not clear, and is likely to change when they realize that the captive is dead and the bolt hole burnt.

First task is to secure the locations where the captive indicated the remaining contraband was stored.  One of these is the location the Soldier had tracked them through previously.  The Asset approaches each location cautiously, first observing from a distance before infiltrating and removing stolen items to the safehouse.  Under the cover of night this task is trivial, and does not take long.  Three other stashes later, the Soldier has filled a lot of the space in the safe house with boxes of papers, boxes of money and valuables, lab equipment, computers and also weapons.  Including another 8 phase two weapons.  They whine irritatingly inside the mind, particularly with so many close together.  The whine pulls at the deep recesses of its thoughts, as if it had encountered them before.  It can almost recall a blue flash.

The sun is now climbing high up above the buildings in this part of the city, and the streets are finally starting to get busier, although the businesses are closed.  Visiting the traitors’ bolt holes has taken the Soldier into louder parts of the city.  All around there are whispers.  The whispers today are mostly in the colors red, white and blue.  As more of the city stirs, they get louder.  Got the stars and stripes ready!  Blue skies, 90 F, Westerly 5 mph, Humidity 50%.  What time will you be here?  Just two months since aliens attacked this city, most are not ready to celebrate.  Thinking of you today, let me know how I can help.   Hey I just met you and this is crazy but here's my number so call me maybe.  Happy Fourth of July!

The Soldier pushes the whispers and images aside, closing in on the next target.  There are no more stashes to clear out.  It is now positioning itself to watch the Sokovian embassy.  This is high on the list of expected targets for the traitors.  The embassy itself is adjacent to the destroyed financial offices of a high-profile investment broker.  Another potential target.  Scanning remaining rooftops nearby shows the choices are not ideal.  The Soldier eventually settles for a lower-than-preferred vantage point that nonetheless provides a good angle on the embassy entrance and first-floor windows, but only a partial view of the damaged offices and the side street to the west.

The Soldier listens to the whispers, watching the images from cameras on the back entrance to the embassy.  The earpiece that links it to the handler also tunes the mind in to other activities in the city.  Strike team providing additional security for a memorial service this afternoon, protests expected.  Police movements.  Taxis.  Air traffic control.  News helicopters.

The Soldier retrieves the sniper rifle from the safehouse and settles in to wait.  It is no stranger to waiting.

While waiting and watching, the Soldier listens to the stories in the whispers.  Today there are many about the people lost in the recent destruction.  The videos play again, of the aliens attacking the city, and also a small group of defenders.  The Soldier analyzes the fight.  The large green figure causes nearly as much damage to the city as the aliens.  The red and gold metal figure is effective, but the targets are large and numerous.  A caped figure appears to bounce from one target to the next through the sky.  His hammer is a formidable weapon.  There are three ground-based fighters also. One is a good sniper, although curiously uses a bow and arrow, not a gun.  The female is efficient but only in short range attacks. 

The last man spends much time defending civilians.  He uses a large round object…a shield?…to great effect.  The man wears red, white and blue, which fits the color scheme of today, including on his helmet and cowl, obscuring his face.  The images of this shield being thrown again pull at the Soldier's mind.  It can almost feel the weight of it, as if it has held and used a shield like this before.  The Asset has used a great many types of weapons, but muscle memory is the only way it remembers.

In the early afternoon it feels like the whispers are shouting from all directions, as so many streams are showing the same images, the same audio.  A group of people on a stage in front of many flags.  The flags are those red, white and blue colors.  Stars and stripes.  Strike are at the edges, watching and guarding.  Protestors gather to one side, holding up pictures of faces.  There are speeches about the recent battle.  The dead.  But also the survivors.  The heroes.  The man with the shield.  The mind…itches, all inside the skull.  This man is important somehow, only the Soldier doesn't know why.

The light has started to dim before the traitors appear.  One emerges from a van in front of the remains of the investment broker premises, but the van continues circling the area.  Using the scope, the Soldier confirms the driver to be the last remaining traitor.

The one on foot is carrying a rucksack, and quickly ducks between danger signs into the destroyed building. 

Both men are clearly carrying communication devices.  Concentrating on observing them, the Soldier can hear the whispers.  The eyes follow the van on its pattern, clearly waiting for Rucksack to return.  The streets are too busy still for an open confrontation, so the Soldier continues watching and waiting.

9 slow van loops later Rucksack returns, his rucksack clearly heavier than it was on the way in.  He strolls along the pavement until the van catches up with him, and hops in.

The Soldier follows the van along the rooftops, reaching for a roof ahead of the van where necessary.  When the van turns down a deserted street, the Asset reaches for a spot ahead of it, behind a parked vehicle.  A hefty kick pushes the vehicle into the path of the van.  Without a seatbelt on, the driver smashes head first into the windscreen.  He’s not dead, they weren't moving fast enough for that, but possibly concussed.

Driver scrambles out of his door, while Rucksack climbs through into the back of the van.  There is another irritating whine coming from there.

The Soldier jumps up over the crushed vehicle, sliding across the hood of the van to kick the driver’s door back onto the emerging Driver.  The man is now visibly concussed, and the Asset downs him with one final blow to the head.  Pulling out zip ties, the Soldier has to duck behind another parked car away from the blue flash as Rucksack rounds the back of the van and fires.

The car takes the brunt of the blast, but crashes into the Soldier, knocking it to the ground.  A second blast pushes the car further from the rear of the van, scraping the Soldier along the street.  The blue flash brings a sensation of cold mud into the mind.

Using the metal arm to push the wrecked car away, the Soldier rises.  Rucksack is nearly at the end of the street, running.  Driver is stirring slightly.  The Asset grabs another zip tie and binds Driver’s legs, then drags him into the back of the van.  Inside there are three more phase two weapons and a stack of boxes, contents unknown.

Shoving the boxes aside, the Soldier finds a D-ring in the corner of the van by the back door and zip-ties Driver’s hands and feet to it.  A strip of Driver’s own clothes works well as a gag.  The weapons it moves to the front seat of the van, out of reach if Driver wakes.  The keys are in the ignition.  The Soldier takes these and locks the van.  Griping on Strike comms indicates they are currently deployed again as security around large crowds of civilians, where protestors are expected, and are not available for captive detainment.  Driver will have to sit tight for now.

The Soldier moves to the end of the street.  Rucksack is no longer in sight, but the whispers of his comm device and the whine of the weapon show it which way to go.  Reaching for a rooftop not far ahead, the Soldier is able to identify Rucksack once more.  He is currently trying to break into a vehicle.  One captive alive is sufficient to provide intel on further contraband.  The Soldier reaches for a dark nook just ahead of Rucksack, who is looking back instead.  Moving quickly and silently, it covers Rucksack’s mouth and drags him quickly back into the dark.  The metal hand delivers a fatal blow to the head.  The body is searched, all valuables removed in the appearance of a mugging and for later analysis.  As the Asset is depositing the body in a nearby alley, the whispers align again, distractingly.  Most of the images are watching only a dark sky…over a river?  There is a bridge that is familiar.  It has been there before?  More images slip out of the mind.  A park.  A school.  Docks.  Apartments.  Faces too.  These are mostly a blur, but some stand out.  An older man and woman with dark hair.  Young girls with similar features.  A scrawny young man with blond hair.  There are a lot of memories of this face.

Happy Independence Day!  The view over the East River here as the crowds are waiting for the annual celebration.  God Bless America.   And a Happy Birthday also to our local hero, Captain America.  Welcome home, Cap.  Images also showing more pictures of the man with the shield speaking to a crowd. The face of this man strangely overlaps the face of the scrawny man in the memories.  He should know him.  The voices talking through the whispers slowly fade out, before explosions surround the Soldier on all sides.  Immediately taking cover, the Asset holds the metal arm above the head and pulls a weapon with the right hand.  The eyes scan for targets, but find none.  More explosions come and the Soldier loses track of time as they come above, to the side, inside the mind, all in red, white and blue.  The mind searches for a safe space.  The pattern of some of the explosions echoes the shield held by the man in the cowl.  Somehow this man feels safe. 

The explosions increase in intensity.  Shelter.  It must find shelter.  In the memories are many locations the Soldier can feel nearby.  Many with the face of the scrawny man.  In a desperate bid to escape, he reaches for the one where the face feels most solid.

The darkness and silence are blissful.

Then the world floods back in with the greatest boom yet and the Soldier barely registers the screaming next to him.

Chapter Text

“These guys really don’t like Cap and his friends, do they?”

Rumlow snorted.  “Yeah well, the ones over here love him a bit too much.”  In the crowd in front of him many were carrying placards in support of the heroes of the battle of New York as they were calling it.  This was the reason SHIELD had deployed them here.  A load of PR bullshit trying to give the public a good impression after the destruction wrought only two months ago.  Oh, they’d done a bunch of cleanup, but this was gonna take years to get back to normal.  They were still finding some bodies under the rubble, both human and alien.

Aliens.  He had kind of known, in an abstract way, that aliens existed.  There was that whole thing out in New Mexico last year.  Sitwell had been there and reported on the Asgardian battles, but it was one thing them attacking each other out in the desert and another to have aliens attacking a major city.  He shuddered.  Being on the helicarrier was bad enough.  Barton had done a lot of damage.  He certainly was no hero.  Since then they’d mostly been deployed assisting the local PD and national guard trying to keep a lid on the unrest brewing from the situation left behind by the so-called Avengers.

Pierce had been pissed when Thor had refused to budge on taking the Tesseract away with him.  Rumlow wasn’t sad to see it go though.  After the weirdness it had imparted on the Asset, it gave him the creeps.  Although he had to admit those phase two weapons packed a punch.  Shame Cap was too squeamish to take any with him from the helicarrier to use against the aliens.

Oh he’d met him, the great Captain America.  Fury had tried to keep him quietly tucked away from the world as much as possible, but Pierce wanted to broaden his horizons and entice him into the team.  Reckoned he could be useful, so he’d had Strike run him through his paces occasionally in the training spaces in the academy.  He’d disappeared after the battle for New York, leaving the rest of them to face the music of the cleanup, but was now starting to show his face again.  Fury must’ve pulled him in for some good PR for the holiday.

It provided a good smokescreen for their current hunt for Thomas, Cooper and Morales.  The holiday was a political nightmare.  Some groups were hailing the Avengers as heroes.  Others were mad as hell about the destruction left in the city and demanding the Avengers pay for making the mess in the first place.  There had already been violent clashes between the two sides.  Not everyone was in a mood to celebrate, and many were protesting that the city was holding any kind of events so soon after the battle, adding extra spice to the confrontations.  With large crowds attending both a memorial for the dead and the traditional fireworks this evening, they’d been taken off any recovery work to keep the peace.

With the Strike teams spread so thin, they’d had to pull in the Asset to chase the traitors down.  They couldn’t afford for SHIELD to catch up with them first.  That sort would just squeal on Hydra to get lenient terms.  Cooper had confirmed they were just in it for a quick buck.  He’d heard the report from Taylor and Myers on the mess the Asset had made of him after he left to report in to Fury.  Served him right.

Pierce had warned him though, to keep the Asset on a short leash.  He’d tried, damnit, but he just didn’t have the manpower to spare.  The best he could do was keeping an eye on the tracker on the GPS.  Apparently the ‘man with the shield’ that the Asset had malfunctioned over back in ‘08 was in fact the original Captain America.  Rumlow had done a bit more research into the history books after that reveal.  He hadn’t exactly been a history buff when he was growing up; he’d had no idea what Captain America looked like beyond the shield and uniform, let alone any of the Howling Commandos.  He’d have been hard pushed to name them.  How the mighty fall.  Good thing Cap had no idea what had become of his best friend.  He’d been maudlin enough over losing all his ‘40’s friends.

As he thought about it, Rumlow pulled out the GPS unit to check.  It'd been sitting pretty all day in its stakeout nest.  Fortunately far enough away from these festivities to avoid any run-ins with Cap. Maybe Thomas and Morales were taking the day off.  Peering closely, it looked like the tracker blip was on the move now.  Or maybe they had been waiting to time their operation with the fireworks when they knew Strike and any other law enforcement would be busy.  Great.  He made sure his comms were also receiving on the Hydra channel.

Up on the stage the mayor and the chief of the NYPD were pontificating about the resilience of New Yorkers.  He couldn't deny that, after all, growing up on the lower east side he’d seen people around him overcoming all sorts.  But also being ground down by the disinterest of the state in helping anyone.  Some of the protestors on the other side clearly were as cynical as him, as they were booing and shoving forward toward the stage. 

Captain America in full uniform appeared on the screens behind the mayor, and across the park.  “Hi there.  Look, I won't keep you long.  I know you're not here for me.  It’s been a tough couple of months.  The attack on New York changed things for everyone.”

The boos from the far protestors reached a volume to start obscuring the video speech.

“But we can weather this storm.  I fought for this country 70 years ago.  This is our home.  My home.  I am proud to come from Brooklyn.  I want to thank everyone here for keeping going.  For not giving up.  New York will rebuild.  Will stand tall again.  But for now we celebrate what endures everything: our spirit.”

“Projectiles!  Watch out.”  That was Harris.  Checking the stage, he could see something hitting on the far side.

Cap saluted the screen.  “God bless America.”

“Contain it.  Taylor, you're on standby to evacuate the stage.”  The mayor was now leading a countdown to start the fireworks.  Good, a distraction.

Ten.  Nine.

The crowd on the far side was getting rowdier.  More projectiles were thrown. 

Eight.  Seven. 

The team on that side were calling for order, batons raised.  One or two had waded into the crowd to arrest the particular troublemakers.

Six.  Five.

Protestors in front of Rumlow started shouting at the other group and throwing what looked like food.  He pulled his own baton.

Four.  Three.

The anti-Avengers crowd were surging forward toward the nearest screen, agents and riot police doing their best to maintain the line.

Two.  One.

The pro camp were pushing toward the anti mob, squeezing the police, agents and regular crowd in between.  Somewhere in the anti-Avengers mob some idiot lit firecrackers and threw them toward the stage.  

Zero.

As the first firework launched into the sky, all hell broke loose.  “Taylor, go! Go!”

In response to the firecrackers, the riot police were throwing stun grenades and tear gas.  Rumlow pulled a gas mask from his belt.  “All agents, gas masks on.  Rubber bullets only!”

His mask on, Rumlow concentrated on the ringleaders in the pro group.  Several pulled out more projectiles.  Even with the light of the fireworks overhead it was difficult to tell what they were and he couldn’t take the risk.  He waded in to take them down.  Behind him, he knew others are doing the same with the anti mob.  He wished they could just use greater force on ingrates like these trying to cause trouble.  As he countered protestors pushing against him, he thought grimly of the future Hydra promises.  One day.

The simple baton felt weightless in his hand after the heavyweight stun baton he usually uses with the Asset.  Rumlow used it to great effect, putting down members of the crowd who just wouldn’t take the hint to stay down.  The pro-Avengers crowd seemed to be trying to live up to their heroes, taking on the anti-mob directly.  He took a few punches.  Shrugged them off.  Once there were a few bodies littering the ground, Rumlow called in additional agents to cart off the downed participants to custody.

“VIPs are clear.”  Good news.  Rumlow looked up to see protestors starting to climb up onto the stage.

Tear gas started to drift across the area.  With most agitators nearby already subdued, Rumlow moved to pull protestors down off the stage.  He pulled a stun grenade from his belt and lobbed it in front of the figures who had already made it up.  He shouldered his rifle loaded with rubber bullets to take out any still standing after that.

As the final fireworks exploded overhead, the chaos finally subsided.  Scanning over the mess made of the field, Rumlow could hear a scream over the comms.  “All clear here, where’s the trouble?”

All answers received were negative.  He checked his comm.  Still picking up on Strike and NYPD channels.  Fuck, and the channel set for the Asset.  What the hell was it up to?  Rumlow fumbled for the GPS receiver to locate it.  Brooklyn?  In a residential area?  He had a bad feeling about this.  That scream had sounded like a woman, not the traitors it was supposed to be tracking half a city away from its current position.

It didn’t move while they finished mopping up the stragglers of the mob, carting them off into police vans for someone else to deal with.  When it hadn’t moved 30 minutes later he muted the other channels on his comm.

“Солдат, report.”  The channel was quiet, no response from the Asset.  The channel then cut off with an electronic squeal.  Had it turned off the comm? 

He set his comms to Strike only.  “Rollins, Myers, with me, switch to channel 8.  Priority mission, meet me at the truck at the south entrance.  Everyone else is on cleanup here.”

Once they were loaded into the truck, he gave Rollins the location.  Meanwhile he scanned more general police frequencies.  Nothing alarming.  Fortunately traffic was light for the most part.  They seemed to be ahead of the crowds heading home from the fireworks.  A few drunken revelers or mourners wandered the streets, causing Rollins to swerve.  Rumlow and Myers swapped out their crowd control weapons for the real thing.  Live bullets and the high-powered stun batons.

They pulled up near a scruffy apartment building, allowing themselves some distance not to spook anyone inside.  “Myers, you stay at the entrance and cover the exit.”

He waved Rollins with him past the entrance to the building and up to the fire escape.  Cautiously they made their way up the stairs, checking the GPS trace at each floor up to the fire door on the third floor.  Bingo.  All was quiet inside.  Carefully picking the lock, he quietly opened the apartment window.  He raised his rifle and glanced at Rollins.  He got a nod in response.

Taking point, Rumlow headed first through the doorway, scanning the room.  Clear.  Quickly he moved further in.  It wasn’t that big of an apartment.  Just two doors.  He nodded Rollins towards the door on the left.  He swept his weapon and gaze around the walls of the empty bedroom, checking under and around the bed, even in the closet.  Clear.

Rollins nodded at him after sweeping the en suite bathroom.  Satisfied, Rumlow turned back to the second door, Rollins at his back.  Moving through into the open plan living/kitchen area, he immediately spotted a woman crumpled on the floor in front of the breakfast bar.  Scanning across the space, he couldn’t immediately spot the Asset.  He double checked against the GPS.  Nope, still here somewhere.  “Солдат, report.”  No response.

“Cover me.”  He put down the rifle, pulled out the stun baton and held it ahead of himself as he inched forward.  He peered over the breakfast bar into the small kitchen area.  Clear.  Whipping round, he rescanned the living space.  There were gaps between the couch, armchair and the bookcases.  The Asset seems pretty big when up and fighting, but it’s also pretty good at stealth and can squeeze itself into surprisingly small spaces.

Wary of surprising a malfunctioning Asset (he’d seen the damage done to some of the techs in the past) Rumlow edged round the corner of the couch, only to stop abruptly when the shadow in the corner between the armchair and bookcase coalesced into the Asset.  Crouching under the window, it clearly heard them coming and had a pistol trained on him in its flesh hand, the metal arm held protectively above its head, eyes peering through streaks of its hair.

"Stand down."  The pistol remained trained on him.

“Солдат, уступай.”  <Soldier, stand down.>  It twitched.  The eyes scanned briefly around the room then settled back on Rumlow.  He held steady, barely even breathing.  After a full minute, he tried again.  “Oтветь.”  <Comply.>

The hand holding the pistol wavered ever so slightly.  Rumlow turned the stun baton up, making it spark and stepped forward into the Soldier’s space.  “Сейчас.”  <Now.>

The pistol sagged to the Asset’s lap.  Rumlow relaxed, just a little.

“Сообщите.”  <Report.>

“Один предатель пойман, ограниченный в грузовике.”  <One traitor captured, restrained in truck.>  It rattled off a set of coordinates.  Rumlow grabbed the GPS from a pocket to punch them in but wasn’t fast enough. 

The Asset continued, “Один предатель мертв.”  <One traitor dead.>  Another set of coordinates.

Interrupting, Rumlow barked, “Повтори.”  <Repeat.>  This time Rumlow managed to catch both full sets of coordinates.  Ah, not far from the stake-out.  “Продолжать.”  <Continue.>

“Под атакой.  Я нашел приют.”  <Under attack.  I found shelter.> 

Attack?  Maybe the traitors had more allies they needed to round up.  “Кто напал?”  <Who attacked?> 

“Взрывы повсюду.”  <Explosions everywhere.>  It took a second, but the pieces came together.  The fireworks.  After all, Rumlow was military; he’d known vets who came home only to hate the 4th of July.  Well, wasn’t that a turn up for the books.  If it hadn’t caused such a mess it’d almost be funny.

“Почему здесь?”  <Why here?>

The Asset shook its head.  After a long pause Rumlow heard the barest whisper.  He wasn’t sure, but it might have been “Безопасный.”  <Safe.>  By this point the pistol was drooping loosely on the Asset’s knees, and the metal arm had dropped to its side.

“Это не безопасный, Солдат.”  <This is not safe, Soldier.>  He punctuated this with a swipe across the Asset’s face with the stun baton, putting as much force in as he could in the confined space.  The Asset rocked slightly, but made no move to rise.  Well, he’d have to ponder what made this particular space so special when they got back.  For now, damage limitation.

Stepping back a little, Rumlow pulled out his phone.  He called ahead to the base to give them the heads up that he was sending the Asset in and to watch for more malfunctions.  Most of Strike were deployed here, but Pierce made sure there was always a welcoming committee available when the Asset was deployed.  Then he gave the coordinates for the traitors to Taylor.  He'd completed his babysitting mission with the dignitaries from the stage and could sneak away to tidy up the Asset's toys.

He turned back to the Asset, who had risen to its usual parade rest stance.  Seeing it unfold, Rumlow could see the blood still on it from the interrogation with Cooper.  It certainly looked fairly horrifying, probably the cause of the scream he heard earlier.  “Солдат, вернуться на базу в Вашингтоне.”  <Soldier, return to Washington base.>

It nodded, then the eyes defocused as if it was staring through the walls, even before it vanished.  Even though he'd gotten used to it somewhat over the last few years, the weird blue shadow still unnerved him.  Checking in with Callorway proved it had made it back successfully.  He'd get it cleaned up and stored away.  He and Rollins had their own job to do.

Inspecting the kitchen, he was pleased to see a gas stove.  That would make this easier.  Pulling his gas mask back on from earlier, he turned the gas on, leaving it unlit.  He moved back over to the woman.  Knocked out, but not dead.  Guess the Asset wasn’t firing on all cylinders when it arrived here.  Another mark against it.  He moved her into the kitchen, leaving her propped up against the counter.

He sent Rollins back out the fire escape, before making the final arrangements and descending himself.  They were half a block away in the truck before the fireball erupted from the third floor.

It was not until two days later, meeting with Fury and Cap himself for a debrief of the mob situation that he figured out the significance of the Asset’s chosen refuge.  Rogers was sporting the sad puppy eyes and apologizing to anyone that would stand still long enough for inciting a riot.  Fury was unimpressed, determining that Cap was going to have to spend a lot of time with SHIELD’s PR specialists.  And also with the Strike team, training to take a bigger role in SHIELD missions.  He seemed on board with this part at least, looking for some purpose and direction to fill his time with.  Commiserating with Rogers on the way out of the meeting, it was the final comment that Rumlow found most interesting.

“And do you know what the icing on the cake of my birthday turned out to be?  My old apartment in Brooklyn, from 1943, was destroyed in a gas explosion.”

Not something he probably could have found out through the property records he’d been delving through.  Only Cap’s original paper service record listed it as his address.  It seemed the new wiping routine still only buried the memories so deep.  Rumlow marveled at the serum, that it could be so damn hard to squash.  Pierce had decided that a contingency plan was required, and was in the process of buying the apartment.  Nominally it would go down in the books as a safehouse, but this safehouse would have a few…additional measures, just in case.

A week later they woke the Asset up again, making sure to properly blitz its brain so they could work on another contingency measure.  After its performance turning off comms, Pierce wanted a failsafe way of delivering orders to it wherever it might decide to disappear to.  Rumlow had off-handedly suggested that they bury a comm inside its brain somewhere, and the techs had actually figured out a way to do that, or similar anyway.  

They called it a bone-conducting subdermal implanted relay with a biothermal battery.  It sat just behind the Asset’s left ear.  When they tested it the first time, the Asset had jumped a foot to the right and jammed the metal hand against its ear.  After seeing it not flinch during punishment, or the surgery, Rumwell could only imagine how loud the signal must have come through.  They had adjusted the signal strength after that, as the Asset had been much less responsive to normal orders from that side for a couple of hours after.  No use having it hear the first order only to miss the rest.  Especially if they needed to use the code words…

Chapter Text

The Asset tracks the progress of the target’s vehicle from the rooftops.  It is a particularly noisy vehicle.  Whispers surround it.

The Strike agents have made little progress in penetrating the armor, but have made a lot of noise.  The mission specifically does not require stealth, but intimidation.  Still, the Asset feels exposed in the daylight and open streets. 

Police cars driven by agents fail to contain the target.  Sloppy.  The Soldier analyzes the direction of the vehicle and the traffic ahead.  Only a few options are available.  The whispers tell it the status of both car and occupant.  As the last police car crashes out of the chase, the Asset hefts the disc grenade-launcher and reaches for the stretch of road ahead of the target, waits through the silent dark, and fires as soon as the target is visible.

The disc grenade does exactly what the entire squad of agents failed to do; stop the vehicle.  It also takes out most of the whispers, the last of which seem to be diminishing slowly as the systems lose power.  The target has nowhere to go.  The Asset shoulders the launcher as it approaches the vehicle.  The vehicle is upside down, bent out of shape from the crash as well as the battering ram assault it stood up to previously.  Expecting to find it jammed, the Soldier uses the metal hand to pull the door from the hinge side.  It gives way more easily than expected and flies across the roadway, revealing a hole through the roof and the tarmac below.  This target is…crafty.  Focusing, it can just make out the last faint whispers; a phone and…something else familiar.  Underground.  The roadway is blocking the signal.  Following into the tunnel would be tactically unsound.  The Asset rocks back on its heels, then reaches again for a nearby alley, out of sight.  It is patient, and the target is injured.  The faint whisper is difficult to track, but after an initial scurry in a westerly direction, it starts to head north.

The Soldier can feel the tunnels in the same way it could feel the streets and buildings above the ground, but killing him down there won’t fulfill the secondary part of the mission.  The target needs to be dead, but also to be seen to be dead.  The Soldier does not like to be exposed though.  A sniper shot, in front of a witness?  The target will need to seek medical attention; he will surface.

Stopping only to leave the launcher in a safe location and retrieve a sniper rifle, the Asset slips through the shadows, shadowing the trail as the signal moves slowly between streets.  The slow speed almost certainly caused by the target’s injuries and the difficult terrain in the tunnels underground.  

The light starts to fade as the target finally emerges above ground, close to an apartment building.  The Asset traces the signals across the darkened path and up to the top floor.  There is something about that second signal.  A voice…that feels like being put in the ice?  It brings images of medical tables.  No.  The Asset concentrates on the target.  Who is now hiding cleverly in the corner of the top floor apartment.  Calculating an optimal angle for a shot is difficult.  The Soldier moves several times, but cannot get line of sight on the target’s position from any of the neighboring rooftops…although one comes very close.  He would not have to move far…yes this is the best spot.

The light has now fully faded.  The goggles it is currently wearing are not equipped for night vision.  The eyes alone are better, but again the Soldier feels exposed.  Reaching into a pocket it finds the dark kohl camouflage paint and smears it around the eyes, obscuring more of the pale skin above the mask.  The goggles are stowed in a pocket.

Its vantage point is close enough that it can hear many whispers from this apartment building.  Music starts playing on the top floor, echoing oddly through the whispers.  Curious why the target would stop to listen to music, the Soldier listens.  It finds the music soothing as it sets up the sniper rifle sights.  The Soldier’s focus is narrowed to the top floor of the building opposite.  The apartment on the left is where the target is hiding.  On the right the other apartment is lit, a woman in pink scrubs moving around.  Listening closely to the bright apartment, it can hear callsigns.  SHIELD communications.

A few people come and go from the building.  Arriving home from work.  Meeting friends.  Going out to a game.  All inconsequential, until a man exits at ground level, only to climb the external wall to the top level windows.  He is with the target.  They talk, easily heard through the whispers.  The voice of the intruder…it knows that voice.  The light in the left hand apartment flicks on, but only briefly.  The Soldier is almost sure of where the target is, but waits for confirmation.  It has to be sure of a kill shot.

There.  The target stands, moves closer to the intruder.  The Asset does not hesitate.  Three shots to be very certain this target will not be getting back up.  It can hear the woman calling for EMTs, the intruder looking for the Soldier as the rifle is dismantled.  His face at the window sends a shock through the mind, though it has no idea why.  The Soldier turns and bolts across the roof.

The intruder crashes out of the window, across the street and in through a window below the Asset.  Who the hell is this guy?  No ordinary SHIELD agent could make that leap.  He wants to see.  Running through offices below, the intruder keeps pace with the Soldier on the rooftops.

Behind it, the intruder crashes back out of the office building, putting him on the same rooftop level as the Soldier.  It needs to get out of sight.  A projectile comes from behind, fast.  The metal arm moves, as if of its own accord, to catch it. It is a…shield?  Painted red, white and blue.  Without even thinking, he throws it back, hard, forcing the intruder’s eyes away from the Soldier, tracking the shield.  In that heartbeat, he reaches for the first place that comes to mind, which turns out to actually be the rendezvous point from that morning.  

Taking a breath, the Soldier tries to slow the racing of its heart.  What was that?  Who could be as fast as the Soldier?  Had they made more Soldiers?

And that shield.  The man with the shield.  It had fought that shield before.  No, it had fought alongside that shield before.  The heft and swing of it was so familiar.  It flew beautifully, so well balanced.  It could take out a sniper at distance.  It could take down a tank.  A tank?   A memory of the man with the shield taking on a tank, smashing open the hatch to throw grenades inside.

It was–

“Солдат.”  The earpiece shouts at the Soldier.  Snapping to attention, the thoughts scatter before the handler's voice.  “Return to the vault.”  The location springs to the front of the mind instantly, the Asset passing into the silent dark without thinking.

The lab is empty.  It stands at attention, eyes scanning the room, waiting for the next order.  A technician bursts through the door, out of breath.  The Soldier can hear the handler in the phone he is holding to his ear.  “Get it in the ice as soon as you can.  This situation is going to shit and we’re bound to need it again soon.  Properly wiped.”

The technician holds a stun baton tentatively, clearly unfamiliar with it.  He gingerly ushers the Soldier into the containment room beyond, then edges past the Soldier to pull out the cryofreeze vest and pants from storage.  A medic stumbles in, clearly also having rushed, holding a bottle of the tasteless white liquid.

Routine is a hazy thing for the Soldier, but this does not match anything it can remember.  It gulps down the thick liquid.  Too rushed.  The stomach sloshes uncomfortably.  The Soldier strips as directed.  Voids the bowels.  The technician gives it a wet cloth for a cursory wipe of the dust and dirt accumulated on the mission.  It still feels gritty.

It puts on the cryofreeze vest and pants.  The mouthguard goes in.  The medic places the cryo mask over the top.  The technician is working on the panel on the cryochamber.  Pushed inside, the Soldier takes its position.  The cold air starts flowing even before the medic finishes attaching all the cables from the vest.  This garners the tech a glare from the medic as he extracts himself from the chamber.

The door slides shut.  The sound resonates inside the mind with all the previous times.  The Soldier tries not to tense – it only makes it worse – as the ice rapidly climbs the walls and the body together.  Burning cold rising in waves, up the legs and arms.  The panic sets in as breathing becomes difficult, frozen lungs refusing to move.  Until the only sensation left.  Is. 

Cold.

The whispers give only the barest warning before the pain hits.  Bright, burning pain that seems to melt away thought as well as ice.  Despite the burning, there is somehow a lump of ice in the stomach that does not seem to fully melt before it ends.  Pain twists around it.

The whispers fill the quiet left behind with frantic snippets of readings, orders, movements, updates, messages, targets, losses.  Cutting through these is a handler's voice.  It is the commander, not the previous handler.  The code words, blotting out the other inputs.  The Asset will comply.

Carefully looking around, the Asset cannot see the commander-handler.  Around it the technician and medic are inconsequential, bustling around disconnecting monitors from the cryo vest, muttering that it is too soon.  It barely notices as they redress it in basic combat gear and mask, waiting for orders from the commander.

The voice comes again, in both the whispers and in the ears.  “Приходи ко мне и жди меня.”  <Come to my place and wait for me.>

Through the haze in the mind, the Asset is aware of the technicians displaying the coordinates for the commander's house.  These it reaches for, through the silent dark.

It arrives in a darkened kitchen in the house, but elsewhere in the house lights are on.  The Asset remains quiet, sitting in the shadows, listening.  Upstairs, there is somebody cleaning.  Down the hall there were a lot of whispers where the commander is seemingly reviewing reports of personnel reporting into a new posting.

The cleaner is packing away equipment, the commander now reviewing financial numbers. 

The commander leaves the office as the cleaner comes down the stairs, gathering a bag from the hallway.  They speak briefly before the commander enters the kitchen, moving for the fridge.  The Asset makes a small movement, placing a pistol on the table, to alert the commander to its presence.

“Want some milk?”

This is not an order. 

The commander continues speaking while he pours what looks like the tasteless white liquid into a glass and the stomach twists.

“Two targets, Level Six.”  Focus returns as the commander moves on  to mission details.  “They already cost me Zola.”  That name causes a shiver inside the mind.  The body remains still, under control.

“I want confirmed death in ten hours.”  A tight schedule.  It is evening now.  Ten hours will be early morning.

Behind the commander the cleaner appears.  The Asset tenses, glancing at the pistol, but the commander turns and shoots her himself.  He motions the Asset to follow him back to the office.

“Take the Russian squad to track them down.”  He brings up personnel files on a monitor.  “He is enhanced.  She is well-trained.  They escaped Strike Alpha today, and may be injured, gone to ground.”  The whispers confirm this, also listing their known associates and frequented locations along with the likelihood that they are skilled enough to avoid these.  The coordinates for the location the Russian Hydra team currently seconded to Washington are also displayed, their standing orders floating in the whispers.  Then the commander looks in the eyes directly.  “Hold nothing back.”

“Oh, and take the trash out with you.”  The Asset nods, and leaves, taking the body of the woman and finding a quiet spot to dispose of it anonymously, before reaching for the Hydra staging area.

A warehouse, complete with underground bunker, in a quiet corner of the city houses a lot of Hydra combat equipment for larger operations.

Here, a contingent of Russian Hydra agents are preparing to support the US agents in the commander's plans.  The Asset observes a full squad loading up several Humvees with weapons.

The Soldier loads itself and one of the Humvees with weapons.  With the commander's instruction to withhold nothing, the standard mission knives, pistols, also submachine guns, grenades and various explosives go into the pockets, sheaths, and holsters of its combat gear.  Into the vehicle go various rifles, grenade launchers, full size machine guns, blocks of C4 and even a rocket launcher.

The targets have however truly gone to ground.  The details of the previous attempt by Strike Alpha to remove them show that they have already survived several attacks and Hydra has no intelligence on their current whereabouts.  The Russian agents are already prepped and sit in groups, relaxing.

The Asset listens closely to the whispers through the night, but there are no whispers about either target in the city.  Hours pass in darkness, reaching out further to find more cameras, more news reports, but there is nothing to action.  With the arrival of the morning the mission ten-hour deadline creeps closer, and the stomach twists tighter.  In the early hours of daylight it spots a report in the SHIELD servers from Fort Meade of intruders.  The intruders are good.  The Asset reaches for the location and accesses the camera footage directly, but the locals have done a poor job of placing the cameras.  Stealthy inspection of the entry location shows damage fitting the description of the male target’s unusual weapon.  They were here.

The deadline passes, without catching up with the targets.  Tension inside the Asset pulls with no way to release.  Traffic cameras on major routes between Washington and Fort Meade show moderate traffic at this time of day, as the general population emerges and starts the morning commute.  Scrutinizing the footage around Fort Meade at the times either side of the intrusion identify a car that likely carries both targets.  The driver of the vehicle is identified as an ex-air force Sergeant Sam Wilson, pararescue.  No prior known contact with targets, SHIELD, or Hydra.

In the bright morning sunlight the Soldier pulls on a set of goggles.  The vehicle leaves a trail back towards Washington, and the Asset follows, calling for the Russians to move ahead of the trail.  Before either the Asset or the Humvees catch up with it, however, the vehicle is spotted mid morning in a Washington shopping precinct, in the vicinity of a meeting between Hydra agent Jasper Sitwell and a Hydra-supporting Senator.  Reaching instantly for the location, the Soldier keeps an eye on the vehicle whilst also watching for the targets.  The Russians are not far away as the Asset spots the targets hustling Agent Sitwell into the vehicle with them.  Listening to their conversation, it determines that the agent has revealed critical intelligence.  A traitor then.  The Soldier follows, moving from rooftop to rooftop and looking for the best opportunity to close in.

The vehicle heads onto a raised highway, away from buildings, and the Asset directs the Russians to the roadway ahead while the Asset moves to the roof of a truck driving alongside the targets.  It leaps onto the roof of the vehicle itself and pulls the traitor out through the window, tossing him into the path of traffic.  One down.  It pulls a pistol and shoots down through the roof.

The targets are slippery.  They evade the shots and manage to throw the Soldier from the vehicle, although it is able to land easily.  The Humvee catches up to the fight and pushes the targets towards the Soldier.

First action is to disable the vehicle by removing the steering column.  This is interrupted by return fire from inside the vehicle, however the Soldier retreats to the Humvee which is able to take advantage of the uncontrolled direction of the target vehicle to roll it.

The Soldier watches as the targets emerge unscathed from the crash, and calls for the grenade launcher from the Russians.  Yet again, the targets are slippery, evading and separating.  This mission is overdue, the commander’s time limit well past and the orders ringing through the mind.  The Soldier barely gets a glimpse of the male target's shield as he is propelled off the bridge before his attention is taken by the movement of the female, her red hair flying behind her as she moves, and the accomplice.  Even they are slippery as the grenades fail to find their mark.  The Asset has no care to be efficient with ammunition on this occasion.  It will throw everything it can at these targets.  Holding nothing back.

Swapping weapons to take a rifle from the Russians, the Soldier chases the female off the highway to the street below, leaving the agents to take care of the accomplice and find the male target.  She is skilled, but so is the Soldier.  Her tricks, attempting to deceive and disable the metal arm, do not deter its pursuit but at the cost of its goggles, cracked from a skillful shot.  He wounds her, has almost reached her, before the male target shows himself to interfere with the kill.

This target packs a real punch.  As strong as the Soldier.  He fights with some skill too.  His shield…no, the mission deadline has passed, the Asset has no time for interruptions of memory.  It does get full attention when it makes a dent in the upper plates of the metal arm though.  The damage causes a brief internal short to shock the Soldier, shrieking at it through the whispers.  The distraction allows the target to get in a heavy hit and loosen the mask, which comes off as he grabs the Soldier’s face and flips it.  Without the mask the Asset feels exposed.  It almost feels as if the target feels it too as he pauses to stare at the face.

“Bucky?”  This word stabs deeply into the mind.  It is like a code word.  A code word the Soldier doesn't remember?  A flurry of memory snippets try to bubble up, but the Asset forces them down. 

“Who the hell is Bucky?” 

The mission.  It is already out of time.  Whispers of a kind it has not heard before are approaching.  Complete the mission!  It brings up its last remaining pistol, but is knocked over from behind by…the accomplice?  The man wears wings.  This is the source of the unusual whispers.  Altitude, angles, fuel, pressures, speeds…the noise is distracting.  As is the echo of that code word.  What did it do?  The target’s face blurs before the Soldier, blending with memory after memory of the same face.  With and without the same shield.  Sometimes with a different body.  Are these the same person?  Are they real?

Hydra agents are converging on them, but not close enough yet.  Struggling to refocus the eyes on the target, the Asset brings up the pistol again to aim.  The female target fires the grenade launcher at it, forcing the Soldier to duck away.  Strike agents approach on all sides.  The face and that word are still disorienting the Soldier, and it reaches for somewhere quiet, an escape from this flood of memory.

The Soldier is on a nearby rooftop.  It hunkers down alongside some air conditioning units, hidden from casual view.  The mission is incomplete.  This tethers it to the targets.  The targets still live, but it can see Hydra agents containing them.  I want confirmed death in ten hours.  The Soldier does not have a weapon for this distance.  There is a previous handler holding them.  Why is he not completing the kill?  The eyes skitter over the target.  How can this face belong to two bodies?  And in so many memories?  The past is a blur.  Blank for the most part, with odd impressions of training, knowledge, skills, handlers and a few sharp points of reference for the current mission.  These new memories are…grainy.  As if they have more texture.  As if there is more to the Soldier in them.  The name, the code word, is used in them. 

The targets and agents disappear into the SHIELD trucks.  The Soldier follows, the itch in the mind compelling it to stick with the mission until confirmed death even now that Hydra agents have the targets contained. 

Before the convoy reaches a destination, the earpiece cuts in with the voice of the commander.  “Return to the Washington vault.” 

A spike of dread runs through the Asset.  The mission is not complete.   Previous punishments for failure flash through the mind, stealing all breath from the lungs.  Pain.  Hunger.  Delirium.  After the previous barrage of memories these feel more raw.  Gritting its teeth, the Asset reaches for the vault.

Technicians and medics are waiting for it, but not the commander.  More bubbles of memory rise up here.  The Asset braces for punishment as the technicians strip off all its gear.  They make an assessment of damage, noting the dented plates and circuitry in the arm.  Fiddly.  Fixing it will take time.

Only one agent enters, fully armed.  The Asset remains tense, but the agent only holds his weapon ready.  The technician pulls the Soldier towards the maintenance chair.  The feet initially refuse to move.  The agent raises his stun baton.  These have been used for punishment before.  But the commander is not here.  The mission is not complete.  And yet the orders were to return from the mission.

The stun baton stabs into the Soldier's side, and it can hear the agent calling for backup.  The commander's voice is on the whispers also.  He is coming here.  The thread of tension through the body twists, somehow releasing the feet.

Two more agents arrive, weapons ready and aimed.  The technician again pulls it towards the chair, and this time the feet move.

Sitting in the chair, memories of pain, of screaming arrive.  But the technicians do not activate the restraints and electrodes.  Instead one pulls a tray of tools out and starts poking at the broken plates in the metal arm.  The Soldier…remembers.  Where the metal arm is, was once flesh.  Lost in the snow.  Or a fall?  The man on the bridge reached out to him, calling that name again.  The one that feels like a code word.  The doctor with the round glasses cut more of the arm off, replaced it with the metal, calling him a different name.  The feeling of the tools in the arm echoes the feeling of the saw through bone.  They can't take more.  They can't.  The Soldier flexes the metal arm, shaking off the technician, throwing him into the wall.

The sound of the three agents loading their rifles cuts through the blur of memories.  The Soldier stills.  It has to know more.  Who the hell is Bucky?  Allowing the technicians to work again on the arm, it ignores the pain and pulls on the whisper threads in the monitors beside them.  Data about the arm.  About the tracker.  About the backup comm implant.  About drugs, strength, healing, feeding schedules, missions, experimentation.  Not all of the data is here.  There are gaps, particularly further back.  The code words are missing.  The original arm is missing.  Missions before 1994.

Today's target knew more than these files reveal.  But today's mission is not yet in the mission files here.

A backhand across the face brings the Soldier's attention back to the room, questions still unanswered.  The commander stands in front of the Chair, the previous handler behind him.  A question bursts out, unable to be held in.  “The man on the bridge…who was he?”

“You met him earlier this week on another assignment.”  The Soldier knows this is not true.  Or not the whole truth. 

The man knew it, gave it a name, a code word.  And… “I knew him.”

The commander continues, a speech about the achievements of Hydra.  Memories of that face drown out even the commander's words.  The face pale and sickly, then blood dripping from the nose, shouting, frowning, smiling, laughing, crying—

The Soldier becomes aware that the commander has stopped talking and appears to be waiting for a response.  “But I knew him.”

The commander turns to the nearest technician, instructing, “Prep him.”

The technician protests, prompting the commander to respond, “Then wipe him and start over.” 

The previous handler also questions this.  No time for the cryo chamber.  Unmoving, the commander orders, “I said wipe him.  Blow the power for the whole district if you have to.”

The handler mutters unhappily, but the technician moves to give the Soldier the bite guard.  Involuntarily the breathing speeds up as the technician pushes the Soldier back into the restraints.  As the Chair leans back, a flash of the face looking down at him as he recites a string of numbers fills the mind.  32557038.  32557038.  There are words too, but these are more fuzzy — the electrodes spark, and brightness obscures the memory further, leaving only the numbers dancing through his mind.  The numbers float in the whispers, drawing attention outwards to find more data on the target.  There are news reports showing this face, giving it a name.  Or…more than one name.  Just like the face has more than one body, it has more than one name?  Captain America.  Steve Rogers.  Maybe they are actually different people?  The influx of information is confusing.  Maybe the man on the bridge is not the man in the memories.  The Soldier cannot be sure.  Cannot trust the memories.

The brightness in the mind fades, and the Soldier becomes aware of the body again.  The throat is raw.  The limbs twitchy.  It struggles to hold the head up.  There is dampness around the crotch.  Drool dripping from the mouth.  Dragging the eyes open, it is aware that the commander has left.  The handler now sneers at it in distaste as the technician removes the bite guard, but reads out the code words.

“Желание.” The stomach lurches.

“Ржавый.” 

“Семнадцать.” No. 

“Рассвет.” Not another fight.

“Печь.” 

“Девять.”  It is so…

“Доброкачественный.” …tired.

“Возвращение на родину.” 

“Один.”  Of fighting.

“Грузовой вагон.” 

Thoughts move as slow as molasses.

“Солдат.”

“Я готов отвечать.”

“Get it cleaned up.”  The technicians approach; it allows them to remove the sodden clothes and follows, on slightly wobbly legs, the technician accompanied by an agent to mission ops where the cleanup area is.  The base is dark, and the whispers subdued, but the water in the hose still flows.

The handler has disappeared.  His only order to get clean now accomplished, it waits, mind foggy.  The medics take measurements that echo in the whispers.  The tasteless white liquid is administered.  A needle pricks the flesh arm.  Where is the handler?

The technicians strap armor to the body.  Holsters.  Weapons.  Activity surrounds the Asset, but it is passive, waiting for orders.  When the handler reappears the Asset is geared up.  Except.  The armor is incomplete.  No mask.  No goggles.

The handler directs the Asset to follow with all the Strike agents to the garage level.  Early morning light is brightening the sky above as the loaded trucks drive to the Triskelion.  The whispers are noisy here, but the Asset listens only to the handler’s orders.  Protect the helicarriers.  Priority targets expected to attack - Captain America, Sergeant Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanov, Maria Hill.  Collateral damage acceptable.  Hostile agent activity anticipated.

The Asset is ordered to hold back on arrival at the Triskelion.  This location is still primarily a SHIELD base.  Strike move in to secure command, leaving the Asset stealthily watching the helicarriers in the hangar below the river.  Listening closely to the whispers, the Asset follows the handler on the cameras moving inside the main building.  The commander is present already, on the higher levels.

A new signal comes over the whispers.  “Attention, all SHIELD agents.  This is Steve Rogers.”  One of the priority targets.  The highest priority.  The voice is…familiar.  The image of the shield bubbles into the Soldier’s mind.  The signal is inside the building, over every channel.  Where is it coming from?  Listening closely the Asset tries to pinpoint the origin, but it feels like it comes from everywhere at once.  It has not been to the Triskelion often.  The layout is unfamiliar.

The Asset feels for locations in the building where the signal is strongest, reaching for the loudest hub.  Agents stand unmoving, listening to the voice.  Are they Hydra or SHIELD?  The target is not here, but the voice continues.  Slipping further into the shadows, the Asset observes the Strike team arriving.  Listens again to the whispers, looking for a potential origin.  Scanning the camera feeds the target is not visible on any, although many have gone dark. 

Another loud hub exists at the edge of the building overlooking the river.  Reaching again, the Asset again finds no trace of the target, only two confused agents listening to the voice.  One of the agents moves to stop the other from trying to trace and block it.  The Asset pulls a pistol and shoots the agent that is assisting the target’s signal.  The remaining Hydra agent looks up in shock as the voice stops.

The target will be on the move now.  Rogers.  The target with the shield.  The quiet whisper of the helicarriers suddenly kicks into full gear, nearly distracting the Soldier.  It is difficult to pick out precise whispers from the din.  Glancing out of the window, the Asset sees the helicarrier hangars open, exposing the three enormous machines.  The launch has begun.

Rising from the hole first is a set of wings.  The third priority target.  Wilson.  The Asset can reach for a location, but it cannot fly unsupported.  A quinjet rises in pursuit.  If the battle is in the air the Asset will need a similar weapon.  It grimaces.  Air battles are… not the Asset’s preferred choice.  Carefully filtering the images from the whispers, the Asset looks through the cameras on the quinjet deck above the main hangar.  They show a group of pilots heading for the planes.  It reaches for the corner of the deck, away from direct view, behind the group in time to hear the order, “We're the only air support Captain Rogers has got.”  SHIELD pilots.

One of the pilots is already lifting.  They cannot be permitted to assist the target.  The Asset launches a grenade into the engine before it can gain significant height, then raises a rifle to cut through the group closest to the planes as they scatter.  One rolls a grenade in the direction of the Asset.  Dropping the rifle, it grabs the grenade and returns it to the hold of the craft it came from.  That one won’t lift again now.  Shots ring out from the left; the Asset raises the metal arm to deflect the bullets.  A single stride brings the shooter within range of the metal arm, putting him off balance.  Behind him, another plane is firing up engines, starting to lift.  A kick puts the shooter through the engine, taking both out of the fight.

The last pilot pulls the cockpit closed over his head.  The Asset reaches for the roof of the plane.  A single shot takes care of the pilot, leaving the Soldier clear to scan the skies for wings.  There is a brief stutter, then the tone of one of the whispers from deep within one of the helicarriers changes suddenly.  The same happens to a second carrier.  The Soldier shakes its head, trying to clear it of the strange signals.  The new tone is less…oppressive somehow.  Digging deeper through the noise, the Asset finds camera footage of both targets on board the two affected helicarriers.  Sabotage?  The change in tone doesn’t feel destructive, and there are no reports of damage.

Climbing into the cockpit of the last functional plane on the deck, the Soldier lifts it into the air.  The wings appear far above.  The Asset starts to direct the craft upwards, ready to pursue, and the winged target suddenly dips and catches the target with the shield in the air.  Ok, two for one.  But before the quinjet can even get close to them – damn those wings are quick – the wings head straight for the deck of the third carrier.  Good.  The Soldier is a better fighter on the ground.  It takes note of the positions of the two targets.  Abandoning the jet mid-air, the Soldier reaches for the helicarrier where the targets have landed.  The jet cannot be left serviceable in case more pilots arrive.

On the other side of the silent dark the Asset appears directly across from the target with the shield.  Rogers.  A whisper of his voice trails from him as he talks to Wilson, completely oblivious.  One large step forward and a shove sends him flying off the side of the deck.  Wilson fires up his thrusters.  The Soldier cannot let him aid Rogers.  As the wings lift the Soldier grabs one with the metal arm and pulls Wilson back.  The wings hold but the flight path twists and the target is flung back away from the edge.  Ducking under cover from Wilson’s return fire, the Asset pulls a grappling line and anchor from a pocket.  Throwing the anchor, it latches onto a wing even as Wilson gains height.  A sharp yank and the wing pulls out of the pack.  Huh, flimsy.  Wilson is now a sitting duck in front of the edge; a swift kick sends him over it.

Peering down, the Asset cannot see the sides of the helicarrier from here, but the whisper from Rogers’ comms indicates he is still on board.  Listening carefully to the whispers from the three helicarriers, the Asset feels a familiar tone on the third that is missing on the other two.  A shiver courses down the spine.  The tone brings to mind operating tables.  Needles.  Pain.  Shaking the head to clear it, the Asset concentrates on that uncomfortable tone, finding it in the deepest part of the helicarrier.  That must be Rogers’ target.  Protect the helicarriers.   The mission.  It reaches again for the location closest to it.

The Asset arrives in a data center.  This room is not designed well for access or defense.  Why is there so much space and so many windows?  And so many narrow walkways and ledges?  With so few options, the Asset plants itself in front of the access panel.  Being so close makes the voice in the whispers that much louder.  It stirs more memories.  Of round glasses.  Of cryofreeze.  Pain.  Humiliation.  Fatigue.  Blood.  Screams.  No! 

The mission.

The mission is here.  The Asset holds ground.  The target’s eyes on it.  Rogers speaks.  The words are meaningless except for one.  That code word again, like a needle into the brain, prising out bubbles of memory.  Walking through mud.  Lying on a rooftop.  A schoolyard.  The Asset grits its teeth and refuses to let any more intrude, glaring at the target.

The target attacks.  The Asset defends.  It blocks all thoughts, all intrusions and nothing exists but the fight.  Rogers is strong.  Fast.  They clash hard.  The shield is not enough defense, and the Asset gets shots in around it.  Blood seeps through the target’s clothes.  The target is trying to replace one of the chip elements of the data center, which gives it openings to attack, but Rogers refuses to drop.

Roaring in frustration, the Asset charges at him, knife in hand, taking them both over the edge and onto the windowed floor, and the chip is dropped.  The fall gives it a dizzy feeling inside, but it must complete the mission; the Soldier twists before they hit, pushing the target further from the chip and stabbing him deeply in the thigh.  Scrabbling, it gets the fingers of the flesh hand around the chip.  They wrestle for it.  The Soldier is strong, but the target is somehow stronger.  Hydra has prepared it well to withstand this pressure, however the target is…is…overwhelming the Asset.  The flesh arm is pulled out of position with a sickening crunch, but the fingers have a death grip on the chip and it will not release.  The target manages to restrain the metal arm just in time for a barrage of whispers to hit.  The noise is immense.  A swirling storm of data.  Hydra data.  Winter Soldier data.  The Soldier feels exposed.  It feels like the world is shouting his existence.  It cannot be allowed to escape.  Pulling everything about the Winter Soldier away from the world, he squashes it down, hides it away inside the mind, unseen.

The eyes are closed.  When did that happen?  The Asset opens them to see Rogers climbing back up to the data center with the chip in hand.  Protect the helicarriers.  Sitting up causes a wave of dizziness and the Soldier nearly collapses back down.  Woah.  Pulling a pistol, it gets off a couple of shots with the last bullets.  It reaches for the walkway while the target's back is turned, immediately launching a kick at his back.  The Asset's aim is disappointingly off-center, spinning the target towards the access panel, and causing the Asset to stumble on the walkway. 

The voice in the whispers suddenly grows in volume, pointing dangerously at locations all over the world.  The Soldier cringes back from the voice, away from the access panel, away from the voice that brings pain.  That momentary distraction gives Rogers the opportunity to slide the chip into place.  The change in the whispers is immediate as the voice is silenced, and the helicarriers feel like they are looking at each other, as if sizing the others up.  It sends a shock of panic through the Asset.  Mission failure.  Launching itself off the floor the Asset lands a punch right in the target’s face with the metal fist.  It can't fail.  The target must be eliminated.

The target staggers back, raising a hand to the comm in his ear.  “Fire now.”

The Asset launches another attack that Rogers blocks as he confirms his order.  The target is cagey, refusing to return blows as the Asset advances further along the walkway.  Why?  He overpowered the Asset before.  The Asset strikes out with a foot just as the helicarrier lurches to the side with a loud crash, sending the Asset sliding off the edge of the walkway again.  This time the target looks down on it as it falls.  “Bucky!”  That code word again.  Another image of a disappearing face overlays the target before the Soldier crashes into the floor, followed by sections of walkway destroyed by incoming fire from the other helicarriers.

The helicarrier now leans to one side, pieces of the room sliding as an explosion blasts through a section of glass under the room.  Straining the motorized joints, the Soldier tries to use the metal arm to lever up the biggest walkway piece on top of it.  Raining pieces of helicarrier crash down on either side.  More blasts echo around it as the helicarriers tear each other apart.  It can hear alarms sounding, systems whirring to life and cutting off as the battle continues to take its toll on the ship.

The metal bar across the chest barely shifts.  Trapped.  The flesh arm useless.  The Soldier flails its legs to try and gain leverage.  Movement catches the eyes.  Looking up, Rogers has jumped down and is approaching.  This is it.  The Asset stares at the face of the target, anticipating a final blow from the shield in his hand.  Rogers has removed the cowl, and the vision blurs with another memory of that same face looking down at him. 

Suddenly the bar shifts, breaking the moment.  The Asset wriggles through the relieved pressure and rolls as soon as the space is large enough.  Finish the mission.   It comes up swinging and lands a blow on the target, standing staring at the Asset.

“You know me.” 

It does.  But it doesn't.  It shouldn't.  “No, I don't!”  The Asset swings again.

“Bucky…”  The code word rings in the ears.  Echoes in other voices.

He can't listen to the target’s voice.  He doesn't.  Another swing of the metal arm.  Anything to prevent the continuation of these words.  And again.  Doesn't this guy know when to quit?

“James Buchanan Barnes.” 

The words are like another session in the Chair.  Lighting up the brain.  How does this target know more code words?!

“Shut up!”  The metal fist is making a mess of the face.  Flashes of a thousand other bruises, cuts and scrapes on this same face flash through the mind.  The Asset needs to cut this guy off already.

The target drops the shield.  The Asset has the tactical advantage.  Time's up.  The next words cut through some of the mission focus.  “You're my friend.”

What the hell is a friend?  “You're my mission.”  And it needs to be finished.  No weapons left except the metal arm.  Again, and again, it brings the arm down on the target until he utters another set of code words, “…I'm with you.  To the end of the line.”

The mind freezes.  The arm stops, held raised above the target.  The Asset can't move.  Protect the man with the shield.   But he's the mission.  Protect is the mission.  A new mission…or an old one?

Then another explosion destroys the window beneath them.  Reflexes allow the Asset to catch hold of one of the remaining structural beams, although it is unlikely to remain so for long.  Rogers is not so lucky, falling away below, towards the water.

Again, the mysterious code word plays in the mind.  Bucky!  There is an impression of snow.

As the face disappears from view the Asset cringes.  The mission compulsion returns.  Protect!  It reaches for the surface of the water and kicks down to reach the falling body.  The flesh arm is still useless, and the metal arm clutches the body, so it makes it to shore on leg power alone, dragging the mission with it. 

Rogers breathes, and the Soldier breathes also.  He is the mission.  That is undeniable.  But what is the mission?  The Soldier stares at the face, searching for the mission.  Killing him is impossible.  But he is dangerous.  That is true in either case.  Allowing him to live…the Soldier cannot return to Hydra with the mission incomplete.  Has this happened before?  The memories are so fragmented.  He can't know.

The files on the Winter Soldier run through his head.  They can track him.  Recall him.  Reset him.  Wipe him.  The Soldier pulls the comms, now only reading static, from his ears.  These can be destroyed; crushing them with the metal hand works pretty well.  The others it cannot extract so easily. But the whispers give them away.  The Soldier listens closely to the metal arm, picking through the signals within it.  There is one, alien to the others, that doesn't belong.  An add-on.  An afterthought.  The coordinates and date-and-time signals stream from it still.  This is what will tell them how to find the Soldier.  Their Asset.

He grabs on to the signals and squashes them down.  Smaller and smaller until a spark inside the arm shoots pain up through the shoulder joint, as if to match the flesh one, and the signals stop suddenly.  Recalibrating the arm dims the pain to a level where the Soldier can ignore it.

The Soldier studies Rogers again.  Damaged, he is in no danger of waking immediately.  Medical attention would probably be beneficial; the thought of him dying twists the stomach painfully.  Protect the mission.  In the surrounding area there are emergency services arriving all around the Triskelion, radio signals coordinating them.  A little tweak to the navigation of one unit routes them here.

Hiding in the nearby trees, the Soldier watches as they find Rogers, assess him and load him into an ambulance.  Protect the man with the shield.  A niggle of worry compels the Soldier to follow to make sure they are not Hydra agents in disguise.  Or there could be a Hydra agent following.  The Asset is a Hydra agent.  Isn't it?  If the code words are used, it would be.  Priority target.  For a second, the hands itch for a sniper rifle.

No!  The hands feel…unclean.  Peering at them, the Soldier thinks that perhaps they really are not clean, but not about to commit (more) murder. 

Arriving at a hospital, he considers options.  Rogers cannot currently defend himself.  Whispers trail from the emergency responders as they wheel the damaged body into the building.  Concentrating, he can follow the trail and discern that Rogers is being treated within.  The Soldier needs to protect him.  Rogers is not safe with the Soldier nearby.  Rogers is still on a target list with Hydra and is not safe while there are Hydra agents out there.  A slow realization comes to him; Hydra must be removed in order to keep the mission safe.

The thought shocks the Asset, the entire body freezing as if by doing so the thought would not have occurred.

A mission to remove Hydra will take preparation.  The Asset is in no condition to take on such a large target.  The body has suffered damage.  It will need to gather supplies.  It knows somehow that there are many hundreds or thousands of Hydra agents, but they are faceless.  Nameless.  It needs intelligence also.

Is it even possible?  Hydra has the red book.  The code words.  There may even be more than one book.  The Soldier has no protection from those.  He cannot be used against Rogers again.  Must not allow that to happen.

The first step is to deal with the damage.  Reaching for the roof of the building opposite the hospital for a spot with a good view that will likely be undisturbed, he categorizes the damage.  Mostly bruising that will reduce in time.  But the flesh arm still hangs useless by his side.  Gripping the flesh wrist with the metal hand, the Soldier pulls the flesh arm out straight in front of him.  The pain is…barely manageable.  Gritting the teeth, the Asset pulls harder, feeling the end of the bone slide against the wall of the shoulder socket.  Finally it slips over the edge of the socket, and the metal arm can release the flesh wrist.  The initial relief gives way to a deep ache, but the arm can now move.  It will take some hours at least to heal to full fighting capacity.

The second step is to make sure that Rogers has an ally with him while he is vulnerable.  The only people the Soldier can really trust not to be Hydra agents are targets.  The left eye twitches.  More incomplete missions.  The female target with the red hair from the bridge.  He did not see her at the Triskelion, but…he thinks she was in the whispers.  Listening closely, he pushes out through the whispered connections in the building below him.  There is a cacophony of whispers just below the surface.  Filtering the thousands upon thousands of messages searching for missing people, calling for help, speculating on the Hydra intelligence released to the world, images and videos of the damage in the battles across the city is an uphill battle.  It is too much.  Overwhelmed by the onslaught of whispers, the Soldier sags down onto the roof.  He cannot find the female target.  But then he finds something else.

Wilson with the wings.  Only without the wings now.  He should be dead; the Asset kicked him off the helicarrier with only one wing left.  Again, the stomach twists at the unfinished mission.  He has half risen from his slump on the roof before the thought catches up with the movement.  Complete the mission.  But the mission is void now.  The new mission needs Wilson.  Listening in again to the whispers, the Soldier realizes that Wilson is with more EMTs and search and rescue personnel.  He is already on the mission, searching for Rogers.

Carefully opening up to the barrage of messages, the Soldier pushes the details of the hospital to Wilson's phone. 

Waiting for Wilson to take the bait, the Soldier listens in to the condition of the mission inside the hospital.  The doctors have taken him into surgery.  Memories prompted by this threaten to bubble up, but the Asset squashes then back down.  Now is not the time.  It is reasonably sure the hospital is not controlled by Hydra.  Nobody seems to be trying to harm Rogers for example.

A sudden loud burst of static in the left ear.  What the hell?  The whispers contain a voice.  The recall implant.  Holding the whispers back from reaching the implant, the Asset whips the metal arm up behind the ear and digs the fingers under the skin to grasp the implant.  It is small, but discernible.  A harsh yank pulls it away from the bone.  Crushing the bloody implant in the metal fingers, the Soldier ponders options.  There is someone within Hydra who knows how to recall him still active.  The red book.  Priority to destroy the book.  But Rogers is still vulnerable.

The Soldier listens out for Wilson's phone.  Now that he has identified it, it is easier to find.  Closer now, moving in the direction of the hospital.

Waiting has always been easy, but now, waiting for Wilson when he knows there is someone from Hydra trying to reach him is difficult to bear.  Every muscle is tense.  The attention shifts constantly.  Alert to any change in Rogers condition.  To the movement of people in and outside of the hospital.  To the whispers of Wilson moving around the city.  To any movement on his own rooftop. 

Wilson is taking his time.  Rogers is out of surgery before he finally makes it to the hospital.  What’s been keeping you, wings man?  Oh.  He has the red-haired female target with him.  The fingers itch for a sniper rifle again.  In fact…the Asset has shot her with a sniper rifle before.  The details are fuzzy, but the memory of this woman in the scope of a rifle is clear.  She has been his target twice?  And lives?  The stomach twists again, making the Asset feel nauseous.  Failure.  This drags the thoughts back to Hydra.  The Soldier must destroy the book.  But, it must return to Hydra to do so.  Hydra that the Soldier has concluded must be removed as a danger to the mission.  The stomach squirms at the thought of the punishment this will bring.

Squashing these thoughts, the Soldier watches the cameras inside the hospital to ensure that Wilson makes it to his assigned post, with or without the female.  Once in position, the Soldier is free to leave on the next mission. 

He hesitates.

Taking a deep breath, the Soldier reaches for the vault, right next to the biometrically locked safety deposit box containing the book.

There are several agents and technicians in the room, but they are concentrated on the containment area to one side, and not prepared.  It only takes one looking in his direction though and, oh there it is.  Weapons aimed at him.  Not all are bullets.  There are tranquilizer guns in the mix.

Concentrating on the safety deposit box lock, the Soldier delves into the whispers to find the lock.  A simple push through the whispers and the lock is convinced that the correct conditions have been met.  One of the agents is calling to the Asset.  Trying first English, then Russian.  The tone of the voice changes as the safe clicks open.  Instantly the Soldier brings the metal hand to the opening containing the book and rips it open, pulling the door off its hinges.

This sudden movement causes the agents to open fire, so the Soldier holds the door and metal arm up as a shield as he peers inside.  There is only the book.  He takes damage.  Now or never.  Grabbing the book, he throws the safety deposit box door at the group of agents and reaches for a rooftop across the city from where the mission is.

Assessing the damage, the Soldier finds three bullet holes and a needle.  Fighting the drugs, he pulls out the needle urgently, only to realize it is trailing whispers.  Coordinates.  A transponder.  Panicked, he throws the needle over the side of the roof and checks the book and bullet holes for whispers too.  Nothing.  A wave of dizziness washes over the Asset.  Move.  Need to move.  It reaches for somewhere, anywhere away from here, clutching the book.

Silence.  Darkness.

Arriving, the Soldier crumples to the floor, awareness leaving him.

Chapter Text

It took Steve only a week to recover from the fight on the helicarrier.  Two days spent in a medically induced coma, before the drugs stopped working and he woke up anyway.  The next four days he grew increasingly agitated at being restricted to bed rest by the doctors (and Sam) until he finally couldn’t stand it any longer, knowing that Bucky was out there somewhere.  Who knew what had become of him?  Now he’d spent a day signing forms to free himself of the hospital.

Steve remembered most of the fight, although with some of the blows from that metal fist to his head some of the details towards the end were a bit fuzzy.  Having to knowingly hurt Bucky had torn at him, but there was no question that the helicarriers had to be taken out.

God, what must have happened to him in the last 70 years?  He was fast.  And strong.  Especially that metal arm.  His heart ached at the loss of Bucky’s real arm.  Before the fight Steve hadn’t really had time to process the implications of the arm.  Not to mention the long hair.  The mask.  Just…everything.  He burned to know how Bucky didn’t know Steve.  How he didn’t even know his own name.

Steve trudged up the stairs into his apartment, pulling aside the police tape for Sam to follow.

“Nice place you got here.” 

“Yeah, well, it was.  Last week, anyway.”  Steve looked around at the bloodstains on the wooden floor, and Sam followed his gaze.

“You sure it’s safe to be here?”  Sam looked up pointedly at the holes in the wall.

“I’m not sure of much at the moment.”  Steve sighed and glanced up at the rooftop opposite where he’d first spotted Bucky.  “But I’m gonna need some more supplies.”

Steve made his way through to the bedroom and rummaged in the closet for a bag.  Throwing in a few days’ worth of clothes and some bits and pieces from the bathroom, he pondered what else to bring.  He didn’t have much of sentimental value in his apartment.  Hadn’t really had time for anything to gain any sentimental value.  He still had his compass, found with him in the ice in the Valkyrie, and his shield was in the rental car downstairs.  Anything else hadn’t stood the test of time waiting for him to be found.

He threw in a sketchbook he’d been filling with memories.  Mostly maudlin, immersing himself in a past that wasn’t there anymore, but he’d started adding a few new faces into it in the last few months.  He’d had a growing feeling of stability offered by SHIELD.  A shiver ran through him at the thought of working for Hydra without knowing it.  Anyone could be Hydra.  He’d been fooled once.  It was tempting to think he wouldn’t be fooled again, but he honestly didn’t know how he’d know.

Zola had intimated that Hydra had had an unseen hand in a lot of world events.  Who knew if even the history books could be trusted?  If they could somehow erase Bucky and turn him to their cause…

At the hospital Nat had said she would find what she could on the Winter Soldier.  She had 'contacts'.  It was probably better not to know.

Tony had been in contact.  Steve had tried to leave him out of all this, what with him still supposedly being in recovery from his surgery, but apparently you can’t dump a giant database of coded spy data on the internet without catching the genius technophile’s attention.  He and Nat had conferred together over a video link, only letting Steve hear the tiniest snippets of what they were discovering.  Steve’s heart clenched at the idea of Tony uncovering another of Zola’s secrets–Howard’s supposed assassination.  They’d only got that flash of a newspaper headline from Zola.  It could mean anything.  Why would Hydra have wanted Howard dead anyway?  He’d worked for SHIELD and so probably unknowingly for Hydra.  Unless he had known.  Maybe Tony knew too.  Maybe Tony was Hydra, trying to worm their way in again.

What was that line Sam had told him?  It’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.   Steve couldn’t figure out where to draw the line.  But he couldn’t do this alone.  He’d gained some skills working for SHIELD, but he clearly wasn’t made to be a spy.  A soldier, sure.  But not a spy.

For now, he would wait and see what Tony came up with.  Nat was clearly assisting in sifting through the remnants of Hydra’s data, but she had trust issues too.

Moving back out of the bedroom, Steve left anything electronic behind.  He knew for a fact there were bugs in this place, so he didn’t trust any of them.  Tony had offered to replace everything, but Steve refused.  Sam had his laptop, and that seemed fairly safe.  He’d gone out and bought Steve a new phone, fresh out of the box, and loaded a few hundred songs onto it along with Sam’s number.  Steve had reimbursed him, of course.  The money came from SHIELD anyway.

Out in the living areas there were a few nicknacks and pictures he’d like to keep, but nothing that he could take with him easily.  Until this place was fixed up he was essentially homeless.  Even then, it was only rented.  The lease would be up in two months if he didn’t renew it.  Without a job, he had no idea where he would need to be.

“That all you want?”  Sam eyed his one bag with a raised eyebrow.

“All I’ve got worth bringing.”  A few of the history books caught his eye.  He’d been catching up on 70 years’ worth of events, and had a whole shelf of recommendations.  Some he’d made his way through, and some he hadn’t.  Some of those recommendations had come from coworkers he now knew, or suspected, to be Hydra.  While they couldn’t be trusted, per se, they might offer insight.  Especially as it seemed Bucky might have been the instrument of at least some of Hydra’s influence around the world.  Guilt tugged at his insides, wishing he didn’t have to consider his friend as a suspect, but he wanted to know.

Pulling the ones that he hadn’t read already off the shelf, he piled them into the bag.  Turning to go, he caught Sam looking at him curiously.  He shrugged, unselfconsciously.  “Research.”

“Ok, man, you do your thing.  Now gimme that.”  Sam pulled the bag off his shoulder.

“Hey, I’m not an invalid you know.”

“You coulda fooled me, all those forms you had to sign to get out of the hospital.”

“So I’m a little stiff maybe after being forced to lie in bed for 4 days–”

Sam cut in, pointing a finger at his face, “6 days, don’t forget those two where you were still unconscious.”

“Ok, 6 days, but my point is I need to get moving.  Super soldier, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah, on my left, I remember.  I’m still gonna take this bag, ‘cos I’m not gonna have those nice doctors on my ass when you rip any of those last stitches.”

Steve held his hands up in surrender as Sam ushered him back down the stairs to the rental car.  Sam’s insurance hadn’t yet paid out on the car Bucky had trashed on the highway.  He’d heard Sam complaining about the time he’d spent on the phone trying to get his claim in and pushed to use his money to pay for the rental in the meantime.

When they got back to Sam’s place, Nat was already there.  Sam huffed and grumbled that his house had been taken over as mission central.  Looking around, he couldn’t really say that Sam was wrong.  Nat had got half a dozen screens up around her in the dining room; Tony talking from his bed on one, a video playing on another and pages of text and pictures and maps on the others.

“....there are holes in this a mile wide, there have to be databases you missed.”

“I got everything that was on the servers in the Triskelion, Tony.  But you know as well as I do that they’re going to have data compartmentalized.  As you so like to tell me, they’re spies.  It’s what we do.”  Nat looked up at Sam and Steve as they entered and nodded to acknowledge them.

“Well, JARVIS has been through it all with a fine-toothed comb and found very little on your mysterious soldier boy.  He’s a ghost even in their systems.  But the whole thing’s a mess.  It’s like someone pulled shreds of it apart even as you were uploading it.  Partial files here and there.  I’m trying to reconstruct as many of them as I can, but it’s not making a lot of sense.  What I do have is a location not far from you.  See here?  Hidden under the financial district.  Somebody’s been naughty over there and I think you ought to check it out.  I would, but, you know, Pepper’d be mad.”  New images appeared on one of the monitors, CCTV footage by the looks of it, of the outside of a high-rise building and a map showing a blob several stories below the street.

Steve stepped round the table to the screens so Tony could see him.  “Thank you Tony.”

“Oh hey, the old man is finally up and about!  I was starting to think you were avoiding me.”  Tony looked above the camera at something out of shot.  “But, look at that, I’m gonna avoid you this time.  Gotta go.”  The screen blanked out and Steve shook his head.  Tony wasn’t wrong about Pepper being mad.  They’d all had messages from her asking them not to encourage him in doing anything strenuous during his recovery.

“He won’t slow down, will he?”

“Nope.”  

A snort came from the doorway. “He's not the only one.”

Nat turned around to look at Sam.  “Guess this is as good a time as any to give you your present.”

With a jerk of her head, she directed Sam to the living area.  Sam dropped Steve’s bag in the hall and gingerly peered round the doorway before exclaiming, “Hey, no way, you managed to recover them?!”

At this Steve followed Sam through to see the wings, in pieces, laid out on the couch and the floor.

“Most of them anyway.”  Nat called through after them.  “Figured they’d come in handy if you can put them back together?”

“I’m no Tony Stark.  I can’t work miracles on these things, but I’ve got some skills.  Let me take a look at what’s left of them.”  Sam crouched down and started picking through the pieces.  Surprisingly there weren’t actually that many of them.  “Looks like the main pack somehow made it out intact.  Thing’s built a bit like a brick.”

“Well, leaving it on the roof helped; it didn’t get squashed.  And actually the wings turned up floating not far downriver.”

Steve turned back to Nat, who was looking closely at the data Tony had sent.  “Are we going to need them to hit this?”

“Not a lot of flying space in an underground vault, Steve.”

“Have we got any more intel on it?  Personnel?  Facilities?”

“Not a whole lot. Looks like there might be an entrance through the underground garage.  As for what’s inside, well, we don’t have much to go on.  Tony wasn’t kidding when he said the data’s in pieces.  Best guess is a staging area for a squad or two.  Possibly your boy too.  Something went down over there the night before the launch; it took out the power for the nearest 5 blocks, all centered on this place.”

“So it could be a trap?”

“Always.”

“When can we hit it?”

Sam reappeared in the doorway, a frown on his face.  “Not today.  You are gonna sit your ass down and take it easy.”

Nat looked between the two of them, a curious look on her face.  Which could mean anything.  “Now, now boys.  We’re going to need some supplies, maybe some backup.  Let me take a look at these files and then we can come up with a plan.  Hopefully with the data dump only having pieces of this one they won’t know we’re coming.”

“You’ve been into others?”

“Of course.”  Nat gave him a withering look.  “With their locations broadcast in the open?  They weren't going to stick around to be picked up, and there are plenty of others who'd like a piece of Hydra's leftovers.”  She shrugged.  “We snooze, we lose.”

“Did you find anything?”

Giving him a pointed look, Nat turned to the screens.  “Not a whole lot more than was in the dump, but some.  A pile of hardcopy files they hadn't managed to burn.  A few low-level personnel.  Clint has been into a couple out in Europe, much the same deal.”

“Clint’s helping out?”  Steve swallowed nervously.  He trusted Clint.  He did.  But after this week, anybody from SHIELD put him on edge.

“I can't exactly hit them all on my own.”  Nat was paging through the data.  “We have a little more data than was in the Triskelion, but Hydra is like an iceberg.  The parts we found in SHIELD are only the top 10% above the waterline.  The rest, well, you know their old catchphrase.”

“Cut off one head, yeah I remember.  So we have to find the rest of the iceberg.  All the other heads.”

“It's not going to be quick.  We're going to have to be clever.  Play the long game.”

Steve sighed deeply.  “I know.  I don't like it, but I can work with it if we have a plan.”

Sam moved over to where Nat was looking over the data.  “So let's make a plan.”

Two days later, Nat returned to the house with a small arsenal of weapons.  Steve had been out for a run twice.  All the stitches were out and even Sam had grudgingly agreed that he was probably back to full fitness, though the serum did make concussion-watch a bit of a gray area.

Gearing up, the mood was calm.  Neither buoyant nor grim.  They knew what Steve would like to find, although none of them really believed they'd find any evidence of Bucky’s current whereabouts.  If Bucky was there, it was likely he’d be under Hydra control again.  Sam had already pulled Steve aside to have a word about defending himself against superpowered enemies, and not just letting them beat his face to a pulp.

They did have some of the drugs the doctors used on Steve to put him in the induced coma though.  Just in case.

From the data they had, there was the entrance through the garage and there was access from the roof, down a tediously long hidden elevator shaft.  The roof had a cleverly disguised landing pad, with accouterments for a quinjet while only looking like it was prepared for a helicopter.  Steve brought the stealthed quinjet they’d ‘borrowed’ from the remains of SHIELD down on the roof and secured the area, hearing Sam and Nat doing the same in the garage.

Shield in hand, Steve was anxious to get moving.  To finally do something instead of waiting and watching and resting.  Recuperating after injuries was a pain in the neck.  Especially since the serum meant he recovered faster than doctors (and Sam) expected.

After using the shield to bust open the access doors, Steve peered down the shaft.  He strapped on a rope and rapelled down the 10 or so floors to reach the underground bunker.  “Ready to breach.”

“You know they’ve probably already made us, right?”

“Well, we weren’t really going for stealth.”  As far as they knew, these were the only two entrances to the bunker, so anyone in there wasn’t going to be leaving without them noticing.  “On my mark.  One.  Two.  Three.  Mark.”

Steve used the edge of the shield to wedge into the gap between the doors and lever them open.  Instantly a hail of bullets thudded mostly into the doors, but some made it through the gap in between.  Ducking behind one of the doors, Steve gathered himself for half a second, then kicked the protruding edge of the shield stuck between the doors, forcing them the rest of the way open.

Catching the shield as it bounced off the floor, he moved forward through the doorway, protected by the shield.  Once he had full sight of the area, he could see three agents facing him.  He flung the shield at the head of the one on the left and rushed the pair straight in front, tackling them to the ground.  Steve flipped up and caught the rebounding shield just in time to block a shot from one of them that ricocheted into the other.  Batting the weapon aside with the shield, Steve lashed out with a foot to knock out the third agent.

Two out cold, and the victim of the ricochet was groaning with a gut wound.  Steve put him out of his immediate misery with a fist in his face.  “Clear.”

“You took your time.”  He saw Nat disappearing into a large open gym area as he peered round the corner into the next hall.  Sam was checking out the room opposite and there were another two bodies on the floor.

Sam called out, “Nothing in here, just a break room.”

Steve moved through to the next doorway as he replied to Nat, “Had to make a pit stop.  Find anything?”

“Only some sweaty clothes in the locker room.”

Sam cut in as he followed Steve, covering the hallway.  “Man, I’m glad you got that one.”

The next doorway proved to be another big open space.  Racks of armor and weapons, display monitors and workstations.  There was nobody in it, but one of the monitors had flickering text on the screen.  “Jackpot.  Nat, you might want to take a look in here.”  A further doorway at the end contained a small medical station, complete with what looked like a decontamination shower.

Ducking back out of the second room, Steve met up with Nat at the workstations as she tapped at a keyboard.  “How’s it looking?”

“Well, they’re good at covering their tracks, but they’ve only just started the overwrite procedure.  I’ve managed to halt it so we should get some data still.  You two should carry on, I’m good here.  I’ll just grab what’s left and follow you down.”

“Ok.”  Steve and Sam moved to the end of the hallway and into the stairwell.  Only one more floor, but from the look of it it used to be a vault for the bank above.  Three layers of gates were closed and locked ahead of them, and to the side there were a couple of normal doors that proved to be a store room mostly for scientific equipment, a bathroom and, curiously, a shower.

“Good thing Nat gave us some of her toys, huh.”  Sam moved forward to the gates, pulling some small devices from his pack.  He placed one on the lock of the first door and motioned Steve to step back as he did the same, putting his hands over his ears.

The blast was loud in the small space, even with Steve’s hands blocking some of the sound.  One of the downsides of the serum-enhanced hearing.  Steve stayed at the first gate, covering Sam from behind as he made his way in and repeated the process with the second and third.  “Well they’ll certainly have heard us coming.”

“Let’s get moving then.”  Sam brought his weapon up and moved forward, as Steve fell in behind, alert for any movement.  

The first area was walled with safety deposit boxes, and there was a strange chair contraption on one side with monitors arranged around it.  Sweeping his gaze around, Steve found a man in a lab coat crouched by the back wall, creeping towards the gates.  “Stop!”

The lab coat made a run for the gates, but Steve was faster, blocking the way.  “Not going to happen.  What have you been up to in here?”

“Working for a better future.”  The man worked his mouth, and Steve realized just a moment too late what he was doing.  “Hail Hydra.”

Steve rushed to try and pry the man’s mouth open, but only allowed more white foam to escape his lips as he slumped to the floor.  “Cyanide.  Guess I figured they wouldn’t still be using those.”

Sam pulled an unhappy face, looking down at the twitching body.  “Certainly puts the kibosh on getting anything out of him.  Come on, let’s see if he’s left anything we can use.”

The rest of the room was clear, so they moved on to the door behind.  Another explosive charge took care of the lock, and they found a lab with lots of scientific equipment and a room with a large clear tube strung with various cables connected to another workstation and a gurney over to one side.  To the side of the tube were several gas cylinders and stainless steel containers.  

Sam took a look at the monitors, while Steve rummaged around in the few drawers under the workstation.  They mostly contained scientific or medical tools, a few strange pieces of clothing with wiring attached, facemasks and mouthguards.  No paper files.

Moving over to the tube, Steve could see restraints inside it, along with a large amount of medical-looking tubes and wires.  “Sam.”

Sam looked up from the monitors he was trying to coax into responsiveness.  “Damn.  At least there’s no one in it.”

“You think they used it on him?”

Sam put a hand on his shoulder.  “Don’t go there, man.  We know jack squat at the moment about what they did to him.  No point trying to guess.  That’s why we’re here, right?” 

“Right.”  Steve squashed the thoughts of what these restraints might have been used for right down.  They had a job to do right now.  “Is there anything retrievable on that computer?”

“Seems pretty dead to me.  But we could take the harddrive and see if anyone can get anything out of it.”  At this, Sam grabbed a screwdriver from his pocket and started taking the workstation apart.

“I’m going to do a closer check of the other lab.”  Steve moved through to the other inner room.  It was cluttered with various pieces of equipment, from medical to technical.  No paperwork was evident, or any computers or tablets that everyone seemed to use these days instead of paper.  He shivered as he inspected some of the cabinets, seeing enough medical apparatus that it seemed to have doubled as an OR.  Visions of that metal arm swam through his head.  Forcing himself to continue the inspection, he found nothing of use for intelligence.

Moving back through to the first room, Steve spotted that a few of the safety deposit boxes were open.  Some had their doors swung open, but one had had the door ripped off.  Stopping to look inside, it appeared to be empty.  Curious, Steve wondered what might be in the other boxes.  The other open doors revealed nothing, so he raised the edge of the shield above the door of one of the larger boxes and smashed it open.  Jackpot.  Inside were several file folders with papers inside. 

Sam ran in from the other room, gun raised, then relaxed when he saw it was only Steve there.  “Damn, I didn’t think we were literally going for a smash and grab.”

Steve gave him a tense smile.  “Just being thorough.  You done?”

“Not yet, gimme a few more minutes.”  He disappeared back through the doorway.

A quick flick through the papers proved they were more scientific than he could possibly hope to understand.  He smashed another door open.  And another.  Some proved empty.  Many contained items of monetary value rather than intelligence, but some contained files, or tech.

Over the comm, Nat informed them, “On my way down.”

“Good, because there’s plenty to look at here.”  Steve continued smashing doors open.

“Why Steve, are you showing off for somebody?”  Nat appeared at the gates, holding a box full of papers, and nodded her head at the back room.  “Have I been barking up the wrong tree all along?”

Steve felt his cheeks heat at the insinuation.  Damn.  “Nothing doing Nat.”

“Shame.”  She moved over to the workstation next to the chair.  “They already wiped this one.  Might be able to recover it if we take it with us.”

“Sam’s already taking one apart back there.”  Steve smashed the last of the boxes open and started categorizing the contents.  All the paperwork he added to Nat’s box of papers.

“No, he isn't.”  Sam appeared from the back room, carrying a small metal box and some components.  “Got the harddrive and RAM.”

“Well I’ve got bad news.  Some of this is old Hydra tech.”  He looked significantly at Nat.  “And some of it is from Fury's phase two weapons.  And over here, we have what looks to me like Chitauri tech.”

“Shit, really?”  Sam asked.

“And a lot of this I have no idea.”  Steve shrugged.  He’d learnt a lot since he'd been defrosted, but he wasn't familiar with all of Hydra's treasures.  That could mean that they were incredibly rare, or it could just mean it was obsolete tech no-one had caught him up on.

“As far as we know, the Department of Damage Control is clean.  They could look after these.”  Nat suggested.  “Pepper has a lot of oversight of them through Stark Industries.  If we go through her she'll probably be so grateful Tony won't be looking after them directly that she’ll get extra vetting for us.”

“Didn't Maria say something about looking for a position at Stark Industries?”

Nat grinned. “Who did you think I had in mind to do the vetting?”

After loading the quinjet with their finds and calling in the MPDC to take care of the dead body and unconscious agents, Nat had taken off to parts unknown, stating that she had people to see.  Steve and Sam camped out in Sam's house, poring over the paperwork and trying to dig through the digital data respectively.

Sam had spent three days cursing at the damaged harddrives, before Tony’s badgering had convinced him to allow JARVIS access to them.  Apparently the tedious task of reconstructing the files byte by byte was not a simple one.  He had made Tony (and JARVIS) promise that Tony wouldn't work on it.  Now he was trawling through the rebuilt files, and even those were incomplete.

They had a good number of mission reports.  Inventories.  Transfer orders.  Invoices.  Enough to build a picture of the sorts of things this base got up to.  There was nothing referring to the Winter Soldier.  Sam found a wealth of boring CCTV footage.  Clearly they kept at least a week’s worth of footage on their system over a good number of cameras, making it a lengthy process to try and find anything useful on them.

Steve meanwhile was faced with impenetrable scientific jargon and shorthand for most of the handwritten notes.  He also found a handy pile of printouts of locations.  At first glance they appeared random, but cross-referencing them against some of Sam’s invoices and transfer orders, they appeared to be Hydra safehouses and bases.  Curious that they would have them as hardcopies, but those definitely went on the list of places to check out next.

In between sifting through data, Sam checked in with the VA.  Belatedly he had applied for extended leave from his duties there, giving him a three month window before he really had to choose which path he wanted to take.  He did help out for a few hours here and there while they looked for a counselor to replace him, leading groups and one to one sessions with some of his regulars who had missed him.  He dragged Steve along too, citing the need to get their heads straight and decompress.  In all honesty, it did do Steve some good to get out of the house, and out of the files.  Meeting new people was bittersweet; he loved getting to know people but it also rubbed against the raw wound of all the people he’d lost.  One in particular.

Painstakingly, they pieced together a vague picture of what they believed to be information about Bucky.  Among the files Steve found medical documents that disturbed him greatly.  They didn’t mention the Winter Soldier directly, instead they were only noted as referring to an ‘Asset’ of high value.  High doses of drugs and fast recovery times indicated that this Asset wasn’t a normal human.  Sam had then noticed that the same ‘Asset’ was referenced in a lot of the mission reports.  The language was utterly dehumanizing, and it made Steve’s heart break to think that anyone might be treated in this way, let alone Bucky.

Plowing through the CCTV, Sam had found visual confirmation of the Winter Soldier’s presence in the bunker, the night before the launch of Insight.  At first they only got a couple of still images out of the corrupted files, but once Sam spotted what was in them, he had JARVIS focus on pulling together the full file as much as possible.  The result was a slightly jerky video that was uncomfortable to watch.  The first time Steve watched it, he punched a hole through Sam’s wall.  Afterwards he apologized extensively and promised to repair it.  The second time he watched it, he broke the pen he had been holding hoping to make notes about anything useful in the shot.  The third time he watched it Sam cut him off and wouldn’t let him see the end.  The worst parts.  The part when Bucky screamed through whatever the contraption was doing to him.  The chair contraption that they had seen in the vault, not knowing at the time what it had done.  The footage cut off there anyway, something seemingly affecting the whole base as all other cameras had a gap at that timestamp.  Steve’s mind went into overdrive imagining the aftermath of those screams.

That night, Steve broke.  He went out for a run across town to try and burn off some of the anger running through him before he damaged Sam’s house again, but his thoughts continuously swirled back around to Bucky.  He ran for hours, at full speed.  Finally running low on energy, he made it to Sam’s backdoor and then dropped.  Didn’t even make it in the door before the tears came.  Eventually Sam found him huddled on the step with red eyes and tears still streaming down his cheeks.

“I told you it wouldn’t do you any good to see that.”  Sam sat down next to him on the step.

“Can’t be any worse than him having to live it.”

“And hopefully at some point we’ll be able to help him deal with that.”

“How?  We can’t even find him.  And we don’t even know all the rest of whatever Hydra did to him.”

“Well, that’s step one.  Find him, without getting killed in the process.”  Sam leveled a steady gaze at Steve.  “Look, we can’t imagine what he’s going through.  And we’ll have to let him take the lead on what help he needs, unless it’s hurting anyone else.  I ain’t gonna lie and tell you it’ll be easy.  But we’ve gotta give him options.  Options he probably doesn’t know he has at the moment.”

“We have to get to him before anyone else does.  God knows they won’t give him options.”

“You know people.  And you have a lot of political clout.  Even if someone else catches him before us, we can get in there and make sure he gets those options.”

“I miss him.”  Steve’s words were so quiet, he wasn’t sure Sam would hear him, but the arm around his shoulders said he had.  “I wish he was here.  He was always best at cleaning up my messes.”

“I bet you two were a menace growing up.”

“Sorta.  More me than him.  I was always the one getting into fights.  He had the charm to talk his way out of them.”  His voice choked up and the tears started flowing again.

“Doesn’t sound any less of a menace to me.”

A small chuckle bubbled up through the tears.  “Yeah, there were some who’d probably have agreed with you.”

“I was wondering when you were gonna let this out.”

Steve huffed.  “I’d rather be doing something useful.”

“This is useful Steve.”  Sam pulled his arm away and turned Steve to face him.  “Look, you don’t let this out and you’re gonna explode.  You got to give yourself a chance to grieve.  He may not be dead, but he’s not the guy he was either.”

“Neither am I.”

“No doubt.  Taking out your employer will do that to you.”  Sam gave him a wry smile.  “Or saving the world.  Twice.”

“Not counting Insight?”

“Ok, three times.  Although two of those were Hydra.  Seems to me they should only count as one.”

“Yeah, I bet there are a bunch of Hydra’s victims that would agree with you.”  Steve hung his head again.

“Hey no, that wasn’t what I meant.”

“I know.”  Steve looked up again.  “Thanks.”

“Anytime, man.”

The next morning Nat made another appearance, calling them to meet her across town.  The location proved to be Nick Fury’s gravestone.

The man himself appeared while they were waiting for Nat, trying to convince them to sign up for SHIELD 2.0 as they went hunting abroad.  Internally Steve shook his head.  Always the same Fury.

“I thought Clint was on top of the rats in Europe?”

“He’s only one man.  We’ve got a few others who are clean and happy to help out, but help never hurts.”

“I got my own mission first.  Some of it might align with yours.  We’ll let you know.”

“That includes you too, Wilson?”

“That’s right.”

Fury looked disappointed, but not surprised at the brush off of his offer.  “Anybody asks for me, tell them they can find me right here.”

Nat appeared behind them as Fury walked away.  “I think he just said thank you.”

“You taking him up on the offer?”

“Not yet.  I’ve got a few errands to run, not to mention building myself a new identity.”  Nat handed Steve a folder with Cyrillic script on the front.  “From a friend in Kyiv.  Might fill in a few of the blanks.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet.  Tony’s found some worrying notes in the Hydra files about Loki’s scepter.”

Steve frowned.  “Hydra have it?” 

“We have to assume so.  Pierce took it after the Battle of New York.  Trail goes cold somewhere in Eastern Europe.”

Sam interrupted.  “This is some weapon that Loki used in the battle?”

Steve turned to him.  “You could say that.”

“Shit.”

“I haven’t told Clint yet.  I’m gonna do that in person.  Maybe give him a hand trying to find it.”  Nat grinned at Steve.  “There’s a chance I’ll gain some favors with Fury too.”

“Let us know if you need us.  Or if you find anything on–”

“Yeah, I know.”  Nat turned to Sam.  “Look after him, ‘kay?”

“Doing my best.”

The contents of the file Nat dug up were horrifying.

The details they’d been able to scrape out of the data from the base in Washington were so fragmented, it had been impossible to get the full picture.  They still didn’t have everything, but it was clear that the ‘Asset’ was definitely the Winter Soldier.  Was Bucky.  The KGB had clearly been in cahoots with the Russian arm of Hydra back in the cold war.  There wasn’t a lot of detail on where the Asset had come from, but a lot of notes on how to use it.  It, not him.

From the notes, it appeared Hydra had loaned the Asset out to the KGB for a number of missions.  The details of those were pretty gruesome.  A man named Colonel Vasily Karpov assisted with most of those.

Unfortunately there weren’t any details on where the Asset had been kept between missions.  Although some of the reports were clearly written by agents who had been to the base.  Cryofreeze.  That’s what the tube was for.  They’d frozen him.  Steve clearly remembered the agony of being frozen in the Arctic.  It felt like death.  He had been expecting to die.  Bucky had been through that, over and over again.

There were also notes about ‘malfunctions’.  Apparently these were fixed by a session in the chair.  One note actually called it what it was.  A ‘memory-suppression’ machine.  They’d had to wipe his memories.  At least that explained why he didn’t know Steve.  The number of times the procedure was described just in these incomplete notes was unbelievable.  How had they not reduced him to a vegetable?  He was torn between being glad he wasn’t and horror at the torture he’d experienced.

The timeline on when the Asset had been transferred to the US was unclear.  Missions were certainly not restricted to within the USSR while he was based there, but there were fewer and fewer references to the Soldier after the cold war.  The most recent note was from 2005 and wasn’t very detailed.  It amounted to some gossip that the Asset had returned home unexpectedly, and for agents in the know to keep an eye out for unusual appearances.  Steve couldn’t make head nor tail of that.  Had different factions of Hydra been fighting each other perhaps?

Sam continued going through the recovered camera footage of the Washington base.  Eventually he found another image of the Winter Soldier.  This time from after the Triskelion fight.  The angle of the camera wasn’t great, but it was definitely him in the few clear images they could get.  Steve and Sam could only suppose that the cameras were missing some data, as the Soldier appeared within the vault safety-deposit box room, opened one of the boxes, took fire from some Hydra agents and disappeared again.  Steve took heart from it that at least Bucky wasn’t still working with Hydra.  He had taken more damage though.  How hurt was he?

Steve renewed his determination to go hunting for locations Bucky might have holed up in.  He went through the invoices and transfer orders with a fine-tooth comb.  He checked any addresses against the files in the SHIELD data dump, coming up with a list of locations on both sets of books, and a separate list of locations only in the base files.  Nat sent them her list of places she’d already hit, and Steve reluctantly scrubbed those from his lists.  Near the bottom of the pile, he got a shock.  An address in Brooklyn.  A very specific address in Brooklyn.  “What the hell?”

“Wuh?”  Sam distractedly responded to Steve’s shout from the couch where he was still going through video footage.

“This is our old apartment.  Why do Hydra and SHIELD both have the old apartment I shared with Bucky on their books?”

“They have what?”

“Look, it’s right here.”  Steve brought the files over to the couch to show Sam.  “This address.  It’s where Bucky and I used to live before we both shipped out.  I heard after the Battle of New York it was burnt out in a gas explosion, killing the woman that lived there.”

“You’re telling me that Hydra bought up your old apartment as a safe house?”

“That’s what it says here.”  Steve was furious.  “Why would they even want it?!  It’s not in a particularly strategic location.  I feel like they’ve defiled the memory of it.”

“Wait, Steve.”  Sam had a pensive look on his face.  “You’re telling me that Hydra bought up a location that has significance to you.  And Bucky?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!”  Steve jumped up again and started pulling on a jacket and shoes.

“Woah, hold on a minute.  Let’s think this through.”

“What is there to think about?  I’m going to go and take back my apartment.”

“Legally it’s SHIELD’s.  But you can’t think of any reason that a location significant to both you and Bucky might be useful to Hydra when we’ve just been reading about the ‘malfunctions’ he had that they had to erase his memory for?”

That stopped Steve in his tracks, looking at Sam in shock.  “You think it’s a trap?”

“I think we gotta assume it’s not a coincidence.  So let’s not charge in, guns blazing, throwing caution to the wind.”

“Ok.  Maria’s up in New York now.  Let’s call her in.”

Maria, it turned out, was itching for a fight not on paper.  Although she also promised she’d back them up with paperwork, once they checked it out.  

They took the rental car and filled it with gear that they had left from the stash Nat had brought them for the raid on the bank base.  Steve was antsy the whole journey.  He could tell he was annoying Sam, but he couldn’t help it.

He wondered where Bucky was.  What, if anything, did he remember of their time in Brooklyn?  For Steve it was only a few years ago still.  He could vividly remember moving in with Bucky after his mom died.  Bucky wouldn’t hear of him trying to get by on his own, knowing damn well that the money Steve made wouldn’t cover rent, let alone food and medicine on top.  It was supposedly a two bed place, but the second room was hardly more than a cupboard.  Sometimes they’d bunked in together, particularly when the heating failed.  Sometimes Steve had taken the couch in the living area, when Bucky brought a dame over.  There hadn’t been a lot of privacy, but they’d made it work.

There were times they’d fight.  Bucky would come home tired from the docks, cranky after the foreman refused to pay his overtime.  Steve would get into fights and come home dripping blood, spitting mad over an injustice he didn’t have the muscle to stand up against.  But no matter what the fight was over, they always made it up.  He had so many good memories of that apartment.  Evenings spent in the dark when they couldn’t afford to pay for power, telling each other scary stories.  Regular mornings, moving around each other in a practiced dance, making coffee, oatmeal, toast.  Heading out when they had the money to go see a picture, or just to the park when they didn’t.  Celebrations.  Bucky’s sisters visiting, asking Steve to keep him in line.  Birthdays.  They had made a tradition of climbing up on the roof every year for his, to watch the fireworks.  Bucky’s was often in cold weather.  If Steve wasn’t ill they might go out to have fun in the snow.  When Steve was ill, Bucky would take care of him.  Made sure he had medicines, even if he had to go out of pocket himself to get them.  Made sure he was warm, and fed.  He’d always hated feeling like a burden when that happened.

When Bucky had gone away to basic training after he got drafted, the apartment had felt horribly quiet.  It was one of the reasons he’d been so determined to join up.  Neither of them had much in the way of possessions.  Never had the money for it.  A few family keepsakes.  A few books.  Steve’s sketchbooks.  One or two photos, but they’d been few and far between in those days.  Most of their memories had been preserved in the sketchbooks.  Bucky’s sister, Becca, had taken what things they both had when Steve had abandoned the apartment to go on the USO tour.  There’d been no point paying rent if they weren’t living there.  He’d looked her up after he’d been defrosted, but been too scared to reach out to her.  She was old now.  Had a family and everything.  Steve had expected that she would have thrown all their stuff out at some point over the years, but was surprised to find a few items on display in the Smithsonian labeled as donated by the Proctor family, in her married name.

It had never occurred to him to go and revisit the apartment after defrosting.  It had been horrible enough without Bucky when he knew he was only in New Jersey going through basic, and then NCO training.  He couldn’t face the ghosts that would await him, knowing Bucky was dead and gone.

Except he hadn’t been dead.  Only gone.  A tiny spark of hope refused to die inside Steve.  Bucky would come back.  Sam was right, he wouldn’t be the same.  But he’d still be Bucky.  Steve was determined that he’d do everything in his power to help him.  Same as Bucky used to do for him.

The face of the Winter Soldier haunted his thoughts.  Bucky’s face, but not.  It had been either horribly blank, or angry.  Angry wasn’t new, he’d seen Bucky angry before, not uncommonly at Steve himself, even if he'd never tried to kill him before.  But the blankness was something he’d never seen.  It left Steve’s gut feeling cold.  But Bucky had saved him, pulled him out of the river.  The memories were still fuzzy, but he knew it was him.  There had to be something still in there.

When they arrived in New York, they drove straight through to Manhattan and Stark Tower.  Or Avengers tower as it had supposedly been renamed.  Steve cringed slightly at the name.  It was still Tony’s tower.  It mostly hosted Stark Industries (although Tony had graciously allowed the Avengers to stay over after the battle, and had said his door was open anytime).  It didn't quite sit right with Steve to call it Avengers tower.

Maria was ready for them.  She had her own gear, and invited them in to plan and stretch their legs after being cooped up in the car.

There wasn't a whole lot to plan, although apparently Maria and JARVIS had been watching the address since they'd invited her on this mission.  Sam certainly seemed to appreciate the chance to get out of the car though, if the muttered comments about driving like he was still under fire were anything to go by.  Steve refused to sit down, and paced up and down through Maria's short briefing.

“It's a super secret boyband meeting!  I'm insulted I wasn't invited.”  Tony waltzed into the room, instantly taking the floor.  “What, did you think I wouldn't notice you in my own tower?”

“I didn't want to disturb you.  Or give Pepper any reason to chase us out for distracting you.”  Steve gave Tony a tense smile.  “It's good to see you up and about.  Are you sure you should be mingling with us?”  In truth, Tony looked paler than normal, but after three weeks shut in recuperating after open heart surgery that might be expected.  Only, as far as Steve knew, Tony wasn’t supposed to be seeing anyone.  There was still the risk of infection.

“Rules are for losers.  JARVIS tells me you’re off snark hunting.”  Tony lowered himself into a chair slightly carefully, betraying his true condition.

“A pretty routine Hydra safehouse, it’s probably not going to be all that exciting, Tony.”

“Spoilsport.”

Steve chuckled.  “I know you’re bored.  But truly the only thing interesting about this one is personal to me.  It was my apartment back in 1941.”  He spotted Maria tapping quietly at her phone behind Tony’s seat and carefully tried not to look at what she was doing.

“Looking up the old digs, huh?”

“Something like that.  It’s kind of you to let me stay here as needed, but I’d like a place of my own.  Seeing as Hydra shot up my place in DC and I have no job there anymore, I’m hoping if I can clear Hydra out of my old place in Brooklyn maybe I can have that back.”

“Brooklyn’s not cheap these days, you know.”

Sam snorted.  “No kidding.”

“Oh he speaks!  The man with the wings.  Where are they anyway?”  Tony’s piercing gaze was now turned to Sam, and Maria had put her phone away.

“In my place in DC.  There’re still a few niggles I need to sort out before they’re ready to fly again.”  Sam clearly held himself back from going into more detail, finally having an audience that might understand the topic.

“Interesting design, those.”  Tony waved his hands in the air and JARVIS brought up a hologram close enough for him to reach while still leaning back in his seat.  “I had a few ideas, you know, tweaks.  Improvements.  Additions.”  Pushing at the hologram, he sent it over to Sam.

Sam gaped at the designs in front of him and quickly delved into the detail in places, easily intuiting the process of manipulating the holograms, before remembering himself and looking accusingly at Tony.  “You’re supposed to be taking it easy.”

“This is easy.  College kids could do this.  I did.”

“This is really great.  I mean really, really great.  But I don’t want to impose on a guy who’s supposed to be recuperating.  For one thing, I’ve already had the talk from Pepper.”

“Smart man.  Don’t worry about it.  I need a project and I promised her I wouldn’t make another suit.  Yet, anyway.  I can handle Pepper–”

The sound of heels approaching cuts Tony off as the woman in question enters the room.  “You can handle me, how, Tony?”

Tony turned to look at Maria this time.  “Nobody likes a snitch.  You and I are going to have words.”

Pepper glared at Tony.  “Maria works for me, Tony.  And she did the right thing.  The doctors said you’re still at risk of infection and until they clear you you’re not supposed to have more visitors.”

Steve felt bad for intruding and giving Tony an excuse to escape his isolation.  “I’m really sorry Pepper, we were trying to keep this between ourselves.”

“It’s ok Steve, I know you were.  But I’m going to make sure he goes back upstairs now.”  She carefully helped Tony up from his chair.

Tony got up, carefully, and moved only slightly stiffly to the door.  Before he got through the doorway though, he turned, first to Sam, and then to Steve.  “I’ll send you those schematics.  I can have the whole thing fabricated within a day.  And you.  You let me know if anyone gives you any trouble about that apartment.  Brass are all getting their panties in a twist over Hydra assets, and I can loan you a good lawyer to wrangle it off them.”

Steve’s heart clenched at the word ‘assets’, but didn’t feel any true malice in it.  They hadn’t spoken to Tony about their discoveries in the file Nat had procured anyway.  “Thanks, Tony, I’ll bear that in mind.  Now take it easy.”

Never one to let someone else have the last word, Tony threw a final comment back over his shoulder as he disappeared.  “Says the nonagenarian.  Time to slow down yet, old man?”

Pepper followed him out, with a mouthed thank you to Maria.  Watching them leave Sam looked at her.  “He’s gonna be ok?”

“Yes, he will.  He’ll be back to full speed in a month or two as long as he doesn’t push it too hard now.”  Maria tapped again on her phone and brought up a projection of Steve’s old neighborhood in Brooklyn.  “The target location is on the third of four floors.  Most safe houses we’ve been to have been empty.  The surveillance we’ve had on it for the last day since you flagged it has not indicated it is currently occupied.  The apartments above and below are though.  Background check suggests they’ve been there longer than Hydra has though.”

Steve moved closer to the projection to get a good look.  He’d ridden through the neighborhood only once since the war, and it had changed quite a bit.  A lot of the older buildings just weren't there anymore, replaced under gentrification schemes apparently.  Maria manipulated the projection to zoom in on his old apartment building.

“Access is limited.  There was a fair amount of damage back in 2012.  Not from the battle, but from the so-called gas explosion.  Reading between the lines on the reports from that incident suggests it was a cover up, but of what, we don't know.”

“My money's still on a Winter Soldier visit.  I don't reckon they'd want anyone telling stories about Hydra's ghost visiting their apartment.  That is if he left anyone alive himself.”

Steve sent Sam a harsh look at that comment.  “Don't make assumptions.”

Maria cleared her throat and got their attention back on the briefing.  “Plain-clothes approach makes the most sense.  We want to avoid drawing attention if we can avoid it.  Armor underneath though, in case we do encounter hostiles.”

“We'll take a good array of kit to help us root out any bugs, of which there are sure to be some.  I'll also bring a live link to JARVIS for any on-the-spot analysis needed.”

Steve frowned.  “Doesn't that risk Tony potentially following us digitally?  If he noticed us in his building, he's going to notice his AI being accessed outside of it.”

“Sir is currently fatigued and obeying Miss Potts’ instruction to take a nap.”

Steve nodded his thanks at the ceiling where JARVIS' voice came from.  “Sounds like the perfect time to move out.  Shall we?”

Maria put her phone away and allowed Steve to help take her gear downstairs, after a quick pitstop to put on a layer of Kevlar.

The drive to Brooklyn took longer than Steve expected, still unused to modern levels of traffic congestion. It gave Sam and Maria a chance to catch up on the fall out from the collapse of SHIELD.  Steve tried to pay attention, but kept getting distracted.

“…guy made it out alive?”

“So it seems.  He's under armed guard at Georgetown University Hospital.  65% third degree burns on top of the crush injuries.”

“Damn.  Any others in custody?”

“A few.  Not as many as we'd like.  Certainly not as many as we think there should be, although there are still unaccounted for bodies in the wreckage.”

“Feels wrong to be hoping for more bodies, but I'd rather they weren't out trying to kill us again.”

Sam found somewhere to park only two blocks from the apartment building.  Fortunately, most of their gear was small and pocketable, or would fit in their backpacks.

There were a number of people out and about on the streets.  Blending in wasn't too hard, and it didn't take them long to get to the apartment.  The building itself was quiet, it being the middle of the day.  Sam and Maria took the internal stairs up to the front door, while Steve jumped up to the fire escape.

He knew it had been destroyed in the explosion two years ago, so Steve was expecting it to be completely modernized and unrecognizable.  Still, he felt like he'd been sucker punched when he looked in through the window.

Minimalist would certainly describe it.  Modern, bland colors everywhere, hemmed in by stainless steel.  But the layout looked much the same, in the bedroom at least.

The window security was stronger than it initially looked.  Hydra certainly didn't want an average burglar getting in here. Fortunately, armed with some of Maria's tricks and his own strength, Steve was rather more able than the average burglar.

“Security is tight, watch out for traps.”

“Confirmed.  We've got similar at the front door.”  Maria's no-nonsense tone betrayed how tough the security was at her end.

Having disabled the locks he could find, Steve flexed his muscles and managed to shove the window open.  A brief spark jolted him, but he shook it off as he climbed inside, alert for whatever circuit he might have unknowingly tripped.

No movement.  In the distance, he could hear the tell-tale noises of people around the building.  Familiar, but also unfamiliar.  The noise of Maria and Sam breaching the front door.  Footsteps upstairs.  A washing machine running below.

Cautiously moving further into the room, he heard a commanding voice and instantly stilled, eyes roving all around to confirm what he already knew: that he was alone.  He didn't understand the words, but he'd heard Natasha muttering under her breath often enough to guess the language was Russian.

Under the voice, another noise started.  A small hiss.  Barely detectable; even with the serum enhancement Steve was nearly distracted enough by the voice not to hear it.

“Gas!”  At the realization, he took a quick step back to the window, taking in a deep breath of the presumably cleaner air.  He hadn't heard a response from Maria or Sam.  Knowing that they would be more easily affected by any chemical agent than he would, especially in the more enclosed space of the hallway, he held the breath he had taken and rushed through the door to the main room to find Maria strapping a gas mask on her face as Sam sank to the floor.  Steve pulled a second gas mask from Sam’s pack and hurried to pull it over Sam’s face, then dragged him out of the apartment.

Not risking staying where the gas might have reached, Steve found a fire alarm and set it off on his way downstairs with Sam.  Once they were out in the open air, he released the air in his lungs, feeling the world swim slightly around him.  Pulling his own mask from his pack, he headed back inside to help Maria who was crawling, clearly disoriented, out of the front door of the apartment.

There were others on the stairs now, responding to the fire alarm.  Steve made sure that all the civilians got clear of the affected areas, then took a breather on the street outside with Sam and Maria.  Sam was still out, but breathing easily.  JARVIS had called the authorities, and medics arrived in short order.  Maria was less badly affected, having managed to get her gas mask on promptly, but was only half alert.

Satisfied that Sam and Maria were both in good hands, and that he himself was no longer swaying, Steve put his gas mask back on and headed upstairs with the link to JARVIS active.  To his surprise, Bruce's voice came over his comms shortly after he re-entered the apartment.

“From the analysis provided by JARVIS and the symptoms, I suspect they're using a Fentanyl derivative.  That should take out even a super soldier, so be careful.”

“Thanks, Bruce.  Everything ok back at the tower?”

“Tony's not aware of this yet, if that's what you mean.”

“Well, that's part of it for sure.”

“And I've got a lid on the other guy.  No danger of a code green.  But I'm going to stay here if it's all the same to you.”

“That's fair.”  Pushing on cautiously into the main room of the apartment, Steve heard the voice start up again.  “JARVIS, can you translate?”

“It seems to be instructions to return to a base in Washington, with coordinates, Captain.”

“Coordinates matching the base we found in the bank vault?”

“Precisely.”

Steve sighed.  “Well I guess we’re on the right track then.  Any sign of anyone headed here?”

“Not so far.  Although I note an increase in encrypted digital traffic on some frequencies used in the past by Hydra.”

“Can you decrypt them?”

“Processing.”

Moving towards the kitchen area, Steve had only the barest warning before the floor electrified sending a massive electrical current through his body.  The tiny margin allowed Steve to angle his body back towards the living area, so when he fell he ended up mostly off the electrified area.  He managed to pull himself forward from there, even as the current caused him to lose control of the muscles in his legs.

Panting, Steve struggled to keep his stomach under control.  God, Bucky had been through this and worse, time and time again.  He really wanted to rip the gas mask off his face and get a proper lungful of air, but of course he couldn't.

“JARVIS, do we know where that gas is coming from?”

No response.  “JARVIS?”

Damn, the current had presumably overloaded the interface.  Hoping that the remodel of the apartment hadn't moved the fundamentals too much, Steve went on a slow, and slightly wobbly, hunt for the fuse panel.

Confronted with a breaker panel rather than the traditional fuse box he was expecting, Steve decided to just flip every breaker off.  Back in the kitchen, he tested the floor first by throwing a small tool onto it.  No sparks.  Tentatively sliding his feet forward until he got to the same spot he'd been fried on previously, he breathed a sigh of relief and moved through to open the window and release some of the gas.  Turning his attention inwards again, he listened carefully for the faint hissing sound.  It had faded now, perhaps the supply of gas was finally running low.

Following the sound he could hear, he found a tiny nozzle poking out behind one of the kitchen cupboards.  Inside the cupboard there was a gas canister rigged up with a box of electronics.  Steve twisted the valve shut and pulled off the electronic controls.  Moving through, he found another in the living area, and another in the main bedroom.  When he was reasonably certain there weren't any more, he went back to the breakers to turn the power on to the air conditioner.  Setting it on full he mused that the only reason this apartment probably had the unit was for this very purpose.

Behind him he heard footsteps and readied himself for a fight, only to stand down when he saw Maria and an NYPD officer entering from the stairway.  “Steve?”

“It’s ok, Maria.”

“You weren't responding.”

“Yeah, sorry, my comm got fried.  Don't go in the kitchen while the power is on.”

Maria waved Steve out into the hall.  “JARVIS says it’ll take a couple of hours to clear it.  We may as well wait it out downstairs.  And get you checked out–I imagine that you got fried along with your comm?”

“Well, maybe a little.”

By the time they got outside Sam was awake, if very groggy.  EMTs checked him over as a messenger arrived from Stark Industries, carrying doses of naloxone.  Bruce's influence at work.  The EMTs immediately took charge of them and made sure that everyone affected by the gas got one.

They had no idea what to do with Steve.  He got a dose, but with the serum that was probably unnecessary.  Or ineffective.  As for the electric shock, there seemed to be no long term effects.  His feet tingled a little, but was told that ought to wear off within a day.

As he looked up at the building, he observed the other residents who'd been home being treated and waiting to be allowed back in.  More arrived as the day went on, having been called by their neighbors to let them know the situation.  They were good people.  The more he thought about it, the more he realized he wanted this.  A home of his own that actually meant something.  And maybe, just maybe, the possibility that Bucky might find his way home to him.  Steve had a good chunk of backpay he was willing to spend on acquiring the former Hydra safehouse.  As Nat liked to complain, he had had no life outside of SHIELD, and hadn’t spent much since being defrosted.  He decided then and there that if any of the alphabet agencies that might take issue with it tried to stop him, he'd take Tony up on his offer.  Surely if it was potentially a hotspot for Hydra to return to, who better to have on site than Captain America himself?

He struck up a conversation with Mrs Davis who turned out to be the upstairs neighbor to his old apartment.  She had explained at length how she had only been at home today as it was a Thursday and she wasn't out at bingo, or her pinochle group, or taking her grandchildren out to the park, or volunteering at the local library. 

He could imagine himself here.  Already, in his mind’s eye, he could see the changes he'd make to the apartment.  Some of it in line with how it had been in 1943, but some of it not.  Back then they'd been renting and not had any spare money to make any changes even if old Mr Bennett would have let them.

For the first time in a long time, he had his own agenda.  His own project.  He thought Nat would approve.

Chapter Text

The Asset strikes the target in the face.  The mission must be completed.

Ducking under falling pieces of helicarrier, it attacks the target’s legs, bringing him to the ground, but he rolls, avoiding the Asset’s next blow which instead strikes the window below it, shattering the glass.  To avoid the ensuing fall, the Asset reaches for higher ground.

The silent dark makes the Soldier gasp awake.  He is falling. Instead of a position of power above the target, he is now several hundred feet above a river, in the dark.

Images swim through his mind of falling in snow.  Falling in daylight.  Falling takes his breath away, freezing his lungs.  His hands claw at the air, as if they might make purchase there.

The water shocks him out of the immediate panic of falling.  It is cold after the warmth of the summer night.

Kicking his legs to propel him back to the surface, the Soldier tries to piece together his thoughts and track back to find what was real and what wasn't.

He has discovered that when the body succumbs to fatigue reality can be replaced.  The mind produces images.  Sometimes memories.  Sometimes not quite memories.  Often he is not sure which.

This is not the first time that he has woken in a different place than where he had been unsuccessful in fighting off the fatigue, but it is the first time that the relocation has put him up in the air.

As he breaks the surface, he gasps in a breath of the night air.  No spotlights find him.  Recovery crews are still working on the side of the river, pulling pieces of debris out of the main channel, but none of their lights are pointed to the patch of water where the Soldier made a large splash.  The Potomac.  The Triskelion.

Pushing past the images of the fight on the helicarrier that occupy the mind, the Soldier recalls the quiet rooftop where he had found a dark corner to curl up in when the body stopped obeying orders.  Reasonably certain that this memory is true, he reaches for it.

He arrives, dripping, to find the small pack of useful items procured since he destroyed the red book in the corner where he remembers laying down.  The memory of destroying the red book is treasured.  It is too important to lose.  To doubt.  The image of the book in flames burns again behind his eyes.  He revisits it often, trying to ensure it cannot be forgotten.

Other memories are confusing.  The Soldier has been trying to fit the known pieces together, but this just seems to define the edge of even more holes.  Only the memories since he last came out of cryo seem complete.  The memories of the fight on the bridge.  The helicarriers.  The mission.  Protect the man with the shield.   Removing the book from the vault.

Hydra had nearly caught him then.  The memory of the transponder in his body after he left the vault made him feel itchy, and gave him the need to check again all over that there wasn't still a tracker on him, leading Hydra to him.

The tranquilizer dart had knocked him out for a day at least.  He had awoken at the edge of a field full of young corn, a dark patch on the ground where his blood had pooled.  By the time he woke up the wounds had started trying to heal over with bullets still inside.  The urgent need to go to ground, hide, had forced him to reach out and survey the area, but it was the quietest location he could remember being in.  Almost no whispers at all, other than the metal arm.  Somehow it felt safe, though he couldn't bring forward any memory of it.

Clumsily following the only whisper he could hear, he had discovered a farmhouse.  A suitable location to obtain some needed supplies to allow him to remove the bullets and bind the wounds.  The couple who lived there never saw him.

However safe it may have felt, the Soldier didn't trust it.  Stealth was maximized by hiding in plain sight, hiding among the masses.  Here his presence would quickly become noticeable, and so he had needed to move on.

Not trusting any remembered locations not to be occupied by Hydra, he had moved on foot, slowly recovering his equilibrium and healing his wounds.  Traveling for a day, and a night he came upon a small town the next morning.  Stealth is an issue.  Nobody here is wearing combat gear.  Nobody here has a metal arm.  There are few enough people that even a new face would be noticed.

Skulking about in shadows in alleys and on rooftops, his wounds had healed, but a mixture of fatigue and lingering effects of the tranquilizer pulled at his limbs.  The body was hot, yet it shivered.  He needed maintenance.  There were spasms as muscles refused to stay still.  The technicians at Hydra would have given him the tasteless white liquid, probably.  Would have prepared him for cryo.  The mind kept stuttering, hanging on a single thought for far too long, or losing time between thoughts.  Slowly, he had found himself leaning into the rooftop he was perched on, until the fatigue took over.

This is where the mind loses reality.  In the lost time, the Soldier experiences a mixture of memories and untruths.  Both are horrifying.  The memories of Hydra feel like he has been recovered and reconditioned.  Then there are untruths.  Visions of the Soldier killing the man with the shield.  Visions of the Soldier gutting a handler.  Of the Soldier, drinking with a group of men in a bar.  Of eating a meal around a table with a group of unknown people.  Of splashing in the sea at a beach that is covered in sand and not rocks or ice or mud.  Then, the Soldier wakes in the silent dark and arrives, disoriented, in a new location.

He has awoken in forests.  In cities.  On tundra.  On roofs.  In sewers.  In Hydra bases.  Fortunately the silent dark forces awareness on the Soldier, not unlike missing a step in a flight of stairs.  The Soldier also possesses better reflexes than most Hydra operatives.  Several Hydra agents are now dead as testament to that fact.  Some of the Hydra bases have been empty.  Cleared out, either voluntarily, or forcefully by other forces.  It has been useful, however; in one of the smaller occupied bases, he obtained a few weapons to keep close even when resting in case of surprises, stripping them from the corpses of agents he had encountered before fleeing.

He discovered early on that acquiring clothing from dustbins and charity donation bags left outside stores is an excellent option for stealth.  It hides the arm, and also allows him to hide in daylight, out on the street.  Curling up in a doorway or alley with a scruffy blanket means that nearly all eyes pass straight over him.  Especially when the tremors shake the body visibly.  There are exceptions to this.  Shortly after the second unconscious relocation he was asked by a gentle man if he was hungry.  At the time, the Soldier had been confused, disoriented as the mind spun, and a growing ache in his belly and head, craving the cryo chamber to relieve him of this input.  Unable to put together a response in English, he wasn't entirely sure what garbled speech had emerged from his mouth.  When the man reached toward him, he flinched, ducking his head, just barely stopping himself from lashing out.  At which point the man walked carefully away.

Hungry.  This word had brought memories to the fore.  Dark cells.  Cold tents.  Empty plates.  A realization struck the Soldier as the stomach growled.  He requires the tasteless white liquid.  Craves it in a way he doesn’t remember ever doing before.  He had sat for a long time considering the option of retrieving some from a Hydra base.  Long hours as the body shook and the mind spiraled.  The stomach gave a confusion of different signals.  It hurt, but felt empty, yet it tried to expel its contents several times.

Thirsty.  The eyes had tracked people around it at all times.  Whispers letting him know when properties around him were empty.  Breaking into empty businesses gave him access to water, but the stomach often rejected this, just increasing the fatigue.

Thinking of the tasteless white liquid, a memory had swum into his mind, through the disordered thoughts of Hydra agents, missions, ghosts.  The commander had offered him the white liquid in his house.  Had called it ‘milk’.  Maybe he can source his own white liquid.  After hesitant investigations, the Soldier found cartons inside fridges labeled as milk.  Not all of them looked the same as the one displayed by the commander.  Once he found the right one, he tried drinking it.

It was not tasteless.

The sensation shut down all thought processes.

Reflexively, the Soldier drank the entire contents of the carton.

Initially, the stomach seemed satisfied.  Then it craved more.  Then…then it violently rejected the liquid.  Still, it had felt marginally less painful once that stopped.

The Soldier had spent the next day sitting in a doorway, watching people in a cafe coming and going.  They entered, handed over money and received cups, sometimes also other items.  The cups were what caught the Soldier’s attention though.  It had been as if that first taste had awoken the sense memory of other flavors.  The smell from that cafe had tantalized him.  It brought out memories of steaming cups, held in two flesh hands.  A china cup or mug, of various colors.  A tin mug in gloved hands.

He had also watched as people retrieved money from a panel in the wall of a building down the street.  Watched both from the street, and the camera installed in the panel.  He could hear the whispers of each transaction at the panel, and in the cafe when some people used a small card instead of cash.  Money.  Hydra had plenty of it.  Clearly it was needed outside of Hydra also.  When the street was quiet, he inspected the panel.  The Soldier didn’t have anything to insert into it, but the whispers were familiar.  Within them he could find the threads of numbers he’d used before.  Hydra’s numbers.  Hydra’s money.  Anything that made Hydra stronger needed to be removed from them.  So he did.  He created new hiding places for the money, places only he would now be able to find.  There was so much of it.  Sending a small amount to the panel for him to collect from the dispenser was trivial.  The Soldier felt that money was something to be preserved.  Hard won.  He was uncertain if he had really earnt this money.  Still, depriving Hydra of agents and weapons would be ineffective if they still had money to acquire more.

Money in his pockets, he had found a quiet, anonymous grocery store further along the block.  The cafe was too exposed for him to enter.  Too familiar.  Hiding from the staff wouldn’t work if he wanted to purchase anything.  His observations of the store made it ideal.  Enclosed shelved areas, monitored only by cameras that could easily be squashed.  Inattentive staff at payment who rarely looked the customers in the face.

The many aisles were confusing.  Unfamiliar products adorned every shelf.  He found the chilled section uncomfortable.  The cabinets were glass-fronted, not unlike the cryochamber.  Here, however, he had found a sign for ‘milk’.  Only, there were so many kinds.  Not just the kind the commander had offered to the Asset, but there was whole, nonfat, 2%, oat, soy, almond, butter, cashew, rice, coconut, condensed, strawberry, banana, chocolate…  He had no idea which would be the right kind, as the one he identified from the commander's house was not apparently the same one the technicians had prepared.  He had stood there, stunned by the enormity of the choice before him.  He had tried whole milk at the house the day before, and considered that a mixed success.  Having been the subject of experimental procedure before, he could recall enough (although processing the memories of this had him standing for rather longer in the chilled section than intended) to believe that all should be tested.  But not all at the same time.  In the end he had bought some more of the whole, to repeat the initial test with perhaps a bit more caution, and also some nonfat, and soy. 

He had then retired to a dark, out of the way corner of a park to continue his experiment.  Slowly sipping this time, he had repeated his test of the whole milk.

The taste had again shocked the Soldier.  Sweet, and rich, and heavy.  So different from the tasteless white liquid offered by the technicians.  Yet, it satisfied the stomach.  Careful not to drink too much, the Soldier had discovered that a full stomach accelerated the fatigue, but did not hold off the unreality found after the eyes closed.

Subsequent forays into groceries have allowed the Soldier to experiment with other kinds of milk.  So far, none have matched the tasteless white liquid, but he has found that the coconut, almond and condensed milks all give the greatest satisfaction.  It does not entirely eliminate the fatigue, however.  The limbs feel heavier than they ought to.  Concerningly, the Soldier’s reaction times seem to be slowing, as evidenced by his fall into the river before he managed to relocate.  Dangerous.  Particularly now, as the dripping water from the river cools the body further, making it shake again.  There is something missing in the fuel he is supplying it.

The Soldier has found that the whispers have the answers to many questions, if he can tolerate the onslaught of information that comes if he pushes out into them.  Carefully, he searches for information about milk.  Even braced for it, the rush of information is nearly overwhelming.  Streams of words, numbers, images, even videos.  Picking through it all, the Soldier discovers nutritional information, including information on healthy eating.  It is like a light comes on inside the mind, revealing hidden memories.  Food.  The memories seem alien.  The feeling of solid food in the mouth, in the throat, makes the body gag.  Yet, this is what he had observed people doing in the cafe, alongside the cups of hot liquid.  Fuzzier memories of Hydra agents eating solid food also resurface.

The Soldier is no stranger to unpleasant necessity.  Determined, he considers options for acquiring the solid food.  The store had so many items, many of them foodstuffs, too many to choose from.  Where should he even start?  The cafe is too enclosed, too exposed, too identifiable.  He starts moving through the city, looking for an opportunity.

Finding a market, he considers the flow of people as the sun rises above the rooftops.  The more people, the easier to be unnoticed.  One face among many.  His dirty, damaged clothes, however, will not blend in to this crowd as easily.

Among the stalls there are hot food vendors. The smell does things to the stomach.  It…growls.

Using the shadows provided by the still-dim morning light, the Soldier borrows a jacket from behind one of the stalls to cover the shabby clothes and the metal arm.  He then wanders slowly, seemingly aimlessly as many of the other members of the crowd seem to, between different stalls as he tries to determine his target.  He approaches the smell that most affects the stomach.  Observes other people making purchases from the vendor.  Some speech is required.  The Soldier has not spoken in some time.

He takes his place in the line.  Scrutinizes every transaction ahead of him.  He organizes the words he will need in his head ahead of time.  Money in his hand.

“What’ll it be?”  The front of the line.

The Soldier clears his throat.  “Breakfast sandwich.”  His voice is croaky, but understandable. 

The vendor nods at him.  “Coffee?”

Nearly every person before him in the line has added coffee.  He nods.  Hands over the money and waits for the items to be handed to him.

The smell.  Wow.  It takes the Soldier a minute to remember to move away from the stall once the food and drink are in his hands.  In a daze, he moves efficiently through the crowd, to find a hidden space at the edge of the market, and returns the borrowed jacket.  From there he reaches for a quiet rooftop.  A secure space where he can have sightlines on anyone approaching him.

He breathes in the smell of first the food, then the coffee.  The coffee is the tantalizing smell he remembered outside of the cafe.  And it is warm. He hasn’t felt warm since…time is difficult.  He has memories now of missions in sweltering heat, but cannot place them in time.  Putting the sandwich down for now, the Soldier concentrates on the drink, taking a careful first sip.  Bitter.  But.  A rush of memories even stronger than from the smell assaults him.  This…this is the same as in those memories, but different.  This is rich.  Slightly acidic.  Warming.  He takes another sip, careful not to burn his tongue.  Some of the tension in his body seems to unconsciously melt away.  The coffee is…comforting?  He sips some more.

The stomach interrupts with another growl.  The Soldier looks down at the package of food, putting the coffee down to pick it up.  Unwrapping it releases more of the smell, causing saliva to pool in his mouth.  He swallows the saliva down nervously, looking at the sandwich.  There is bread on the outside.  Meat and egg in between?  The size of it is daunting.  He has watched people taking bites, chewing, swallowing food, but is not completely sure how that works.  There are memories of food, but the exact process is unclear.

Mindful of the incident with the milk, he takes a tiny bite.  The flavor spreads across his tongue.  Salty.  Meaty.  Sweet.  Fatty… Holy Cow.  It is so intense he nearly forgets about chewing.  He tries moving his jaw, in an approximation of what he has seen people at the cafe doing.  The action doesn’t seem terribly helpful, but the tongue has a mind of its own, pushing the food around inside his mouth, between the teeth.  Saliva wells again, mixing with the crushed food, until he has to swallow.

The sensation down his throat as the food moves down to the stomach is…awkward.  There is a momentary panic that it is too large to fit that nearly sets him coughing as the food reaches the back of the mouth, but then it is gone.  The throat is sore, scratchy, and the food makes this obvious the whole long way down.

Once the food reaches the stomach, the pangs that were noticeable before are now screaming.  The stomach feels like it is caving inward.

The Soldier takes another sip of the coffee to soothe the throat, before taking another tiny bite.  Chewing and swallowing come easier this time.  It is like picking up a weapon he can’t remember using, but knowing nonetheless the exact amount of kick it will give, the right angles to calculate to make an accurate shot.

Bite after bite, the Soldier slowly makes his way through the sandwich.  He is cautious.  Before the sandwich is finished, the stomach starts to feel uncomfortable.  Full.  Tense.  He wraps the remaining sandwich back up in the paper and breathes carefully until the stomach settles.  Just as after the milk, the full stomach speeds up the fatigue, pulling the eyes closed.  The Soldier resists as long as he can, but eventually surrenders.

Unreality comes to him again, but for the first time, none of the memories hurt.

After the first few attempts, the Soldier has been able to stay awake after food. He has also ventured another exploration of the whispers to research the fatigue problem.  There is a name for it apparently.  Sleep.  Humans needed to spend 6 to 8 hours in every 24 unconscious.  The unreality encountered in this state is called dreaming.

The Soldier does not need as much sleep as that.  He is able to stay awake for multiple days before malfunctions happen.  He is not strictly human.  Reluctantly, he looks into the data he had absorbed and squashed down during the helicarrier fight.  The data all about the Winter Soldier.  The numbers here bring to mind tests run by Hydra scientists and technicians.  Th unhelpful memories are hazy and make the stomach twist and churn uncomfortably.  Medical tables.  Needles.  Isolation rooms.  Pain.  Confusion.  The Soldier buries these thoughts in the numbers.  The numbers are simpler to parse.  He finds patterns in the numbers.  There are certain patterns more pleasing than others.  32557038 floats freely through these thoughts.  It repeats often, and calms the mind.  Slowly, after repeating the sequence again, and again, the Soldier becomes aware of the world once more.

Once the Soldier is again certain that the world is not spinning around him, he locks away the Hydra files again in his mind.  Any insights that could be gained from them are not worth doing that again.

Now that the body is getting more food, it is more responsive.  Stronger.  Mission ready?  Nearly.  The mission itches at the back of the mind.  He has inadvertently taken out a few Hydra agents when arriving in his sleep, but he needs to do more.  The man with the shield will not be safe until they are eradicated.  But he needs supplies. He has minimal weapons in his meager arsenal.  This he will need to rectify.

Picking through the scattered memories of Hydra bases and safehouses he picks a few that he expects to be minimally staffed, but should hopefully have a good cache for him to pick through.  The Soldier finds a good hidey hole for his shabby clothes and straps on the armor once more.  It is stiff with blood, but with a bit of persuasion it moves enough for a simple mission.  Knives are tucked into his belt, and he has two pistols, and a rifle.

First he visits a safehouse in the outskirts of Houston.  The sweltering heat hits him as soon as he arrives.  It is glorious.  If he weren’t expecting Hydra agents to appear around a corner at any moment, his muscles would surely be more relaxed than at any point, well, pretty much ever as far as he knows.  As it happens the Hydra agents never appear.  The safehouse is empty, but not abandoned.  He acquires a bag full of money, another of explosives, and a whole box full of guns.  A quick sort through of the cupboards reveals some civilian clothes for undercover work that could be useful.  He also finds some files with details of some local Hydra involvement in both criminal gangs and the police department.  Sloppy.  These he debates with himself over for some time.  He clearly can’t call it into the local police for them to deal with.  He has no idea if any government agencies are free of Hydra taint, in fact he very much expects them not to be.  For now, he adds them to the items to take with him, and dowses the property in gasoline he finds in the stores and sets a spark to it with the metal hand before he leaves.

He has already considered some locations to stash his goodies in.  He spreads them around in difficult to reach locations.  Well, for anyone who can’t just reach anyway.  He hasn’t previously considered this ability to be anything of note.  Hadn’t had the capacity to consider it while under the influence of the code words, or the Chair.  Now he does and makes full use of it to ensure that only he will be able to recover the items easily.  Hiding them in multiple locations means that if one is discovered, there will be others that won’t be.

The next safehouse, in Moscow, is not empty.  Three Hydra agents lie dying on the floor only 5 seconds after he arrives inside.  The fourth tries to run, and is rewarded with a bullet through the back of his brain. He is pleased with the haul from this cache.  Soviet-made ammunition.  A sniper rifle.  Grenades.  And more knives, in the style he prefers.  Here, he stops long enough to also raid the foodstores.  The Hydra agents had clearly been sitting down to eat when he surprised them.  Astonishingly enough, very little of it has been spilt. A curious thought emerges from his mind.  Waste not want not.  The smell is enticing.  The agents won’t be needing it now.  Yet, he finds it difficult to move himself to the table.  It is irrational.  The body flinches away from a non-existent handler as he looks at the bowls of steaming soup and hunks of dark brown bread.

Reciting the number sequence to himself helps to bring his thoughts out of their paralysis.  He cannot stay here long.  In defiance, he takes a piece of the bread and dunks it in one of the bowls to soften it.  Dry food is still…more difficult.  He chews carefully as he stuffs other store-cupboard items into a bag.

Delving into the concentrated whispers in the laptop and phones present, he finds plenty of communications with other Hydra units.  Good.  More targets to hit, when he is back up to full strength.  There are alerts about the fall of the Triskelion.  About the Winter Soldier having gone ‘rogue’.  He dissects the laptop and determines that the external connections can be cut with a careful squeeze of the whispers between it and other signals.  After this is done, it is a useful receptacle for the data he finds useful.  Stuffing it all inside his head makes him feel…slow.  Unwieldy.  The laptop is safer than the phones, which have location data streaming from them constantly.

Satisfied with his goodies, the Soldier packs them all up and sets the building on fire again.  He is leaving a trail perhaps.  He mixes it up with some explosives, and reaches again for some safe locations to hide the bounty, particularly the disconnected laptop.

Next on the Soldier’s list is a safehouse in Virginia.  It is on a quiet suburban street.  If the Soldier didn't know it was a hidden nest for spies, he would have guessed from the additional whispers of electronic security set up around it.  To him, it sticks out like a sore thumb.  Cameras.  Microphones.  Locks.  There are so many, it is difficult to distinguish them all. Even for Hydra, this strikes him as overkill for a simple safehouse.

He moves with extra caution, wondering if perhaps this is more than a safehouse.  He calibrates the arm and quickly checks his weapons before moving in.

Accessing the cameras, he knows there is no one inside.  After that check, he squashes their signal to prevent his appearance being recorded.

Slipping past pots overflowing with flowers in the neighbors' front garden, the Soldier approaches the rear entrance, disarming the locks and alarms with gentle pushes through the whispers.  Even so, something feels…wrong as he enters the kitchen at the back of the house.  He hesitantly moves further in, twitching at the sound of a dog barking in the street.

The house is clear.  There is a thin layer of dust over the surfaces.  Nothing left out.  Keeping a careful ear out, for both actual sounds and whispers, he starts to rummage through cupboards and likely hiding areas.

“Солдат, oстанавливаться!”  <Soldier, halt!>

The voice of the handler.  Involuntarily his body freezes.

“Вернуться на базу.”  <Return to base.>  A set of coordinates follow.  Washington DC.  The vault.

The Soldier fights.  Anyone watching wouldn’t know, as the fight is all internal.  The muscles are as taut as wire, but the mind slips.  Reaches.  Parts of the mind are whirling, howling not to obey.

On the other side of the silent dark, the Asset arrives in the vault.

It is empty, except for the Chair.  His eyes land on it straight away, and he cannot tear his gaze from it.

The room is silent.  Even most of the whispers that always pervaded this room have been silenced.  Only the cameras are still working.  All of the little doors around the walls are open, the doors themselves generally hanging off hinges or on the floor.

He stands there for what could be hours, unable to move without orders, muscles locked.  Inside his mind, a storm rages.

The handler’s voice.  Obey.  The Chair.  Pain.  The cryochamber.  Order.  The medical table. 

Tremors through the body.

Needles.

A saw through bone.

Blood.

The metal fist slamming through concrete.

Screaming.

Gunsights in a scope.

Running.

A scrawny face.

To the end of the line.   The man with the shield.  Bucky!   The mission.  32557038.

At last, he can move.  Can think.  Desperately needing to leave this base, he reaches for a place of safety. 

Blinking in the bright sunlight after the silent dark, he finds himself on a rooftop overlooking a small town.  Ah, beyond the few buildings he can see cornfields again.

Exhausted, he collapses to the rooftop, breathing hard.  He listens out carefully to the whispers, but finds nothing amiss.  No search parties.  No Hydra signals.

Thoughts tumble slowly through his exhausted mind.  The handler’s voice could still affect him.  He had obeyed. It is instinctive now.  To avoid punishment.  Can he ever be safe from it?

The numbers though, they had broken the paralysis, again.  He still doesn’t know what they mean.  He doesn’t know what the man with the shield means either.  He is the mission.  He is Captain America.  He is Steve Rogers.  He knows this only from the mission briefing.  Who is he?

The Soldier finds it difficult to think of the mission.  In the same way that he finds it difficult to think of the code words.  Hydra’s code words, and the mystery code words uttered by the mission.  The mind warps and bends away from them, as if coming into contact with them might burn.

Pushing through the odd sensation of the mind’s reluctance to touch them, the Soldier pushes the names from the mission briefing out into the whispers.  In return, he receives a flood of images and information.  The red, white and blue uniform.  The shield.  The blond hair.  Steve Rogers.  Born 4th July 1918 in Brooklyn, New York.  Captain America, hero of World War II.  There are videos.  Clips of the mission speaking.  Of him fighting. Items with the image of the shield on them on sale.  Captain America memorabilia.  The Captain America exhibition at the Smithsonian museum, see the real history.

The flood is too much after the Soldier's fight in the vault, and fatigue takes him as he withdraws from the whispers.

The Soldier wakes in the silent dark, then bursts into daylight.  Feeling around himself, he is in Washington DC.  Again?  Why does this place pull him back so often? If it’s not DC, then it’s New York.  Or blasted Siberia.

Another rooftop, with a view across the road to the Smithsonian museum.  In fact, this is approximately the view in the pictures from the whispers.  A large banner with the mission’s face on it adorns the front of the building.  Well, there's nothing like taking the hint from his own subconscious.  He is curious, and at least discovering information this way will be less…rushed.  Even if it might be more exposed.

The problem with arriving places as he wakes up is that he doesn't get a chance to plan what he takes with him.  He is currently still wearing his combat gear from yesterday's raids on the safehouses.  Stealth is going to be a case of blending in for this task, rather than being hidden entirely. He considers his options. He could go and retrieve some of the civilian clothing acquired from the first safehouse.  But being clothing suitable for Texan weather, it is lightweight and mostly short-sleeved. The Soldier grimaces, thinking of the metal arm.  Covering it was becoming tiresome.  It moves so much more easily when unencumbered, but it is necessary to blend in with a crowd.  Gloves too.  Even in Washington, the climate doesn't really call for gloves in summer.

A quick scope of the area around indicated a shopping area not far away in the city center.  Judiciously scouting ahead by using the CCTV cameras, he is able to squash the image just before he reaches into a quiet area of a large shop.  On high alert, he quickly slips into a dark corner and from there into a back room.  He cannot approach the pay area in his current state, but it feels wrong to just take items.  Taking from Hydra is different.  Hydra…is complicated.  They have provided for the Asset for most of his memories, broken as they are, yet they have also taken from the Asset.  Memories.  Blood.  Obedience.  He is not sure where he sits on the balance of owing Hydra, but in the current chaos of their collapse after the Triskelion, and the mission requirement to stop them from harming the man with the shield, taking their resources feels like the right thing to do.  This shop, as far as he is aware, is not Hydra though.  The Soldier has money in his gear, and checks the labels on the items he finds that he needs.  The combat trousers are not too noticeable compared to civilians, as long as he conceals his weapons.  A long-sleeved shirt is needed.  And a jacket that will make his bulk stand out less.  Most civilians are differently shaped than the Soldier, carrying more weight around their middles than on their shoulders.  At the last minute he spots a hoodie that will help to keep his face hidden.  Squashing the camera images may bring out more security personnel whose eyes cannot be prevented from seeing him in the same way.

He leaves the money for the items he takes on the shelves, and crushes the security tags to remove them.

Now appropriately clothed, he reaches again for the rooftops, this time the roof of the Smithsonian itself.  From here he cannot see the banner with the mission’s face, but he finds a door that is easily unlocked to allow him entry without passing the security checks he could see at the front door.

He passes two floors of rooms with only staff members, cataloging and tending to items, then slips, unnoticed, into the throng of visitors on the lower levels.

He finds the exhibits fascinating.  There is so much information.  It is like diving into the whispers, but more controlled. 

There are old cars, racing cars, that feel familiar in style.  Aircraft from the first flights through to a number of jets he can visualize the controls for and he is pretty certain he could pilot most of them.  One or two evoke a shiver down his spine, visions of blood, and a sour feeling in his stomach.

The planetarium occupies him for a long time.  It is so…peaceful.  Displays of the stars and planets, vehicles that have been to the moon.  Rockets as big as some of the cargo planes he has vague memories of.  Robot explorer machines that go to other planets.

Eventually he finds the Captain America exhibit.  He moves very slowly around this area.  Each panel seems to shake loose more memories. 

The scrawny body with the face of the mission.  He watches the image change to the more familiar body that he fought on the helicarrier, and back again.  They are the same person.  The same face.  He has to look away as memories swim in front of his eyes.  There are many more of the scrawny body.  Playing ball games in a park.  Running through streets.  Sitting together on the docks.  Watching the scrawny body struggle to breathe in a bed.  Defending it from other boys.  Helping it up where it had fallen over.

Then there are older memories also of the larger body.  These cause more discomfort, are more fragmented.  Bits and pieces flash into the Soldier's mind.  Poring over maps.  Trudging through mud.  The man with the shield in the sights of his sniper rifle.  He recoils from that one.  Was he attacking the man with the shield?  The idea makes him feel sick in his stomach, and he turns away from the display.

Further along, he finds a row of mannequins displaying clothes, including one with the same uniform that the mission wore on the helicarrier.  For a moment he tenses, ready to attack, before he shakes off the feeling of being in a fight, and moves further into the shadows.  To one side of the display he finds a display with his own face on it.  He has seen it often enough in camera images that he recognizes it even with the short hair.  The strange expression on it.  Staring at it, his gaze eventually drifts to the text below.  James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes.  The lungs freeze, and the stomach drops.  He is not certain that the floor is stable.  He cannot look away as the words ring in his mind.  He hears the mission’s voice in his head.   Bucky.  It is a code word.  A code word that is freely available to everyone in this room. 

It is some time before he is able to read further.  He struggles to parse the meaning.  They describe a man.  A dead man.  A onetime friend and comrade of Captain America.  Who had a family.  Who lived and served in America.  Who was this person?  Why is the Soldier tied to them?

He cannot be the Soldier.  This man is dead.  The Soldier is not dead.

He stumbles away from the display, finding a dark room showing videos.  He sits, uncertainly, on a bench.  The moving images wash over him, accompanying the memories sliding out from wherever they have been hiding inside his mind.

Briefly, the image on the screen coincides with the same image in his mind, only from a different angle.  The dead man is talking with the Captain.  Laughing.  He looks…relaxed.

Another memory slides in its place.  The scrawny body laughing, gesturing.  A shabby kitchen.  Thin curtains letting in the daylight.  The smell of cabbage boiling on the stove.  The scratchy feel of a threadbare chair beneath him.  It feels…safe?  Safe doesn't quite describe it fully, but the Soldier has no other word for it.  He leans into the feeling, embracing it.   Reaching for it.

Silence, darkness.

He has a brief glimpse of pale cream walls, and a sharp smell of paint before he falls on his ass on the floor.  No chair.  A noise behind him has him in his feet instantly, wary.  He spins to see the mission, paintbrush in hand, a shocked expression on his face, in front of a section of drywall with a warm orange color painted on part of it.

The paintbrush seems to droop.  The mission steps towards the Soldier, stretching out a hand in his direction, then opens his mouth and takes a breath.

He instantly panics, and reaches, the silent dark swallowing the words the mission was about to say.

Chapter Text

“I'm not going crazy Sam, I swear.  He was here.  And then he wasn't.”

“Uhuh.  Not going crazy.  Right.”  Sam rolled his eyes at Steve.

“I have absolutely no explanation, but I know what I saw.”

“Because you haven't been dreaming of him turning up at your place since you got the keys.”

“Well, yes, but not like that!”

“And you hadn't spent all day indoors sniffing paint?  It still stinks in here, by the way.”

“I was hardly sniffing it!  And anyway, if alcohol has no effect on me I doubt paint would.”

Sam pointed a finger at Steve's chest.  “But lack of sleep does.  When did you last get a good night's kip?”

Steve had the grace to look sheepish at that comment.  He really hadn't been sleeping well.  Not since they looked through the Winter Soldier files from the KGB.  Certainly not since they revisited the vault to examine that damn chair.  The data was spotty, so they couldn't know for sure what voltages they put through it, but the power cables it used were pretty thick.  Thick enough to carry a lot more current than should ever be put through a human brain.

There was a knock at the door.  “That’ll be Nat,” Steve said as he got up to open it.

“Maybe you can convince her you weren't hallucinating?”

“Hallucinating what?”  Nat waltzed right in as soon as the door opened, carrying a stack of pizza boxes.  She cast an eye around the freshly painted walls.  “I like what you've done with the place.”

“You mean he hasn't already told you about his vision of Barnes in his living room?”

Nat raised an expressive eyebrow at Steve, pausing on her way to the couch.  “Not yet.  What sort of ‘vision’?”

Steve sighed, knowing she was probably even less likely to believe him.

“I saw Bucky, as real as you are now, over there.”  He pointed.  “I heard a thump behind me as I was painting, and turned to see him sprawled on the ground.  He flipped himself back up and looked a bit like he'd seen a ghost himself.  I started to reach out to him and he startled like a cat cornered in an alley, and disappeared.”

“Disappeared…out the window?”

“No, he disappeared.  One second he was there, the next he was gone.  I didn't even blink.  He just…poof.  It looked like a shadow passed over him, then he wasn't there anymore.”  Steve waved his hands around in the general area.

“A pretty crazy story.”  Nat was eyeing Steve carefully.

“See?  What did I tell you?”  Sam swiped the top box from Nat's pile and found himself a seat.

“Or it would be, if I hadn't seen something similar myself, albeit on a camera.”

Steve and Sam spoke at the same time.  “Really?!”

“I hate to tell you, Nat, but cameras lie.”

“And you think I don't know that?”  The eyebrow was more pointed this time, and Steve was glad it was aimed at Sam.

“I was going to show you this anyway,” she said as she slid the rest of the pizza boxes onto the coffee table, “although I had hoped we'd get to eat first, while the food’s still warm.”

“Sorry Nat.  We can eat first.”

“Nah, I know you won't be able to eat properly until I show you now.”  She pulled a thumb drive from her pocket.  “Has one of you two got a bigger screen than my phone we can watch this on?”

Sam snorted.  “Man still doesn't have a TV.  Hold on, I've got my laptop.”

“TV’s overrated,” muttered Steve.  Sam retrieved the laptop from his bag and set it up on the coffee table, next to the pizza boxes.

Nat plugged in the drive, and swiftly found the files she was looking for, then snagged a piece of pizza before setting it to play.

“That's the vault we raided first, right?”  Sam asked as he sat down and Steve leaned in closer.

“Yup.  We left the cameras rolling, but set them up to send to us so we could catch anyone who might stop by.”

Steve frowned.  “It’s just as we left it.”

“Wait, it's getting to the good bit.”  Nat took another bite of her pizza and leaned back on the couch to watch.

After another few seconds, the image flickered with a small blue shadow before it suddenly showed the Winter Soldier.  He looked just as he had in the helicarrier fight, armored, and armed.  He didn't walk into shot, didn't come through either the gate or the doorway, he just appeared in position.  And stood there.  He looked tense.  Head slightly bowed, in a slightly subservient pose, facing the chair contraption they'd left behind.  Steve held his breath, waiting for something to happen.

“You say that's not doctored at all?  You're sure of that?”  Sam sounds nervous, but Steve can't rip his eyes away from the screen.

“Nope.”

“He's not moving.”  The figure had swayed slightly a couple of times, but otherwise was motionless.

“And that's all he does.  For another hour…,” Nat eyed the counter at the bottom of the screen, “and fifty-eight minutes.”

“What are you doing Bucky?”  Steve whispered.

“If we'd been monitoring more closely, we might have picked it up in time to get to him before he disappeared, but I didn't think there'd be many from Hydra worth the effort that'd be stupid enough to come here.  That, and he didn't come through the doors.  JARVIS flagged this to Tony, who passed it on to me.”

Sam scrutinized the image carefully, pulling a piece of pizza of his own from one of the boxes.  “Is there sound on this?  Do we know if he's making any noise?”

“There is sound on the feed.  He's just quiet.”  Nat reached forward to the keyboard, and fast-forwarded through the video.  It looked like a still image, although at high speed the occasional small movement might be missed.  It took a few minutes to speed through it; enough time for Sam and Nat to munch through a couple more slices.  Sam tried to push one at Steve and he took a half-hearted bite. 

Steve followed Bucky’s gaze to the chair.  They hadn't seen any need to remove it, although they disconnected it from the power.  Looking at Bucky now, Steve regretted that decision and resolved to dismantle it personally.  Who knew what was going through his friend’s mind?  They had no idea how much he might remember, how much of the barbaric treatment he had been subjected to in that thing he might be reliving.

Nat finally set the speed back to normal.  On the screen Bucky was still standing in the same position.  Looking carefully at the eyes, Steve watched as they seemed to slowly come back into focus on the chair.  Then all of a sudden, Bucky's whole body seemed to sag, muscles held taut for the last two hours releasing that tension.  He glanced around, eyes roving the room, before tensing slightly again as if readying to jump before he disappeared.  As he did there was a very brief blue shadow where he had been standing.

“He didn't even do anything?!”  Sam seemed incredulous.

“Nope.  Nothing.”  Nat stopped the playback.  “This was a few days ago.  After JARVIS alerted us to it, I dropped in to take a look and couldn't find anything changed from when we left it last time.  He didn't bring anything, leave anything or change anything at all.  And I can't find any signals that might have called him there either.  The only thing going in or out is our camera feed.  The whole place is locked up, none of the doors were tampered with, the gates weren't unlocked, and he doesn't appear on any other cameras.”

“At least we know he's alive.  He seems to have healed after the last visit to the vault.”  Steve had to agree with Sam, there was no evidence of the previous bullet holes.

“That's not the only one either.”  Nat quickly clicked through to another video on her drive.  This one showed a military-looking hangar.  “We hit this base in the first week after Insight.  It’s been sitting empty since then.”

Again, a blue shadow preceded the appearance of a figure on the screen.  This time the figure was less obviously the Winter Soldier.  He was wearing scruffy, baggy clothes with sleeves that hung down over his hands.  A hood shaded his face, and it wasn't until he saw a glint of metal on the left hand just as the figure flinched and brought it up in a defensive position that Steve had any evidence it was Bucky.

“No audio this time, I'm afraid.”

The figure turned rapidly a few times, as if confirming where it was, then slunk off into a corner of the hangar, and Nat stopped the video.

“We're sure that's Barnes?”  Sam looked up at Nat from where he'd been scrutinizing the images.

“Not 100%, but I hate to think there are others that can move like that.”  She pulled up a still image on the screen, clearly zoomed in from a frame of the video they just saw.  “There's what looks like a metal left arm, not too many of those about, and I managed to enhance the picture enough on the face to get this, which is a reasonable match to Barnes, from the pictures we got on the highway, although those are also blurry.  What do you think, Steve?”

“It's got to be him.  How do you think he's doing it?”

“I’ve absolutely no idea.  Doesn't look like any tech I’ve ever seen.  Could be something Hydra cobbled together from the Tesseract before New York, or from some Chitauri tech.  But I've got one more to show you.”  Nat clicked a few more times on the laptop.  “This one we only stormed last week, out in Poland.  Going through the data afterwards, we found this from about a week before we hit it.”

This video showed a room containing two Hydra agents.  One was sat cleaning guns at a table, the other seemed to be unpacking a bag of mission supplies.  After a minute, a blue shadow appeared in the middle of the room, directly in front of the seated agent, quickly resolving into the form of Bucky.  He looked half asleep. 

The agents quickly scrambled to arm themselves.  Bucky’s eyes widened at the sight of the agents and he instantly kicked into gear.  Reaching across the table, he slammed the first agent headfirst into his table of gun parts.  The other agent had managed to get a gun out of a holster, but only managed to track shots towards Bucky.  He raised the metal arm to protect his face, picked up a pistol barrel from the table and accurately threw it at the second agent’s face.  It hit the second agent right in the forehead, knocking him back into the wall behind.

While both agents were dazed, Bucky stills just for a moment, and the becoming-familiar blue shadow obscures his form and leaves nothing behind, except two agents with severe headaches.

“What on earth was that?”  Sam asked.  “I'd swear both sides were surprised.  Did he not expect anyone to be there?”

Nat shrugged.  “It makes no sense.  He's not prepared.  I’d say he was surprised to find himself there.  Maybe whatever he's using to get around isn't very accurate or reliable?”

“Then why bother with it?  It doesn't make tactical sense to risk that sort of exposure with unreliable tech.  He's not been popping up in non-Hydra locations.”  Steve couldn't believe that.  Even with his brain fried to a crisp as the Winter Soldier, Bucky had clearly had a good tactical awareness.

“Except your apartment.”  Sam sent Steve a knowing look.

“But that was a Hydra location too, remember?  It was a safe house.  A safe house set up as some sort of trap, I’ll give you, but it was still on Hydra books.”  Nat looked thoughtful for a second.  “Could be something with pre-programmed locations?”

Sam wiped the pizza grease off his fingers, pushing another box towards Steve who'd nearly forgotten about the food.  While Steve’s mouth was occupied, Sam turned back to Nat.  “It couldn't be Hydra trying to bring him in somehow?”

“Well they weren't ready for him.  And he bugged out again in the same way, so I doubt it.”

Steve swallowed his mouthful quickly.  “Whatever it is, I only hope it doesn't get him in more trouble.  We’ll have to go over footage at any bases we go to to see if he's been there.”

Sam groaned, while Nat grinned.  “Already on it.  How did you think I came up with these?  And, I've got a nice list of some juicy targets for you two to take a look at.  Call it a birthday present.”

Two weeks later, they'd already hit two of Nat's targets, and were on their way to a third.

Of the previous two, one had proved to be abandoned, and they'd done quite a thorough clean out.  It had been what looked like a staging area for vehicles and bigger missions in an industrial warehouse in Washington.  The only things they'd been able to pick up from it were oil stains on the concrete and some paint scrapings.  They meant nothing to Steve, but Sam passed some samples on to Nat, who passed them on to Bruce (who was supposed to hide them from Tony, but Steve was fairly certain that Tony had gotten involved anyway).  The end result of this was that they knew that the warehouse had housed some Russian military vehicles, and Tony had started building a drone to accompany Sam’s new suit to assist in finding the trail of Hydra that could perform a lot of similar analyses on the spot.

Steve had had new fuel for his nightmares after the second mission.  Nat had identified a secret Hydra lab attached to a SHIELD hospital.  The hospital couldn't be shut down when SHIELD collapsed, not with current patients undergoing treatments, but it was in the process of changing ownership.  In the chaos of that several doctors had jumping ship before they could be identified as Hydra hadn't been noticed and they were now in the wind.  Even so there were a large number of staff that Nat’s evidence could put away, and what Steve and Sam found would clinch it.  There was clear evidence of human experimentation going on.

Steve shuddered as he scanned through documents detailing drugs given to SHIELD agents without their knowledge.  Some to promote faster healing, general performance enhancers, others to try to replicate the serum (Again! Didn't anyone ever learn?) and even some chemical warfare-type agents to prevent healing.

Yet, that wasn't the worst of it.  Sam’s goggles from his old wing pack had helped him find a disguised panel in the lab, behind which they found old paper notes.  Notes that referred to the Asset.

Steve didn't understand even half of the notes, and that was being generous.  It was probably a good thing, though, as the diagrams alone made him feel ill.  There were a lot of diagrams of a brain.  In some parts of the notes there were photographs, but Sam had pulled those away from him, handing him a trashcan just in time to catch Steve's lunch.

At that point part of him wished he hadn't already handed over the technicians and medics who had been too stupid or overconfident to disappear themselves after Insight to one of Sharon's new buddies at the CIA.

They also hadn't been tidying up after themselves electronically since the info dump, or possibly the person in charge of that was one of those who mysteriously hadn't come back to work, so all the cameras had been rolling since then in the lab rooms.  They seemed to be set up to record continuously, just in case something interesting happened?  Steve shook his head, unable to fathom the mindset.

The sheer quantity of video was mind boggling.  Sam utilized a piece of software Nat gave them to scan for any movement or people in the image before even thinking about them.  Tony had JARVIS looking through anything that might give them a lead on the scepter, but this footage was unlikely to do that so it was on a low priority for analysis.  That left Steve cherry picking clips to view for two days straight before Sam pulled the plug on his screen. 

In the end it was Sam that found it.  It was a short clip.  The lab had been locked down with only a couple of visits by technicians in the past few weeks, and at the time of this clip the electronic locks were fully engaged and the lab was empty.  A blue shadow appeared on one of the exam tables permanently set up in the middle of the room, heralding the arrival of a homeless-looking Bucky.  Immediately he curled up protectively, arms over his head, visibly shaking, before jerking sideways off the table and crashing to the floor.  Ragged attempts at breathing could be heard for about a minute after the crash, before the cowering ball of super soldier flinched again, and disappeared in another blue shadow.

Sam had called it a panic attack.  Possibly a flashback.  Steve had started reading some of Sam’s recommendations of psychotherapy books after that, at least so that he might understand the modern names for these things.  The fact that Bucky had appeared and disappeared mid-attack was surprising.  If he was panicked enough that he could barely breathe, how on earth could he operate whatever tech it was he was using to get around?

In both locations Steve had left a few notes on the walls.  Messages for Bucky if he should happen to drop in after they had hit them.  Sam had shaken his head at Steve when he saw the first one.  He knew it was a long shot, but he had to take any opportunity to reach out to Bucky.

Now, Sam’s suit and drone were complete and they were ready to take on something bigger.

“So did your neighbor downstairs quit glaring at you every time they see you yet?”  Sam asked as Steve wheeled his bike into the quinjet waiting for them on the private airfield that Tony favored.  Tony had acquired a number of the quinjets that he had upgraded for SHIELD, choosing to buy back his tech so that it wouldn’t end up in the wrong hands, again.

“Nope.”  Steve sighed.  Mr Adams on the second floor was unhappy that Captain America had the gall to move into his building.  He’d had a chip on his shoulder about the Battle of New York already, but then finding out that he’d been living next door to a death trap installed by Hydra ever since (who it seemed Mr Adams personally blamed Steve for not eradicating in 1945, as if he hadn’t even tried to do so) seemed to just solidify his opinion of Steve.  “He was complaining about me coming and going at all hours of the night the last time I saw him.  Leaving at the crack of sparrows this morning is unlikely to have improved his mood.”

“Oh man, you’d think being Captain America might give you a pass on having to deal with crappy neighbors.”

“Not everybody loves Captain America.”  Steve gave Sam a wry smile, then spotted the box in the back of the jet as he was securing his bike.  “I think that’s your present.”

Sam’s eyes gleamed as he bounded forward to the box.  “I know I’m supposed to be cool about this, and Tony was supposed to wait another month until he was properly out of recovery…but damn am I glad to have this.”  He opened the box and whistled.  “Nice.”

Inside the box was what looked to Steve like a toy jet plane.  Curved wings and sleek lines, rather like the quinjets.  Of course, being made by Tony, it was painted red.

Sam pulled the goggles and a pair of bracers from the side of the box, putting them on.  A panel on the bracer lit up as soon as the goggles were powered on.

“Hey there, Icarus.”  Tony's voice played through the earpieces in the goggles.  “Now this baby is your new best friend.  Go on, give it a whirl.  It's got all the bells and whistles you could hope for.  Stealth, speed, sensors.  I even built in a few defenses so it can survive the sort of thing I hear you like following Captain Spangles into.  The wings’ll take a bit more of a beating too, fly faster for longer, you know, stuff like that.  Just don't fly too close to the sun.  Say thank you.”

“Thank you Tony!”  Sam laughed aloud, touching the panel on the bracer.

“You know that was a recording, right?”

“I do, but I gotta take this for a test flight.”  With a few swiped on the panel, Sam had the drone hovering above the box.  He then sent it out the back of the jet, and around the airfield.

“Are you allowed to fly that in this airspace?”  Steve looked dubiously across at the ATC tower.

“I ain't gonna take ‘im that high.  Look, see, I've set him to stealth, nobody'll notice.” 

Looking up, Steve couldn't even see the drone anymore.  Sam, however, still had the camera feed on the panel on his bracer.  Executing a few precision moves, Sam brought it around the front of the quinjet to examine the cockpit, occasionally exclaiming unabashedly with glee.

“Okay, okay, Tony did good.”  Steve waited to get Sam’s attention back after he had put it through its paces.  “Think you're ready to let it loose for real?”

“Hell yeah.”  Setting the drone back down on the deck inside the quinjet, Sam powered down the goggles and bracer.  “Alright, let's get this show on the road.”

Steve got settled in the pilot’s seat while Sam radioed the tower.  The flight plan was already logged to take them up to Boston.  On the short flight they went over the plan.  Their target was an airfield at the edge of Boston housing Hydra aircraft and a small permanent crew.  Nat’s notes showed it to be a likely location for Hydra to move both cargo and personnel internationally, which meant that at any time they might have anything from a couple of small jets to a C-130J cargo plane.  Having Sam’s wings fully functional again meant they stood a chance of catching them if they decided to run.

As they approached Boston, Sam jumped out the back of the quinjet and made his approach to the airfield undetected, sending the drone out ahead to scout the area.

“We’ve got an Apache, two Chinooks, a Cessna Mustang, and oh, wow, Tony’s not going to be happy, or he’s going to be very happy we’re taking care of it; a quinjet.”

“Any idea on how many people are down there?”  Steve put their quinjet down in the private airfield already in the flight plan.

“Got a few heat signatures.  There’s got to be 10 in the main building.  3 more in the hangar with the Mustang.”  Steve could hear some of the wind noise as Sam circled the airfield.

“Find yourself a good perch, and wait for me to join you.  Don't get too close.”  Steve fired up the bike and quickly oriented himself, having memorized the local area map already.

“Perching.”

In less than ten minutes, Steve was at the edge of the airfield.  “Alright, are they still inside?”

“Yup.  Redwing’s showing the three in the hangar working on the Apache and the Mustang.  The quinjet’s hiding outside.”

“Redwing?”

“Gotta give the dude a name.”

“O…Kay…”

“He's too cute not to have a name.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Can we find a way to disable the aircraft?”

“Already did.  Or Redwing did.  On the Chinooks anyway – cut the fuel lines.  Can't mess with the ones they're working on without giving the game away and their quinjet's locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”

“Good work.”

“And, I have a plan.  Redwing and I can take on these three while you stir up the hornet’s nest in the main building.  Any that get past you will probably head for a getaway in one of these babies, and I'll be ready for them.”

“Any detail on how they're spread in that building?”

“You've got five or six near the back of the building, four at the front and two upstairs.”

“Ok, let’s do this.”

It all went to plan.  Until it didn't.

The four people at the front of the building turned out to be security guards.  Even so, it only took Steve two minutes to subdue all of them.  Not Hydra’s best.  There were six, not five, at the back of the building, and they were right next to a fire exit, which means that by the time Steve had incapacitated the first four and was catching his rebounding shield to deal with the fifth, the sixth had slipped out and was making for the hangar.

“We’ve got a runner.  Headed your way.”  He grabs the shield again and slams it into the face of number five, dropping him to the floor.

“Be there in just–a–” a crash noise came over Sam’s comm signal, “-minute!”

“Are you ok, Sam?”  Steve dashed to the stairs while keeping an ear out on the comm.

Another crash.  “Yeah.  Redwing’s tracking your runner.  I just need to disable these two in case anyone sneaks past me.”  He sounded slightly out of breath, but Steve trusted his judgment.

Upstairs, the sounds of the fight had clearly been heard, and Steve found one man climbing out the far window of an office while the other was setting fire to what looks like the previous contents of a filing cabinet now open and empty on its side on the floor.

“Hey!”  Steve threw the shield at the man in the window while simultaneously launching himself at the closer man.  Tackling him to the ground, he quickly smacked the guy’s head into the floor, knocking him out.  The shield knocked the climbing man fully out of the window, and Steve heard him hit the ground with a thud.

Steve searched the room with his eyes, not seeing a fire extinguisher anywhere.  The hallway.  Dashing back out of the office he snatched the extinguisher from the wall and took a few tens of seconds to figure out how to use the thing.  He’d had to attend fire safety training as part of joining SHIELD, but while they told you about the many different types of fires and extinguishers, it didn’t mean he actually had any clue how to use one.

He pulled the pin, and managed to point the hose at the burning pile of papers.  Clouds of powder erupted when he squeezed the lever, but he kept going until the fire was out.  He grimaced at the mess, thinking of the potential intel on those pages.  At least the rest of the place shouldn’t burn down, so something ought to be salvageable.  Moving over to the window, extinguisher still in hand, he spotted the window climber making his way towards the hangar.  Tougher than he’d looked if he survived that drop.  Discarding the extinguisher, Steve could hear the sound of an engine starting as he jumped out of the window to follow him.

“Sam, I have another runner.  I'm in pursuit and headed your way.”

Ahead of him, he could hear gunfire.  Steve quickly recovered his shield and ran towards the hangar.  The window climber opened a side door into the hanger just as the front doors were blasted open and a quinjet was revealed lifting off, Sam firing at it from behind.

Steve managed to throw the shield to jam the door closed and prevent the window climber from entering the hangar.  “Were you napping in there Sam?”

“Ha ha.  This guy clearly knew how to get into Fort Knox, and how to fly it.  Redwing can't get through the armor alone, but is hanging on so we don't lose it if it goes stealth.”

Steve caught up with the window climber, taking his feet out from under him as Sam blasted out of the hangar ahead of the quinjet, concentrating his fire on the cockpit window at short range.  Steve landed a kick on the climber's temple, doubled back to the door and yanked the shield out.  Glancing up to Sam, and the rapidly rising quinjet, he hurled the shield up to him.  “Here, catch, this does a good job on that armor.”

Sam swooped down to catch the shield and spun to slingshot it into one of the engines.  He then had to dodge quickly as the jet immediately tilted over towards him.  “A little too good!”

Steve ran forwards to catch the rebounding shield, then stepped back as the quinjet, on only one engine, tried and failed to maneuver over the runway and only succeeded in slamming itself upside down into the ground.  “Well I guess we’re not giving it back to Tony now.”

“I don’t think we’re going to get anything out of the pilot either.”  Sam landed next to the crashed jet after a quick survey to check that the cockpit was entirely smashed.  He touched the controls on his bracer, and Redwing rose up away from the wreckage.  “Glad you made it, little guy.”

“You know it’s not alive, right?”

“Hey I’ve heard you talk to JARVIS.”

“That thing is not the same as JARVIS.”

“Nah, he’s more like a dog.  Only better, ‘cos he’s already trained and doesn’t smell.”  Sam grinned.

“Let’s call in Sharon’s team and secure the prisoners.  Then I’m afraid we may have our work cut out to get our intelligence out of the mess upstairs…”

It didn’t take long for Sharon’s team to take the prisoners into custody.  Tidying up the mess made by the fire extinguisher took a lot longer, as Sam had helpfully pointed out.  But, at least they had something to go through.  The flight computers on the aircraft, and the two machines in the upstairs office contained a useful chunk of flight data from the last few years.  It was like getting access to Pierce’s address book, only without any handy labels telling them whose address was whose.  They could be locations of other Hydra bases, or allies, or they could be some Hydra goon’s favorite take-out stops.  There was just no way of knowing from the data they had recovered.

The papers were hardly more useful.  Similar to the files they had gotten out of the vault.  Plenty of invoices (nice to know Hydra paid its aviation fuel bills on time), a few high level communications from Hydra command, personnel transfers, from what they could make out after removing as much powder as they could.  It seemed that after Insight they’d already burned the more damning paperwork.

Painstakingly plotting the locations they had on maps, they spent the next two days comparing them with data they already had, items on Nat's list, and scraps of info Sharon could leak to them from the prisoners they took.  Eliminating targets they or Nat had already hit helped.

There were a lot of potential locations.  Quite a few across the US, but a lot of traffic outside it too.  They touched every continent.  They were just starting to see a bigger picture when Tony called.

“So, Pepper says I’m allowed playdates now.  And JARVIS has been stepping out on me with your data.”

“Hi Tony.  I take it you're feeling better?”

“I'm fine.  I've always been fine.  Did no-one tell you I had a special virus that cut the recovery time down to, maybe, a tenth of normal?”

“I know it made the whole thing possible, but you did need to take it easy.  Bruce said–”

“Yes, I know Big Green was also talking out of turn.  He said you tried to get yourselves killed in a big ol’ Hydra trap.  I saw his report on the gas you got dosed with.  Nasty stuff.  They really meant business for whoever it was supposed to take down.”

“Sure gave me a headache.”  Sam moved closer to the phone, so Steve put the call on speaker.

“That you, Icarus?  Got your thank you note.  Along with the heap of burnt scraps that was all that was left of that quinjet.  But, better that than in Hydra's grubby paws.  You’re invited too.  Let's make it a party.  If Ms Rushman is around you can let her tag along too.”

“If you mean Nat, I don't think she's stateside at the moment, but you never know with her.”  Steve thought wryly of the sporadic additions to their intelligence they'd received from her.

“Yes, she has been busy hasn't she?  This is why we need to coordinate.  You've all been borrowing JARVIS which means he's the only one who can see bigger picture.  Or, well, most of it.  Incy wincy likes to keep her cards close to her chest.  And I'm aware you're not sharing everything either.”

“Well, we've got a couple more items on our list, then we can swing by once we have everything we can?”

“Sure.  It's not like I'm busy.  Trying to protect the world from aliens as well as the scumbags on the inside wanting to tear it all apart.”

“Thor hasn't been in touch then?”

“No, ET has not phoned a friend.  Not even his girlfriend.  She's brilliant by the way.  Does some amazing things with wormholes.  Including hopefully sending something to our wayward alien.”

“Well, hopefully he'll be in touch.  I don't really want to find the scepter but still have nowhere to put it.”

“I think Legolas might be with you there.  Although the idea of the octopus legions having it is faintly disturbing too.”

“More than faintly.”  Steve could only imagine what Hydra could be doing with that sort of power.  He only hoped they didn't know what to do with it.  “I'll let you know when we've got anything on it.”

“Yes.  You will.  Although JARVIS will tell me sooner, so I'll know if you don't.  If you need backup on your little raiding parties, don't call me.  Pepper won't let me put on the suit for another month.”

“We're good, thanks.  You've done plenty upgrading Sam's wings, and gifting him that drone–”

“Redwing!”  Sam shouts.

“Oh you gave him a name?  I knew I liked you.”  Tony sounded pleased.

Sam grinned at Steve.  “I couldn't let everyone just call him drone.”

“Well said that bird!  Don't be strangers.”

“Bye Tony.”  Steve chuckled at Tony's parting quip and turned to Sam. “I suppose we should start planning to hit the next one.”

Chapter Text

The Soldier pulls yet another hard drive out of a pocket and adds it to one of his stashes.  His mission to take out Hydra had taken him to yet another small outpost of Hydra agents.  They have so many of these waypoint bases.  Intelligence agents mostly, hardly more than safehouses.  He has avoided taking on anything larger.  Anything where there might be agents that knew the code words.  Or, where he knows they might have a cryo tank or a Chair.  That isn't for any strategic reason, other than he doesn't know what he might do in that situation.  That he hasn't been able to imagine being near a cryo chamber or a Chair and not complying with orders to submit to them.

There were a few of them around.  He has regained enough memories of the process to know that they weren't all the same.  Weren't all in the same base.  Not necessarily enough pieces of those memories to know when they had happened though.

He has quite a few of these stashes now.  Brimming with data that tries to leak through the whispers into his head.  Some of it is useful and he welcomes it.  A lot of it is not and it hurts.  When he raids a base that he remembers, more of the data is painful.  More of it is about the Soldier.  His missions.  His punishments.  His obedience.

When there is too much pain he avoids the next base on his list and gathers intelligence elsewhere.  After his foray into the Smithsonian to find intelligence on Captain America, he has found that there are other branches of the Smithsonian that provide intelligence.

The American history museum was particularly helpful.  He learned so much about this country.  About the presidency.  One of the faces there had made him think worryingly of his Dragunov sniper rifle.  He learned about entertainment.  There was…music.  Guitars.  Videos.  Costumes.  Puppets.  The ruby slippers captivated him.  They echoed something buried in his more fractured memories.

The military history echoed also, but in a more uncomfortable way.  He spent only a little time staring at the World War II jeep, feeling his skin crawl with a need to check for the presence of the enemy.  He did access the cameras around him so he could see all access routes to the room he was in, but found nothing unusual.

This time he makes his way carefully into the natural history museum.  The stuffed animals he finds less interesting.  Many of them he has already encountered, alive, and finds their stuffed counterparts to be disturbing.  As if frozen in a cryochamber.  The skeletons are worse.  They do, however, have a building of green plants where he can stand quietly and butterflies flutter past and around him.  After he has stood there for some time they have no care of what he is.  The bright colors flittering about are…soothing.  They are so delicate.  Fragile.  So different from anything the Soldier is, or has experienced.

After spending time in the museum, the Soldier is finally able to rest, his mind slowed and distracted from the endless chatter of the whispers, of the memories, of the Asset.  Recharged, the Soldier once again straps on his armor and weapons, leaving his civilian clothes, money and food in another rooftop stash.  He has built up a healthy store of provisions, stored in multiple locations.  For the most part he rests on rooftops.  Sheltering where he can away from the elements when necessary.  He tries not to move in a predictable pattern.  He has observed civilians a lot.  Their daily patterns are very predictable.  The old lady who always catches the same bus every Tuesday.  The same faces passing into and out of a metro station every morning; the young man always eating his breakfast from the burrito truck, the couple who kiss goodbye, one walking along the street while the other heading down into the station, the middle-aged man listening to his headphones (always voices discussing different topics every day).  The girl making drinks every day for the customers at a coffee shop.

Staying hidden, he has watched the interactions between civilians with part curiosity, part fear, and part desire. 

They speak to each other, touch each other, without anyone getting hurt.  Mostly.  There are some who try to take what is not theirs.  Some who wield weapons to get what they want.  Observing this makes the Soldier restless.  He prowls up and down the rooftops when he spots groups or individuals not adhering to the social code.  Those who seek to hurt others. More recently, he has removed weapons from some of those individuals.  It is a simple matter for the Asset to do this without being identified.  Just a few days ago he scared away a group of young men trying to intimidate staff at a dance hall (His memories call it a dance hall.  The manager calls it a club.) late at night.  The manager called after him to press a stack of paper money into his hand, asking him to stay for the rest of the evening as they were short of defenders for their business, or so the Soldier understood.  He took the money.  When the troublemakers came back later that evening, he made sure they understood the rules.

The next evening he had watched from the shadows, but the troublemakers did not return.

Now the Soldier has his mind on a different target.  One of the bigger Hydra bases in the US.  Based out in the desert, away from prying eyes.

First he makes a reconnaissance trip.  Some of the closer bases to the Triskelion that he has visited have been empty, either by choice, or some clearly by force.  Other people are also hunting Hydra.  He knows that one of them is the mission.  Captain America.  Hesitantly the mind supplies Steve.  He knows this, because he has found notes with that name on.  And the strange code words.  Which is stupid because code words don't work written down.

He does not know if the mission being out there hunting Hydra is a good thing.  Less Hydra is certainly a good thing.  That the mission is well recovered and able to defend himself is a good thing.  But the Soldier's stomach twists itself in knots as if there are small creatures trying to get out when he thinks about the mission going out and picking fights with Hydra.  Sometimes I think you like getting punched.  What if, the next time, the mission does something completely stupid like charging in without a plan?  The shield is good, but not that good.  The Soldier needs to get to the bases ahead of the mission, make sure there is nothing left to endanger the mission.

This base has not been cleared.  There are Hydra agents and technicians scurrying about and the whispers confirm it.  Listening in, it seems that the US teams are trying to regroup here.  Out in the sticks like this there is plenty of space to not be seen.  There are three squads here.  Not quite complete, they have had some casualties and some desertions, but most of them.  They are reasonably well equipped too.

The Soldier makes careful note of the guard patterns, the building layout, the door codes, the inventory, the transfer notices.  He will need additional firepower.  Thinking about the various stashes he has secreted in hidden spaces, he reaches for one after another, loading up.  No backup team carrying additional weapons in convoy.  But he does deposit a backup cache of weapons, ammunition and medical supplies in a particular location with no other significance, in case he needs to pick up extras during the mission.

He takes a few hours to rest before the mission.  Discovering his limits of rest and refueling has given him a greater insight into mission planning.  Some of this insight has come from the whispers.  Reluctantly some has come from the hidden notes he has locked away inside his mind, although it seems that Hydra didn’t have it quite right.  The notes don’t explain everything he has come to discover.  The more he reaches, the more rest and refueling it seems is required.  This mission is likely to involve a lot of energy.  Best to be as prepared as possible.

Choosing the timing of his entry into the base with the shift patterns of the guards, the Soldier slips quietly through the scrub vegetation between buildings.  He is close enough to tune in to the whispers again, making sure that everything is as expected. 

Making sure to squash the comms and security cameras, he reaches for the locations of the perimeter guards one by one.  None of them hear him coming.

Eight dead guards later, he turns his attention to their communication hub, annexed to the main building.  It is conspicuous by the noise of the whispers.  He wants to take it out just to eliminate the ache in his head, but it also makes tactical sense to remove their ability to signal for help.

The Soldier holds on to the signals, deadening the noise slightly.  Inside his head the noise is still disorientating this close to the source.  It puts him slightly off balance.  Reaching for the inside of the building, he stumbles as he arrives.  This split second of distraction means he misses the first shot.

The technicians scramble into action.  Some rise and take up weapons.  Some stay seated, trying to sound an alarm.  The noise increases, a bright pulse point trying to break through his hold on the signals.  The whispers are like drills driving through his skull.  His grip on them slips.  Pushing out into the whispers he instead squashes everything nearby.

Sparks fly from several terminals as the lights flicker and go out.  The whispers are blissfully quiet, which allows the Soldier to catch up with the physical reality of one taser, two bullets, and a mug of coffee that have hit him, almost unnoticed while he wrestled with the whispers.

Fortunately these technicians are not proficient at ranged combat; one bullet deflected off the metal arm, the other embedded itself in his armor.  The taser is powered at a level intended to incapacitate a regular human, not the Soldier.  The coffee mug is perhaps the worst result, leaving the bottom of his torso and his right pants leg hot and wet and uncomfortable.

He returns fire, weaving his way through the darkened room.  Every shot makes its mark.

Sweeping through to check he hasn't missed any last cowering technicians, he is aware that the lack of power and gunshots have drawn attention.  Surprised, however, they lack coordination.  He takes a few minutes to rip out the wiring to more permanently disable Hydra’s comms, both within the base and without.  With those gone, his head feels clearer, and he can start picking out the individual signals of approaching agents.

His next target is the helicopters between the buildings.  Taking only a few seconds to secure their communication logs that might have useful intel, he reaches for the landing field.  The pilots and flight crew are still inside the base.  But, there is something else here.  Staying hidden, he listens closely to the whispers as he works on disabling the helicopters quietly, one by one.  Someone’s already kicked the hornet's nest here, could be your boy.  That is the voice of the flying man in the whispers.  Wilson.  He had left him in charge of the mission.  Could he actually be Hydra?  Horror freezes his insides at the thought.  Is the mission here?  Is he in danger?  Bracing himself, he opens up more to stretch out his perception of the whispers.

There is an…awareness in the whispers.  The Soldier flinches away from it initially, but it does not seem to notice his presence.  It is watching, circling the base.  Reporting back to…a location in the desert at the edge of the base.  A reconnaissance drone?  What is it up to?  He almost stretches to squash the signals from the drone, when he spots a flash of movement on that side of the base.

Cap, what are you doing?  If he’s here I’m going to find him.

The Soldier spots the shield at the same time as he hears the voice.  The mission is here.  Unbidden, the thought comes, That idiot is going to get himself killed.  He readies his weapons and follows the figure with his eyes as it moves towards the biggest building, now bristling with Hydra agents all scrambling to determine the source of the power outage.

He rolls his eyes.  His plan had been to use this chaos to disappear into the inner parts of the base he needed to reach to complete his main task here.  If he didn’t have to protect the mission from himself, he’d use his idiocy as a distraction.  Instead, he’ll have to use himself as a distraction.

Assessing the mission’s movement and the locations of the Hydra agents, the Soldier quickly reaches for one of his stashes, picking up a grenade launcher, and back to the edge of the base.  He first double checks nothing has gone drastically awry in the few seconds he was away, then sights a group of trucks in front of an outbuilding away from the main base.  The resulting explosion certainly draws attention.

Having drawn attention, he runs across in between the flaming trucks and ducks inside the large outbuilding behind, where he drops the grenade launcher.  The whispers tell him that he has successfully attracted the attention of not only Hydra agents, but the mission. 

Time to take care of his true target here.  Out of sight, another reach takes him to the very lowest parts of the base.  Behind all the layers of security and guards.  Down here there are only a few technicians still present, and they are all on the wrong side of the secured doors.  Still, his presence is clearly detected, and a speaker starts playing words spoken by the handler.  The Soldier viciously squashes the signal before it can finish ordering him to return.  He knows this message; he has heard it before at other bases.  At first it was difficult to resist, but he has gotten better at squashing it on reflex, to not listening to it.

In front of him stands another chair, and another cryochamber.  These don't have the updated adjustments in place on the one in the vault in Washington.  He's not sure how long it has been since they were used.  Since the Asset was last here.  The memories are still fragmented.  Disjointed.  He doesn't really know for sure how many of them there are.  How many there ever were.  But getting rid of them can only be a good thing.  He can't risk Hydra trying to put the mission in either of them.  Or using them again on the Soldier to bring out the Asset.

Suddenly he lunges for the chair, tearing apart the structure.  It is…flimsier than he would have guessed.  Still, it was built to hold him, and not all the pieces can be broken by hand.  That's what the explosives are for.  He rips the door off the cryochamber, never to be fully enclosed again.  Pulls the pipes and cables connecting the gas cylinders out after.  Scatters pieces of both machines around the room.

He cannot afford to indulge in this expression of…whatever it is…for long.  The mission cannot be trusted to stay out of trouble.  Neither can the technicians in the next room, who have been trying to set off some system in this room to release a gas with little success while he holds onto the signals.  The Soldier swiftly pulls anything that might contain data out of the machinery without checking it, stowing them in pockets, and places the charges.  The data could have useful information, but is only likely to be distracting right now.  He briefly checks over the room, checking for the safe where the book of code words might have been kept.  His memories are too disjointed to be sure he knows where it would be.  He doesn’t find anything.  There might not be one, or it might be elsewhere in the base.  The uncertainty is disquieting.  He sets the charges on a very short timer.

Reaching again for the surface, he makes another slightly theatrical performance.  It clearly works, drawing both Hydra agents and the mission on a wild goose chase between base outbuildings.  Sam, he's gone the other way.  It makes no sense, Cap, what on earth is he up to?  No idea, but let's thin the herd chasing him.  On your six.

The explosives are only just audible from above ground.  With the mission safely distracted taking out the squad above ground with Wilson at least seeming to be on his side, the Soldier reaches for the bunker again, this time landing outside of the locked security doors. 

The doors are now buckled after the explosion that took out the chair and cryochamber, the bullet-proof glass window to the containment area has shattered under the force of an exploding gas cylinder and the technicians are in disarray.  Easy pickings.

He places more explosives here, this time targeting the structural supports of the basement, leaving the circuits open to be triggered remotely.

The initial explosion has drawn some of the last squad down to this level.  They are cautious.  Listening in to the short-range comms available to them without the communications hub, he knows that they have guessed what he is.  There are no cameras in the hallway.  He’ll have to do this part the hard way, having no desire to reach blindly into the space where he thinks the hallway is without knowing for sure what's there.

He throws a grenade through the doorway, towards where the whispers of their comm signals are clustered.  Following out after the explosion, he exploits the narrow hallway to prevent them from surrounding him.  He grimaces, hearing the whispers confirming that they have identified him, and squashes them down, strafing through the group with a machine gun.  There is minimal return fire; in the narrow hallway visibility is reduced by the smoke and debris from the grenade.

Moving quickly, he takes out the few remaining active figures on his path through the hallway.  He places more explosives at structurally important locations before getting a good look at the staircase.

Time for another performance.  He hears the drone from earlier scouting the outside of the building, and takes note of where the mission is.  Reaching for a spot out of the way of the squad members currently drawing the Wilson’s fire, he then moves deliberately out of the shadows into the view of the drone.  Shouldering his gun, he takes shots at the few remaining Hydra agents out in the open.  Not the ideal weapon for this distance, but he takes out all but one.  Hearing through the whispers that Wilson has identified him as intended, he dashes around the corner of the building into the shadows again.  On this side of the building is the armory.  Even locked down, it takes him only seconds to break in.  First through a window, then the whispers tell him the codes for the doors and the metal arm shears off the deadbolts as if they were made of putty.

Here he picks up plenty more explosives, and rigs the remainder to blow on his signal.  Next door is a garage where there are plenty of cameras and smaller, sleeker vehicles than outside.  He can see that the higher levels of command are doing exactly what he would expect of them; running.  Upstairs, there are still lower level agents trying to preserve intelligence and equipment.  The Soldier reaches for an unobserved corner of the garage, and opens fire.

In response to the hail of bullets, doors slam.  Two vehicles are at least partially loaded and immediately start up, driving for the garage door.  A third is still loading, a knot of people packing equipment into it.  They are all armored.

The first vehicle rams the garage door, slowing its progress, but allowing its exit.  The second follows through the gap.  Through the drone, the Soldier can see both of the vehicles running into the path of the mission, who was moving to intercept where the drone last reported the Soldier to be.  The Soldier manages to take out the third vehicle’s tyres, as well as the agents still outside the vehicle.  One hiding just inside the doorframe manages to clip him with a bullet in his thigh.  He surges forward, ignoring the wound, and pulls the guy out, shooting him at point blank range.  Stepping over him, he tosses a grenade into the front seats to take care of the two men there.

He checks the drone’s view of the chase outside while he sets some more explosives.  The mission has taken out one of the vehicles using his shield, and he is now subduing its occupants.  Wilson is still chasing the other.  The Soldier considers suspiciously if he might be a Hydra plant that will deliberately let them go.  If the mission doesn't manage to assist and ensure capture, the Soldier will have to come back for them later.

While they are occupied, he reaches again for the upper levels of the internal staircase.  This area is nearly empty of people.  A pair of technicians with a single agent standing watch are frantically typing commands into a series of computer terminals.  The Soldier can feel their attempts to reach the outside world coming up against the gap he created in the communications hub.  There is some satisfaction in knowing that their efforts are fruitless.

The agent hasn't spotted him yet.  Silently, he approaches from behind.  Sloppy lookout work, but he's happy to take advantage of it.  Moving quickly, he reaches for the agents head and twists, snapping his neck.  The technicians startle, but have nowhere to go as he pulls the agent’s gun from his hands as he falls and shoots twice.  Kicking the bodies out of the way, he simultaneously rummages through the whispers to determine if any of the data is useful as he places yet more explosives.  He grabs a couple of potentially useful data drives, but makes sure that what he has left will be slagged in the coming demolition.

Sam?  Got ‘em, Cap, just gotta make sure they're not gonna slip out if I turn my back.  Any sign of our friend?  Redwing last saw him heading into the main building, close to where these escaped from.  Right, on my way.

Ugh.  How is he supposed to keep Hydra away from the mission if the idiot keeps running straight towards them?  He dashes for the roof, making sure he's in view of the drone.

He steps right up the edge and checks the ground in front of him.  It's only a couple of floors, he's made worse landings.  He does check the wound in his thigh first.  Not ideal for a drop like this, so he pulls off his belt and ties it around the wound, feeling a small trickle run down inside his pants leg.

He’s on the roof, south side.  Heading in.

No, punk, don't do that.  This building is rigged to blow.  Taking a deep breath, the Soldier steps off the roof in full view of the drone.  The landing jars more than it ought, thanks to the bullet hole in his leg.

Shit!  Abort, Cap, he's down; on his way out by the look of it.  Which way?  Far side of the building from you.

Time to make an exit.  Favoring his wounded leg only slightly, he runs for the still-burning trucks and into the outbuilding there.  Keeping an eye on the drone footage, he waits until the mission is outside of the estimated blast radius.  Probably.  Then he pushes the signal to blow all the explosives he's placed out into the whispers.

Okay, maybe he overdid it a little.  He winces at the thought of a handler observing that.

The drone was a bit too close to the blast.  So was the mission, although he was already on the move and had the shield in his back which offered good protection.

Woah, what the hell was that?  Cap, you ok?  I think so.

Once the drone stabilizes, the Soldier borrows it to get a good close up of the result. 

Woah, maybe some of Redwing's circuits got fried.  Hang on.   I guess we know now why he was leaving.

Where the main building was, is now a crater full of rubble.  Most of the upper floors have collapsed down into the bunker below.  Built to withstand an external strike, it hasn't stood up to his strategically placed blasts inside and out.  The disorganized pile burns satisfyingly.

There's not much left.  I don't think we're going to get anything useful out of that.  Is he still here?

Damn punk wasn’t going to let it go.  The Soldier picks up the grenade launcher he abandoned here earlier and reaches for a spot not far from the outbuilding, and fires back into it.  It doesn't have much in it, but it will create a trail.

That sounds like a yes.

He spots movement by the more distant vehicle that had attempted to escape and frowns.  That is the one Wilson supposedly took care of.

Moving closer, it looks like a couple of them are awake and one has nearly gotten free of the bonds Wilson placed on them.  He fires again, into the vehicle they are propped up against, before striding away into the scrub vegetation.

Damnit Bucky!

The Soldier stumbles.  The strange code word.

I don't know, Sharon might be happier with fewer prisoners to process.  Although, we still have no idea what they were up to out here.

He should leave.  But he feels like his feet have been welded to the desert.  He watches as the mission covers ground but doesn't spot him.  It isn't until Wilson nearly flies over the top of him that he manages to move.

A short reach takes him out of their search zone.  Accessing the drone he can follow their progress.  Is Wilson competent to be left looking after the mission?  He can't quite shake the feeling that he needs to keep a closer eye on him.  And the mission.  To make sure the mission is protected properly.

Others arrive, and take away the remaining prisoners.  More arrive, and start shifting through the rubble.  The mission stays to confer with them for a while, then he and Wilson pack up, returning to a jet parked further out in the desert.  The Soldier is surprised he hadn't noticed it there; the stealthing on it is incredible and, well, he's been a bit focussed in the other direction.

Once they lift, he is able to pull their flight plan from the whispers.  New York.  He follows.

New York is loud.  There are whispers everywhere.  The Soldier has taken to frequenting the highest rooftops to get above the worst of them.

Following the mission around this city is a treacherous occupation.  Even aside from the mind-twisting whispers everywhere, there are so many people.  Hydra could be anywhere.  And then, the mind keeps offering tiny snippets of memory.  A bakery.  An alleyway.  A school.  Another alleyway.  An apartment.  A church.  Yet another alleyway.  A grocer.  Snowball fights.  Stickball in the park.  A beating from a teacher.

They ambush him without warning.  Sometimes he can shrug them off.  Other times he gets stuck for hours and loses the mission.  When this happens he panics, worrying that Hydra could have snatched him while he wasn't watching.

The mission's apartment is particularly treacherous for these memories.  He desperately tries to focus only on the present while on watch, but all too often finds himself disoriented by a sort of double vision.  The memory overlaying the reality.  It feels disturbingly like after the code words are completed, and there is a disconnection between himself and the world.

Sometimes, when the mission seems safely ensconced in his apartment, usually reading through piles of paper or notes on a computer (He prefers these as he can pull through the whispers to find out what they are.  He is somehow both unsurprised and disappointed when they are always notes on Hydra.), he follows Wilson instead.  Better to know your enemy.  If he is an enemy.  The Soldier is still undecided on this point.

These missions are usually less likely to be interrupted by memories.  Wilson, it seems, has several home bases.  Sometimes he stays with the mission in an apartment surrounded by civilians.  Sometimes he goes back to a house in Washington.  In the daytime he makes not infrequent visits to a communal building, housing services for ex-soldiers.  Veterans they call them.  Mostly it seems like a lot of talking is all that happens in there, although they sometimes serve snacks too.  Twice he has tentatively explored inside when he was certain Wilson had left.  Both times he came away with a pocketful of leaflets, without managing to speak a word to the staff, and directions to nearby homeless shelters.

Most of the time, though, Wilson sleeps over at a very tall building with a large A on the side.  He has heard the building called Avengers tower by oglers on the street outside.  This building is particularly noisy.  In a similar way to the Redwing drone, this entire building has an awareness, only more so.  It has a voice.

The Voice is everywhere in the building.  Every whisper seems to resonate with it.  It feels slightly oppressive, so he stays outside of the building and only pushes gently into the whispers to watch Wilson's progress, or the mission, as he sometimes visits the building also.  Occasionally the Voice seems to be watching him in return.  He has had more than one occasion when that attention has felt like the scrutiny of a handler and he has had to retreat and recite numbers to keep himself from surrendering to discipline from the Voice.

The buildings near the Voice are some of the best places to be in this city though.  They are so high, so far above the noisiest parts of the city, excepting the Voice.  He has found the quietest spots often house hawks in their nests, peacefully spending their time above the hustle and bustle of the people below.  He does not know their names, but there are several different types.  Some still have fledglings in the nest and the parents are quick to chase off the Soldier, even at his most unobtrusive.  Others he has sat beside for hours, watching both the birds and whispers.

He takes advantage of the mission’s preference for staying in his apartment.  When he is not following the mission or Wilson, he has been exploring other sources of intelligence in this city.  Hoping for more distractions as well as information he visits several museums.  Art is incomprehensible.  What is the purpose of these images?  Historical record?  This seems unlikely as some are surely physiologically impossible.  Unknown faces, unknown places parade along the wall in a mystifying pattern, yet he stays and looks.  It is the smaller, simpler works that draw him in.  Where he can almost see a hand, holding a pencil, or occasionally a pen or a brush, moving over paper, making marks.  Not his own hand.  A smaller hand.

It is the whispers that lead him to a better distraction in this city.  Snippets of information not necessarily based in the whispers, but descriptions of books.  They lead him to the libraries.  There are many of them, dotted across the urban landscape.  Many have their own specialities, whether that be books about things that have never happened, books about science, medicine, history, law…anything and everything more than he can think of.  At first it is intimidating, that much knowledge contained in shelves and bindings and paper.  He starts where the museums had begun; with history.  The mission’s history.

It was a long time ago it turns out.  He hadn't really registered this in the museum.  The history books carry on after.  In between then and now.  He tries to connect the two ends but gets muddled when other books start triggering memories.  Memories of missions.  They make him feel sick.  He has to spend some time reciting the numbers to bring his stomach back under control.

He retreats to the rooftops again.  It is peaceful, watching the young birds learn to fly, if occasionally heart-stopping.  It is a long drop.  The young bird’s bravery is rewarded, though, as it manages to spread its wings at least ten floors below the Soldier and glides to another rooftop.

Maybe he could afford to be a little more brave too.

The Soldier goes back to watching the mission.  He and Wilson sometimes head out together.  Their forays against Hydra bases are an exercise in anxiety for the Soldier.  Fortunately he is able to glean their destinations from either the drone or their flight plans, and can usually arrive ahead of them to disable the worst of Hydra’s security systems.

After the complete lack of discipline and self-preservation shown by the mission at the desert base, the Soldier has been careful not to let himself be seen on these expeditions.  Lord knows the mission doesn't need any extra reasons to be reckless.  Keeping himself hidden is not that hard.  Although the margins have occasionally been tight when saving the mission from himself.  On one mission he had to jump in only 2 feet behind the mission to take out an agent who had snuck up on him.  The Soldier had urgently reached for a spot in the shadows before the enemy had even hit the floor, but still nearly got made.

Most of the time he hitchhikes the whispers to watch from the drone.  The Soldier knows they are gathering intelligence, but so is he.

What is more worrying is that they are sharing this intelligence they have gathered.  After missions, initially they would spend most of their time at the mission’s apartment, going through it, sometimes with an appearance or two from the redhead.  This time, however, they leave together to take their intelligence to the building with the Voice.

Trying to keep watch while dodging the Voice is difficult.  He tries reaching over into empty areas of the building, but the oppressive feeling of the Voice and the oh so many cameras to try and divert makes him abort very rapidly.

He has, however, got a thorough feel for the way the whispers and the Voice feel after watching for Wilson’s previous visits.  By listening, without pushing, he has learned to filter the regular daily rhythm of the building.  Without attracting the attention of the Voice.  It is not enough though.  Every time he loses the Wilson when he goes further inside.  He must go to one of the highest floors, because the Soldier has managed to track him most of the way up the tower before he lost him the last time.  But even the whispers have limits.  If he doesn't push to find the connections to other systems, he can only hear whispers so far away, and the building is tall.

This time, when the mission and Wilson enter the tower together, the Soldier decides to take a different tactic.  He reaches for the roof. 

Up here the whispers are still loud.  Not like on other tall buildings.  The Voice is even clearer.

One by one he filters through the signals, until he finds the mission.  As expected, he is with Wilson, and the redhead.  And another man.

Together, they are inspecting projections of data files and maps.  A twitch into the whispers allows him to see what they can see.  This signal has an overlay of the Voice, but the Soldier is immediately absorbed.

They have a lot of data.  Much more than he has observed the mission acquiring.  The redhead has been busy.

As the projections flick through different locations, the Soldier’s attention snaps to several that he had avoided returning to voluntarily.  A shiver runs through him, and he is tempted to remove them.  They flicker instantaneously, and he feels the ominous presence of the Voice hanging over him, before he releases them.  Unwanted memories arise, tied to these locations.  Medical procedures.  Wipes.  Other faces.  Discipline.  32557038.  Focus!

Access to this data is restricted.  Who are you?

They don’t know.  The mission doesn’t know.  The Soldier can see a face in the memories.  The face watching while others cut into the body.  Take apart the body.  Put it back together.  Put things in.  Take things out.  Always watching. Talking to handlers.  Prisoners.  Kids’ faces. The stomach rebels, splattering this morning’s intake on the roof.

No.  The mission cannot go there.  They even have a picture of the face in their files. A name to go with it.

Authorization is required to read and write data to these locations.  I will have to alert Sir to your presence.

The Voice.  The Soldier shakes his head, trying to clear the memories, trying to release the hold he has on the whispers that is giving him away.  But he can’t let the mission go there.

Within the whispers he can hear the Voice speaking to the people in that room, and they start moving.  He can also feel the Voice trying new ways to insert itself between him and the data.  He rapidly squashes the memories that have leaked out into the data, squashes the location that triggered them, trying to hide himself and protect the mission at the same time.

I must insist that you are not authorized to access these files.

He does not continue to fight, instead retreating ahead of the Voice.

Chapter Text

Tony was bored of being benched. 

Pepper had forwarded him the minutes of the latest board meeting, probably hoping to put him off returning to work at SI.  Ha.  He’d already been in and added notes on over a dozen different current research and software projects, speeding up the design process significantly. 

Plowing through the minutes he found a number of inaccuracies in the estimates put forward by two of the department heads.  Didn’t anyone proofread their proposals these days?

He had already redrafted the specifications for the Iron Man suit three times since he came out of surgery.  It could be manufactured within 6 hours if he needed it.  Just because he hadn’t needed it yet and wasn’t allowed to use it yet didn’t mean he wasn’t prepared.

At least Pepper had agreed that creating the Iron Legion could stay on his to-do list.  He’d tried talking it through with Bruce, but while the man is brilliant in physics, he’s not exactly top notch in psychology and hence the Iron Legion was born out of Tony’s paralyzing fear of extra-terrestrial attack.  Pepper had witnessed too many of his panic attacks and had reluctantly allowed that as long as he didn’t move to help with any heavy lifting, working on the project might actually help him sleep.

Which it did.  Sort of.  His sleep was still punctuated by visions of space and the enormous fleet of aliens poised to attack the Earth.  Although occasionally his brain liked to mix it up with betrayals by various teammates (thank you Stane, Ms Rushman, and recently Hydra for that particular revival).  And after his recent reading material supplied by said Ms Rushman, he’d also had a few torture-based dreams that usually resulted in him waking up in a cold sweat, clutching at his chest.  Fortunately there was only the scarring remaining on the outside for him to claw at.

Although, he did actually appreciate being kept in the loop.  He knew Pepper hadn’t wanted them to share the data with him, but who was she kidding?  The implosion of SHIELD and the scattering of a huge chunk of their and Hydra’s databases being scattered all over the ‘net?  He would’ve had to be dead to have missed that.  He’d never turn down additional data on an active problem, and Hydra was sadly still an active problem.  Tony would have taunted Captain Spangles about a job half done, except he’d seen his face, and not even Tony Stark is that cruel.  Unless it was Hammer.

All of which meant that if he couldn’t be in the Iron Man suit himself, he desperately needed to beef up Rhodey’s suit (no way was he calling it Iron Patriot).  The Iron Legion were only a sensible backup for him.  JARVIS, or Tony, could pilot them from right here in the tower.

But still.  He needed to know he’d done all he could.  And he couldn’t do that sitting at home in the tower.

“You’ve still got to do more PT before you’ll be strong enough to fly that again.  You know that, right?”

Tony jumps as Bruce walks in, catching him trying on some of the armor.

“In principle, this baby could make up for any reduced strength.”

“Only if you wanted to pay for it later.  Work up to it, Tony.”

“Yeah, so they tell me.  Only Pepper keeps locking me out of the gym.”  Tony takes off the gauntlets he was adjusting and breaks out a screwdriver.  “And she won't let me do contact sports.”

“One step at a time.”  Bruce eyed him carefully.

“Sounds boring.”

“Yes, well, maybe Nat can keep you entertained.  She's just arrived upstairs.”

Tony points at Bruce.  “She'd better have brought presents.”

It turned out, Natasha had brought presents.  Several terabytes of presents, along with some boxes of paper files that Tony sneered at.  “What are we, dinosaurs?”

“No, but at least these can't be erased the way a lot of the Hydra files loose on the ‘net have been.”  Nat looked closely at him, and seemingly he passed muster because she moved on without comment.

“JARVIS, get a scanner sent up here from whatever department downstairs is archaic enough to still use one.  Legal?”  Tony side-eyed Natasha as he passed this comment, but got no reaction.

“Yes, sir.  I'll get building maintenance to bring up one of the two in the post room.”  Natasha raised an eyebrow at him at JARVIS’ response.

Bruce was flicking through some of the paper files.  “I'm not sure I'm the best person to go through this stuff.”  Turning one final page, he went very still.  He very carefully closed the file he had open, breathing very slowly.  Without another word, he walked out of the room.

“Well that's encouraging.”  Tony looked longingly at the bar, wondering if he might need some Dutch courage.  Natasha was too busy watching the doorway where Bruce had left to notice Tony.  Maybe he could get away with it…

“Don't even think about it.  If you start, we won't stop and we have a lot of data to go through here.”  Natasha’s glare was once again on him.

“We?”

“I’ve seen that bottle of Beluga under your bar.  And I've seen some of what's in these files.”

Tony sighed and turned back to the files.  “Give JARVIS what you’ve got digitally.  J, cross reference the new files with what we’ve already got, add any new locations, names, dates to our database.”

Natasha plugged the various drives she’d brought with her into a number of ports, and they got to work. 

He’d been through the files Natasha had released from the Triskelion servers several times by now.  Most wasn’t very surprising, particularly given he’d already hacked most of SHIELD’s data previously.  It really rankled with him that he hadn’t spotted the Hydra infestation back then.  They even had the Hydra weapons from the human popsicle’s era.

The original files from the data dump were limited by what Hydra had kept at the Triskelion.  Which, fair.  No point keeping the goods right under the noses of agents you don’t completely own.  The fight wasn’t over though.  Natasha, Clint, Cap and even Fury had been out and about doing the legwork, gathering more intel and cutting off a few heads.  Except Hydra heads kept growing back, didn’t they?  There certainly didn’t seem to be any shortage of scum still out there.

The only thing the data dump really made clear was how much they didn’t know.  Secretary Pierce had clearly squirreled away Loki’s scepter after the Alpha Strike team took possession of it in New York.  Not even a paper trail.  If it weren’t so frustrating he’d admire the bastard for his skills.  The whole data set was riddled with holes.  Personnel and materiel disappearing and appearing all over the shop.  How did Fury never notice?  He was supposed to be The Spy!

Some of the data had seemed to be very crudely shredded; pretty recently too.  Presumably some Hydra agent who got wind of the data dump plan somehow.  Or just jumped the gun after Cap’s announcement in the Triskelion.

The data that was present was clearly focused on the US.  Very little of it seemed to relate to Hydra operations elsewhere in the world.  Some of the financial data clearly showed a partial trail, but for the most part they truly seemed to have operated as separate cells.  Fury, along with Natasha and Clint as accomplices, was slowly making headway tracking other cells in Europe and Africa, slowly working their way from one to another.  Natasha’s old contacts in the Motherland had turned up a few loose ends, but nothing substantial.

Unsurprisingly, Fury had been…reluctant to share the goods with Tony.

Still, he did have the best digs and the best tech, so Natasha had brought it to him anyway.  Not without bringing Captain Stick-in-the-mud along though.  There was definitely something going on there.  Oh, Tony knew the good Captain didn’t like having his life’s work turn out to have been for nothing, but there was definitely something more.  Something about the fight at the Triskelion.  He hadn’t exactly been in the best place to get the juicy gossip out of them at the time, what with his chest knitting itself back together.  Still, they had been useful for clearing out the US bases, so he hadn’t minded playing hotel for the sidekick tag-a-long Cap seemed to have acquired.

It made sense to compare notes at least, so Natasha had invited them over for a play date.

Still, they weren't due for a couple of hours.  In the meantime, JARVIS started pulling together files for Tony to look through, and Natasha started loading piles of paper onto the scanner that had appeared.  Every few minutes she had to stop it and unjam the pile, cursing Hydra's inability to use regular sized paper.

To begin with the files Tony reviewed were run-of-the-mill business reports and the like.  Only highlighted by JARVIS for unusual references to named projects and locations.  Chasing down these rabbit holes though, lead Tony to some seriously dark material.  Hydra definitely weren't picky about who they worked with, or in some cases what they had to pay them with to buy their loyalty.  Or on the other side, what they might have to threaten to buy silence.  There was plenty of evidence of both.

Other people clearly hadn't had a choice.  It wasn't obvious, Hydra had done a good job of dressing the paperwork prettily to hide it, but there was a good trade in prisoners going on between bases.  Some of those bases, and these were the most obscure, difficult to find details on, appeared to have been conducting human experiments, with the rejects shipped out, either as top-security prisoners (or asylum residents), or as organ donors.  Of course from this paper trail it was impossible to tell if the remaining missing prisoners were successes, or if they'd just disappeared into an incinerator to hide the evidence.

Even just the snippets of details of the state of the prisoners in these files turned Tony's stomach.  It was later, when JARVIS started sending him the scanned in paper documents, that he found more details on some of the prisoner transfers, and lost his lunch.

Shortly after that, the walking American flag and his sidekick turned up.

And, well, Tony had to give it to them, they did bring more good intel.  Useful intel, even.  A lot of the locations matched up with the transfer data he’d gone through earlier.  There was definitely something going on in eastern Europe, and even more specifically something going on in Sokovia.  A particular name kept cropping up too; Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.

“Sir, I believe we have a digital intruder who has bypassed my protocols.”  As JARVIS said this, the displays in front of them flickered.

Shit, JARVIS was being hacked?  He rapidly pulled up JARVIS’ security logs.  “JARVIS, gimme a trace on that signal.”

“It does not seem to originate outside of this tower, Sir.”

A mole?  Not unheard of, but he did pretty stringent screening on his employees.  To the side, he could see Cap and his friend standing up, arming themselves.  The logs were dancing in front of him now as he rapidly scrolled through.  Nothing terribly obvious, but then anything obvious would have been caught by the protocols.  Wait, what was that?  Some of the numbers flickered.  The logs were being overwritten?  It was very subtle.  Not everything was being changed.  Just the odd digit here and there.  But there was a strange commonality to the sequences.  Repeating number sequences scattered through the data.

“Hey, I was looking at that.”  Natasha looked over.  “Something in your system eating my files, Stark?”

“Working on it.”  He could see it, he just couldn’t see where it was coming from.  Time to kick it out.

“Need a hand?”  Natasha moved over to see what he was looking at.

“Just need to…” Tony was rapidly firing commands into the code, no time to properly test this.  “Hey, yes, you can at least reroute the traffic from JARVIS’ scans to a local drive while I isolate whatever this is.”

Natasha ran the necessary commands, finding the locations for Tony’s private servers far more quickly than he would like.  “Ok.  Ready to go.”

He almost had it.  Tony pushed the new code to JARVIS’ server after only the most cursory of tests.  All green.  As it went live, the morphing data seemed to freeze momentarily.  “Gotcha.  Now where did you come from?”

“What was that?”  Captain Stars and Stripes wanted to know.  “A…what do they call it…a virus?”

Tony snorted.  “Close, give that man a gold star for effort.”

“In fact, it did not feel so much like a virus, as almost another consciousness.”  JARVIS responded.  “A consciousness that has now retreated.”

“Another AI?”  Natasha looked meaningfully at Tony.

“Not one of mine.”  Tony continued poking at the logs, but nothing flickered or changed.  “It does seem to have gone.  For now.”

JARVIS added, “Indeed, I was not familiar with the code.  It first appeared inside the main firewalls.  The infiltration was not…methodical.  Neither was the data manipulation.”

“You’re right there.  They’ve only gone for this Hydra data.  But the extraction is neat.  I can’t even tell now what is missing.”  Tony kept searching through the data.  “There’s only this weird numeric sequencing, which seems entirely meaningless out of context, but bits of it keep appearing around the changed data.  It’s like a hacker leaving a signature.  JARVIS I want a head count on this building.  Anyone in or out today, any other data discrepancies.  Particularly anyone leaving now.”

Cap moved to stand up.  “I can go watch the exit.”

“Do you even know what you’re looking for?  I have thousands of employees in this building.  Not to mention a lot of exits.”  Tony rolled his eyes, whilst still scrolling through lines of code, watching for snippets of that sequence.  The interesting thing was that he could swear there were signs that data had been added as well as taken away.

“Maybe not, but I can read behavior.  I know I’m not the most subtle of guards, but anyone spotting me is going to twitch.”

“Might be worth a shot.  JARVIS will watch anyone leaving not by the main entrance.”  Natasha moved to stand with Cap.  “And if I watch, nobody will spot me.”

“Fine.  You go do your thing.  I’ll just tidy up here.  JARVIS, can you get Bruce looking at this too?  If he’s not still a bit green from earlier?”  Tony highlighted the parts of the code and logs he’d found with the odd numerical sequence.  The numbers were gibberish, but always in the same order.  5703832, 325570, 38325, 55703.  The pattern of the data around these sequences was interesting.  There were holes, that was certain.  But, not as many as he had perhaps feared.  Had they caught the hacker program early? 

The missing data appeared to be a few locations and details about Hydra operations in Sokovia.  Annoying, as those were their best leads, but not completely incapacitating because there were a lot of locations still on the list.  If it was Hydra behind this, why not wipe everything they had? 

“Sir, analysis of the personnel present in the building implies no suspicious behavior in anyone still present.  There are some anomalies in several camera feeds earlier today, but none at the time of the attack.”

“Show me.”  JARVIS brought up several camera feeds of completely random different areas of the building, each transforming into static before resolving back into the original empty room.

“You know, I always figured your tech must have faults too.  Nice to know it isn't infallible.”

Tony jumped, and spun round to find the sidekick standing behind him.  “What the hell?  I thought you left with Captain Spangles!  You do know I had a heart condition?”  He rubbed his chest with a hand, almost missing the titanium of the reactor.  But actually, really not.

The sidekick raised his hands in a placating gesture.  “Woah, didn’t mean to startle you.  You ok?”

“Yes.  Well, probably.  Once this breach is sorted.”  Comments from Bruce started appearing next to some of the code.  “Aha, Brucie’s back.”

“That’s the Hulk, right?”

Tony gave the sidekick a sideways look.  “No, the Hulk is what happens when you piss him off.  Although, he’s got a remarkably tight lid on it.  Bruce is a genius.  And I don’t say that lightly.”

“But he was feeling green earlier?”  Damn, the sidekick was actually paying attention.

“The reading for this project isn’t exactly for the faint of heart.  Not that he is, but, well, he’s more of a bleeding heart than anything.”

“Right, yeah, I feel him on that.  I could have done without seeing some of the files Nat brought back last time.  Or the ones we found in that lab.”

“So, you’re, what, following the good Captain around these days?  Cleaning up his mess?”  Tony continued pulling through the data, trying to ascertain how the foreign code had been inserted, and sharing snippets with Bruce, eyes firmly on the screen.

“Among other things.  Look, I’m not trying to muscle in on the Avengers, that’s his thing.  And your thing.  But he asked for my help and I feel like I’m not done with that.  Hydra are bad news.  They need to be stopped.  That’s all it is right now.”

“What if the Avengers want you?”  Tony glanced back at the sidekick.  “I mean, an extra pair of hands is nothing to sniff at.  An extra pair of wings certainly isn’t.  We’ve got big things coming our way.  It’s gonna get messy.”

“I mean, I’ll never leave you guys in the lurch if there’s a situation that needs me.  I’m no Iron Man.  No Captain America.  But I’ll pitch in where I can.”

“Great to have you on board.  I’m sure the pirate will love you.”  Tony waved a hand over at the scanner Natasha had been manning.  Womanning.  Whatever.  “First job, can you run those through again?  One benefit of paper is that anything in there won’t have been deleted, so we can fill the blanks back in again.  And don’t blame me if you get nightmares!”

After hours of painstaking work, much of it through JARVIS’ help, Tony and Bruce managed to determine the sum total of the damage.  There were definitely still holes.  They did manage to retrieve a lot of the data that had been removed from the scans of the paper files, but it was decidedly odd.  There was information added as well as removed.  Only a few odd scraps had been added, alongside the numerical sequence, but they definitely weren’t there in the paper documents.  They’d been back and checked by hand.

Most of the deleted sections related to the Hydra scumbag Strucker.  It seemed he had been elbow-deep in human experimentation.  Being Hydra, he hadn’t bothered working too hard on getting consent.  From context, the same was true of the digital data, only they couldn’t restore that.  Sadly, most of the paper records didn’t bother to include locations.  Just lots and lots of detail on the experiments.  In fact, the added information from the hacker included even more of this.  It was oddly structured, with few details.  Mostly it consisted of slightly corrupted images and occasional snippets of metadata around these.  The images were only really good for more nightmare-fodder.  Bruce had unfortunately helped Tony to recover the first one and, when they had finally managed to display something, he had walked straight out of the lab again.  Some of them did include Strucker’s face, confirming his involvement.  More victims were seen that hadn’t been in the original files, including kids.  The only question was, was the hacker trying to hide Strucker, or convict him?  What they’d left behind had made it harder to find the current whereabouts of Strucker’s bases, but had added potential evidence that the international criminal courts would have a field day with if they ever saw it.

Either way, it was time to finally do something about it.  Tony had finally passed his last physio hurdle, and Pepper had grudgingly allowed that he was fit enough to put the suit on again.

Even Natasha had put him through his paces and admitted he was ‘not a liability’ as she put it.

Now, they were on a three-pronged attack on known Hydra locations, hoping to find a more central base to concentrate the next attack on.  Natasha and Barton were somewhere in Latvia.  Rogers and Wilson were chasing around Austria.  Some old haunt of Rogers’ along with one of the new leads.  Tony and Rhodey were in Hungary because Clint refused to go anywhere near Budapest.  Strangely enough Natasha was quite happy to go back there, and neither of them would give any details about their past experiences.  Even SHIELD’s files didn’t have the gossip.  Maybe one to ask the pirate next time he dropped in for a visit.

“How's the old Iron Patriot?”

“Tony, you know I didn't keep the name.”

“If you're not a patriot anymore, what do I call you?  Iron Traitor?”

“Ha ha.  Please don't get me court martialled.”

“No, really, what do I call you?  Iron maiden’s already taken you know.”

“War machine is fine.”

“What, are we back in the noughties?  That name was moth-balled.”

“Air force wanted to go back to it.  At least I don't have to put up with another new name.”

“You could be the Iron Backup.  No, that's terrible.  What about Iron Soldier?  Iron Wingman?”

“Could we concentrate on what we're supposed to be doing?”

“Oh, I am.”  Tony angled the suit to bring it in close to the target industrial complex.  “Thermal scan shows there's nobody here.  Power’s still on though.  Hopefully not so old and forgotten about that any data we find will be useless.”

“Not much of a target is it?”  Rhodey dropped down to land beside him on the roof.

“No.  Natashalie is still babying me.  Says I need to ease back into it.”  As he spoke, Tony used his repulsors to blast open the roof door.

“You'd better be right that it's empty, and a soft target.  Nobody will have slept through that.”  Shaking his head, Rhodey followed as Tony made his way into the building into a stairwell.

“Sour patch, this was never much of an active base even in the records we already have.  It's more of a long term storage facility.”  A pigeon suddenly fluttered down from the rafters above them, causing Tony to duck in surprise, powering up his repulsors again.

Rhodey started laughing at him.  “Now who’s jumpy?  Are you the Iron Bird-scarer?”

“Yup.  I’m scary.” Tony moved further down the stairwell.  “You better hope I'm scary to anything else we find in here.”

“Probably rats.”  Rhodey clanked down the steps behind him as he came out into a corridor.

“Them too.”  On the HUD Tony scanned through the walls, estimating what the highest priority targets were.  “I'll take this level, you head downstairs.”

“Keep your eyes open, Tony.”

Once Rhodey had disappeared down, Tony moved to the only apparently powered section of the building.  This was their token security for the facility.  It only took Tony a minute to gain access to the systems.

Quickly, he checked over the inventory listed, not only for this building, but the whole complex.  Nothing very surprising.  A good number of military vehicles and associated equipment.  They had a fair haul of stuff here, if generally outdated.  Guns.  Ammo.  Armour.  Plain clothes too.  Also trivial stuff like chairs and tables.  Tents.  Marquees even.  Not many people though.  The last recorded entry on the inventory was over 8 months ago, so before Insight.  The security system was automated, and Tony had already rerouted the alarm calls it had tried to send out.  There appeared to be a weekly check-in due in two days’ time, but they wouldn't need that long.

This building had a mix of computing and lab equipment on this level, and general office furniture below.  Some of it dated back a few decades, but some of it was more recent.

Tony quickly trawled through, snatching up memory chips that might contain data from various pieces of equipment.  Most of the hard drives were missing, but a few were still present.  RAM chips also were often forgotten when wiping old equipment, and he snagged a good haul of those.  They had a good array here, representing life sciences mostly, which could be a good and a bad sign.  Good, that they were potentially getting somewhere, but bad in that they could be in for another stomach churning night of reading if Hydra's taste in life science experimentation was on the same level as the previous intel.

A lot of the kit originated from the eastern bloc.  Difficult to get a more definitive origin though.  The security system was more helpful for that.  The alarm signals gave them a good read on where the local Hydra cell watching over this storage must be located.

Tony heard clomping up the stairs, but the HUD told him it was Rhodey returning from his less fruitful tour downstairs.  “Good day at the office, dear?”

“Very funny.  You knew there was nothing interesting down there, didn't you?”  The war machine armor opened the face plate to reveal a grumpy-looking Rhodey.

“I had an idea.”  A few more keystrokes aaaand yes, they had the full database from the security system downloaded.  “Time to make a mess?”

“I thought you'd never ask.  Anything worth a second look?” 

“Nah.  Just light it all up.  I’ll take east, you take west.”  Tony had all the data they were going to get secreted away in the armor.

Rhodey nodded, shut the face plate again and, in sync, they both fired missiles into the building supporting columns on each side.  Firing repulsors, they burst through the windows as the building started to collapse.  Tony twisted in flight to head to the left, while Rhodey headed off to the right, sending more missiles into the surrounding buildings.

Once the whole complex was reduced to smoking rubble, Tony had JARVIS pull up a flight plan to the local Hydra cell in the next town.  This one would be manned, and could be expected to shoot back even if they hadn't noticed the destruction of their storage facility.

It was manned, and they had noticed. 

Fortunately, it was a fairly small cell.  Not much more than a relay station, with a small squad of muscle to protect it.  They certainly weren't prepared for a visit from Iron Man and War Machine.  Sadly, the one thing they were fully prepared with seemed to be cyanide capsules.  They had not managed to capture any personnel, but they did get a nice bundle of data from their relay station.  Lots of forwarding addresses.  Mainly in Sokovia, Romania and Ukraine.  Tony was just uploading the data to his own servers for later analysis, when JARVIS interrupted.

“Sir, you wished to be alerted to further evidence of hacker activity.  I believe I have identified traces of the same behavior in Redwing's current data.”

“Back up any data you have from them, double back up.  I don't want to lose anything they think we shouldn't have.  Where is Cap now?”

“Captain Rogers and Sergeant Wilson are in Kreischberg.  They have already made stops in two other locations.”

“How long for one of us to get to them?”  Rhodey was sweeping the other rooms, but there really wasn’t much here.  The only thing they could still find out was what the Hydra goons here had dropped down the back of the sofa.  Which, considering, was possibly relevant, but was likely to only yield stale chips or worse.

“Minimum of 1 hour 20 minutes, Sir, unless you break the rules on ultrasonic flight over land.”  Yeah, not going there.  Ross would have his ass in a moment if he blew out windows across central Europe.

“Rhodey, you mop up here, make sure it’s burnt and salted.  Hydra don’t get it back.  I’m going to head over to back up Capsicle in case it comes to that.  J, en route I want to see everything you have from Redwing on what that hacker has been accessing.”  With Rhodey’s acknowledgement, Tony headed straight out of the building and into the sky.  He barely saw the buildings and countryside below him, intent as he was on the code JARVIS was displaying in the HUD.

There it was again.  That string of numbers.  Utterly meaningless on its own, but now that he had noticed them they were like a red rag to a bull.  Hackers often were egotistical and liked to leave calling cards, evidence of their prowess.  Tony could relate.  If anything, this one had got even more prolific with his callsign.

“Sir, I believe there are more subtle traces of intrusion in Redwing's previous data.”  Highlighted snippets of code danced in front of Tony's eyes, but the timestamps caught his eye.

“This isn't just today's mission.  Look through all of Redwing's missions.”

“Detailed analysis of all of the data will take some time, Sir.”

Tony started categorizing the various snippets.  “Ok, J, just keep running it in the background, I'll come back to that later.  For now, we need to keep a closer eye on what they're doing now.  Get Cap on the line.”

Most of the intrusions appeared to be exceedingly trivial.  Almost as if the hacker were only observing, piggy-backing on Redwing's data.  A stalker?

“Tony?  Is there a problem on your mission?”

“Not on mine, Cap, on yours.”  Many of the hacker’s call signs sat suspiciously close to missing data.  Particularly missing video data.

“Explain.”

“You've got a digital hitchhiker.  Something or someone is getting into Redwing's code.  They're watching you.”  Or using Redwing to watch something else?

“Can they control it?”

“I think so.”  Tony could see where the hacker’s additions into the code had been redirecting Redwing's systems to different areas.  Trying to avoid seeing something, or looking for something?  That was the million dollar question.  “I'm trying to isolate it, but right now, yes they’ve been actively pushing him around like a nerd in a locker room.”

“So we need to shut it down?”

“No, I'm hoping I can use the signal to trace the intruder.  But watch your backs.  I'll be there in–” the numbers flashed up on the HUD, thanks JARVIS, “1 hour and 11 minutes.”

“Gotcha.  Thanks for the heads up, Stark.”

The flight felt like hours, even though it was only one.  He was constantly watching the code on Redwing and pouncing on new intrusions.  They just kept popping up, no matter how he tried to block them.  Oddly, it didn’t seem like a very coordinated attack.  It almost might have been easier to fend off if it was.  The nature of the hacked code changed also.  Initially it seemed to just be watching, redirecting, but slowly more and more just seemed to be data dumped into the code willy nilly.  They didn’t even seem to make sense.  For now, he just isolated them and dumped them in a secure server in the cloud.

As far as he could tell, the additions to the code weren’t even affecting Cap’s mission.  It might slow Redwing down very slightly if it was needed, but it wasn’t.  They’d already been to the occupied locations, when the hacker had mostly left Redwing alone.  Not completely, but mostly.  Now, in a place where Hydra didn’t seem to have been since Cap originally hit them in World War II, the hacker was trying to slow it down?

He finally arrived to find Wilson reclining against a tree, clearly having given up any hope of finding anything useful.  Nearby the quinjet he’d loaned them was parked in an open area next to the shell of an old building surrounded by rusted gates and barbed wire.

“Hey there, Goose, or do you think of yourself as a Maverick?  I feel Capsicle has covered Iceman, so maybe that would make you Slider?”

Wilson blinked at him, apparently taking time to parse the question.  “I always felt more of a Cougar myself.”

“Ah, a cat man.  So where’s the man that time forgot?”

“Still poking around in there.”  Wilson nodded at the ruined building behind him.  It looked about a hundred years old.  So, presumably, it was the original that Cap had known back in the day.  “I tried to get him to leave, but he wanted to wait for you.”

“Yes, well, I’d like to say I’d made some headway in dislodging your digital hitchhiker, but he’s persistent.  Have you had any problems with your mini-me?”

“Nope.  He’s been fine.  More than fine.  He’s great.  Did I say thank you for him by the way?”

“You did.  But you can do it again.  But for now, let’s get him and the Iceman over here.”

Redwing reached them first, returning from the perimeter it had been traversing.  Tony had a good look all over, to see if there were any alien parts attached that might be letting the hacker in more easily, bypassing some of his security.  Satisfied there was nothing on the outside, he opened up the casing just as Cap appeared from inside the ruin.  

He looked…not good.  Wilson eyed him carefully too.  They’d already been to a couple of other bases today where they encountered live Hydra agents by Redwing’s data, but despite the grime evident on his uniform (is it a uniform if it’s the only one of its kind?) from the previous fights it looks like the dead Hydra agents here have had more impact.  His eyes were bloodshot, hair disheveled, and he moved as if there were dead weights sewn into the seams of the suit.

“Damn, Cap, you ok?”  If Wilson was asking, he’d presumably looked ok when he’d wandered off.

“Yeah, just…I didn’t think this place would hit me this way.  Last time I was here, I found Bucky, met Schmidt for the first time and the place blew up.  I guess I almost forgot I can’t rescue Buck here again.”

The look on Wilson’s face suggested there was more to this story than Cap let on.  Tony gave them about 10 seconds, looking from one to the other, before deciding he didn’t need to get involved in whatever super soldier drama was going on.

“Good sharing, ok.”  Tony turned back to the inner workings of Redwing, but didn’t find anything there either.  “Well, I can’t see anything foreign in here.  Our hacker must be getting in through the security protocols, somehow.  Mind if I hitch a ride home with you while I look at it with a fine tooth comb?  No?  Good, seeing as it’s my plane and all.  Let me know when you’re ready.”

He could see Wilson shaking his head as he flew the short distance to the jet and set up shop in the back of it.  Hopefully they’d work out whatever emotions were going on there before they were cooped up in a small jet with him for a few hours on the way home.

During the flight, he reviewed a few thousand lines of code that JARVIS flagged to him.  That damn hacker had been getting into Redwing for months.  “Bird brain, you ever feel like you’re being watched?  ‘Cos you have been.  Lots.  Like, nearly every mission recently.  Probably in between too, but I can only see it in Redwing’s code.”

“Well, we did take on a spy organization.  Which turned out to have an evil spy infestation inside it.  So, I figure at this point, somebody spying on us doesn’t feel hugely surprising.”   Wilson glanced back towards the cockpit where Cap was occupied.  “Although, I hadn’t really thought about them watching us through our own tech.”

“No, well, they shouldn’t be able to.  Not tech that I’ve given you anyway.  I’m gonna fix that.  I don’t know how yet, but I will.”  Tony worked his way through the intrusions, piecing together the fragments of inserted data.  More images.  Mostly dark, and blurry.  One pretty good one of a face.  Tony ran it through facial recognition against a known Hydra database first, and immediately got a result.  Dr Arnim Zola.  A youngish looking Zola at that, or maybe that was just the image corruption.  More links to Hydra, but were they a fan, an enemy, or something in between?

Right.  Well, if he couldn’t stop the hacker getting in, maybe the next step was to set a trap.  A subroutine to pick up on these intrusions sooner and track the signal back.  Tony started avidly coding, plugged into Redwing’s core systems.  There was no way he was going to let whoever it was beat him.

Chapter Text

Of all the places the mission could have gone.  Why did he have to go there?  The Soldier shudders and fights to clear his mind yet again.  Following the mission had led to a burnt out old factory just dripping with memories.  It seemed that having awoken these ones, they wouldn’t now leave him alone.  They kept coming back, again and again.

The Soldier had had to go to ground when, with the storm of memories swirling around his head, some other entity seemed to try and push against him looking through the drone’s cameras.  A hostile presence, more than the semi-conscious program controlling the drone alone.  At first he had fought, but fighting both the memories and this new attack was overwhelming.  In the end he reached almost blindly for somewhere safe, away from both.  Fortunately even in that confusion he’d managed to end up once again in a cornfield far from any people.

Sorting through the memories, he had tried to piece together what that place had been.  He still isn’t sure.  It didn’t seem to be a base of any sort currently, the ruin is too old.  Although, the face with the round glasses was there.  That face is in a lot of memories.  A lot of painful memories, generally where the Soldier was restrained on a medical table.  These are only slightly different.  More blurred.  Yet there don’t seem to be any memories of cryofreeze.  Or missions.  Maybe it was only a medical facility?  But there are flashes of a factory floor, of faceless people working, the Soldier among them, to create weapons, machinery.  It doesn’t make much sense, but then many of the memories don’t.

Now he needs to find out where the mission ended up.  He checks the apartment and breathes a sigh of relief to find him and Wilson both crashed out asleep.  How long had it been since he'd left them?  The Soldier checks the whispers and estimates it had been a day and a half.

Listening more closely to the whispers, he realizes that there are more signals than normal in the apartment.  The drone is here, but there are more.  More whispers focussed on the mission.  On Wilson.  Watching them.

Immediately he thinks of Hydra.  Have they traced the mission?  Traced the Asset?

Assured that the mission is currently unharmed and not in immediate danger other than the increased surveillance, the Soldier dives into the new whispers, following them.  Navigating the paths of the whispers is heady.  Data flows in all directions, tugging him randomly towards different destinations.  He realizes that he recognises the tenor of the surveillance whispers.  The Voice from the tower.  The Voice is watching the mission?

He reaches for a perch above the tower where he can observe the Voice.  It is late in the year, all the nests are empty now, but the Soldier still looks out for the birds.  There is a young falcon with speckled feathers sheltering from the wind nearby, cleaning its feathers.  He imitates the young bird, settling into an alcove out of the wind.

Within the almost chaotic mix of signals surrounding the tower, he can just about pick out the video stream of the mission’s apartment.  He can also feel the attention of the Voice.  It is spread throughout many of the signals, lightly on some signals, more heavily on others.  

The Soldier listens.  It is something he has had much practice at.  He closes his eyes to the sky, the clouds, the birds, the wind.  Immerses himself instead in all the echoes he can hear of the Voice.  It is a busy Voice.  It is busy watching over this building.  But also other locations the Soldier can only feel a vague connection to, including the connection to the mission’s apartment.

While the Voice is present in all of these places, it is loudest in the highest parts of the tower.  Moving to better be able to observe, the Soldier bids farewell to his perch buddy and reaches once more for the roof of the tower.

He can’t resist checking the video feed of the mission, just to be sure.  The mission is shuffling around his kitchen.  Apparently making himself a drink of some kind.  Only, as he watches, the image freezes.

The Soldier’s heart stutters.  No, no, no.  Pushing further out into the whispers he tries to reestablish the connection.  Why would the Voice stop watching just as the mission started moving?  This was the craziest kind of surveillance.

He then becomes aware of the Voice's loudest focus.  It is calling someone.  It is the man who had been here inspecting the Hydra files before.  With the redhead.  The Voice addresses him as Sir.

Then he realizes.  The Voice is alerting Sir to the Soldier’s attention through the whispers.  They are trying to…push him back out?  Stubbornly, he does not want to be pushed out.  But a greater part of him wishes to remain hidden, so he eases himself out, reaches for his usual perch on the roof of the mission’s apartment building and listens directly to the whispers here.  The mission is now staring at the walls, sipping his drink.  Not in imminent danger.  He returns to the tower.

The Voice and Sir are still searching for him.  He watches for a while, subtly reinstating the feed to the mission’s location in the background so he can still watch over him also.  While they search for him, he looks for information on them.  The Voice is called JARVIS.  He seems…kind.  Despite being pushed out by JARVIS previously, the Soldier acknowledges that it was done…protectively.  Not vindictively.  He and Sir are engaged in trying to protect JARVIS and the rest of the tower from intruders, in particular SHIELD and Hydra.  Which, he can get on board with that.  No-one, especially him, wants Hydra to get their hands on a feed to the mission’s current location.

Their walls won’t stop him from listening in.  What he does…he can’t exactly define it.  But the whispers let him listen from inside the system.  Not from the outside.  But he can help them to keep others out.

Gently, he nudges elements of the code into forms that he can see will keep other signals from reaching the surveillance on the mission.  It even makes the stream quieter for him, buried slightly, under a wall of misdirection.  Sir has not noticed these changes.  He moves on to find the files they were sharing with the mission.  The intel on Hydra.

You are still here.

The Voice has not missed his efforts.  The Soldier expects him to raise an alert with Sir.  To push the Soldier out once more.  Before he can be stopped, he moves to the Hydra files, building similar walls around this data.  He makes intricate patterns, finding them soothing.

What are you doing?

Keeping the monsters outside the door.  He shakes his head.  He shouldn’t respond to the Voice.  That only confirms that he’s inside, not outside where they seem to want to keep him.

Who are you?

The Asset.  He clamps down on himself.  No.  No he can’t.  He dives into the Hydra files he has been protecting.  The same ones he saw last time he was here and also more.

They are incomplete.  But.  Some of the data does jog his memories, again.  A face that watched.  They have a name for it.  Baron Strucker.  He knows it.  He has not managed to purge it from the intel that will be shared with the mission.  The memories are still fragmented, but less overwhelming.  If he cannot prevent the mission and his protectors from pursuing this avenue, he is going to have to beat them to it.

Some of the data includes files he doesn’t want to see.  He wants to eradicate them.  But they obviously managed to get them back after his last visit.  For long minutes he drowns in sensations.  Bright lights.  Nausea.  Needles.  Hands.  Boots.  Blood.

32557038.  His breath is short.  The Voice is speaking to him.

–data is restricted.  You should not be able to access it.

32557038.  His stomach contents are on the floor.

If you are trying to help, you would do better to stay out.

32557038.  He feels drained.  Even the Voice feels far away.  The Soldier has seen enough.  No more.

No more what?

He breathes.  He pulls at the video stream of the mission, who is currently cooking eggs on his stove.

What is your interest in Captain Rogers?

Keep him safe for me?

The safety of Captain Rogers is currently high on my priorities.

The Soldier nods to himself.  It feels strange, but he trusts this Voice.  JARVIS.  He can feel JARVIS’ thoughts in a way he can’t with people.  They are clear.  He wants to keep Hydra away from the mission.

Now it is the Soldier’s turn to do the same.

With resolve, he reaches for one of his most secure bolt-holes.  He needs rest before he can achieve this task.  Just a few hours.

He checks in with the mission before he heads out.  Kitted up with all the armor and weapons he hopes he could need, he listens from the roof as the mission cheerily chats with one of his neighbors, helping her with her shopping on the stairs.

He watches as the mission is encouraged by Wilson to get out of the apartment and join him at his veterans’ center.  A group that will be ‘good for him’.  Good.  He is occupied.  In a public place, and with backup.  About as good as it could get without locking him in a bomb shelter.

The Soldier focuses on his current target list.  Between the files he found at the tower, and the memories they stirred up, he has a few locations to try.

The first two are little more than safehouses.  Only a couple of Hydra lackeys in each.  Minimal intel.  He does pick up some nice knives though.  And a tasty sandwich.

Restocked with ammo, he reaches for the bigger base in eastern Sokovia he has been saving until he’s warmed up.  This one he has memories of.  The Baron had been here, often even, but it was not his home location, and probably still isn’t.  But it might lead to that location.

This is a research facility.  Plenty of labs.  Plenty of cells for the experimental subjects, willing or not.  Enough troops to subdue the ones who fought back, but not so many as to appear unusual in the outskirts of the town it is situated in.

He watches the comings and goings of the facility for a couple of hours before he makes his move.  Sitting high up in a tree across from the wire fence he can both see the movement of personnel around most of the site and listen in to the whispers, which give him a better view.  There are cameras everywhere.  Did they have those when he was last here?  Not that he can remember precisely when that was anyway.  Could have been decades for all he knows.

The sun drops down below the horizon.  The Soldier generally prefers to move under the cover of darkness.  Twilight in particular gives him an advantage over most regular soldiers, as they struggle to see in the half light.  It is time to strike.

Squashing the comms signals and relevant cameras only as he reaches each guard post, he reaches for the positions of the soldiers he can see on patrol, on watch and at the entrances.  Knife work.  So much quieter; he doesn’t want to advertise his presence here yet.

He moves for the labs next.  There are more guards at the doors, but they are quickly dispatched.  It is the end of the day, although for Hydra that doesn’t mean that everyone has gone home.  There are always the fanatics among the scientists.  The ones who seem to almost live in the labs.  But, it is quieter than it could be.  Some of the labs are empty.  He shudders as he passes these, filled as they are with equipment, papers, chemicals.  He takes out a couple of lab assistants tidying up for the day and pockets data drives as he passes through.

The lower levels are busier.  

The soldiers are easy to find.  They are all wearing comms.  No alarm has yet been raised, and they do not expect attacks from behind when they are watching the doors.

Scientists are nearly as easy to find.  Usually tapping away at a tablet or computer, the ever-changing signals in the whispers like eddies in a stream indicating that there is someone inputting data.  He almost misses a couple that are having a quiet coffee break in an office.  It’s not until they finish their break and open the door that he notices them.  Sloppy.  Too reliant on the whispers.  He hurriedly leaps over to them, smashes the first’s head into the doorframe and hisses at the sound the mug makes when it smashes on the floor. The second almost gets a scream out, but the thrown knife in his throat silences him.  He winces at the smash of the second mug.  After, he rescans the area with his regular senses, checking for any other missed personnel or any sign of the noise having been heard.

Stealthily he progresses down again to the lowest level.  Down here there are a couple of soldiers in each of the two occupied rooms.  Back up muscle.  The Soldier can smell the antiseptic in the air.  One of the occupied rooms is an operating theater.  He resolutely refuses to allow his own memories of such rooms to surface.  Even so, his stomach is churning.  Maybe that sandwich was a bad idea earlier.  It is only muscle memory of similar experiences under handlers’ gazes that keeps his body from shaking.

The test subjects are the ones he can’t find with the whispers.  The first room he comes to he initially thinks is unoccupied, but he finds a test subject strapped to a gurney.  He is young.  Only just a man.  Thin.  Bald.  Only weakly moving.  Eyelids fluttering.  The Soldier can see track marks on his arms.  Barely healed scars around his head.  More scars that disappear under the thin gown barely covering him.  Why has he been left here?  It feels like a pit opens up inside the Soldier.  Empty.  Cold.  He walks up to the test subject, utterly unnoticed, and does what he wishes someone had done for him when he had been in the same position.

The sound of the gun is too loud.  It is only after the fact that the Soldier realizes that he should have used a knife instead.  A Hydra soldier comes to the doorway and shouts.  He fires another round, neatly felling him, but it is too late.  The shout reverberates up the corridor, and in the whispers he hears the alarm go up.

For the Soldier, time feels slowed.  He marches out of the room and up the hallway to the other occupied rooms.  Two more Hydra soldiers emerge, but they move slowly compared to him.  He barely registers the blows that he lands to make them fall.  Stepping over them, he uses one bullet per technician and medic in the room.  Efficient.  He saves one for the test subject on the table, organs still exposed.  At least they’d used anesthetic on this one; they die in their sleep.

Another Hydra soldier enters the doorway behind him, firing almost blindly. He ducks and rushes forward to grab the gun and turn it on its wielder before he can fire a third shot.

Across the corridor is the final occupied room.  This only now contains two, no three, cowering technicians.  The last is trying to hide behind the desk.  This room contains the data center for the laboratory.  The signals in here are less whispers and more like a crowded room, filled with noise.  The name Karpov shouts at him from the din, but the handler is not here.  He spares little thought to killing the technicians, but when he turns around having filled his pockets with drives pulled from the data center, there are indeed three bodies on the floor.

The building is quiet.  Nothing moves.

As he moves out of the research building, there is more noise. More people still alive.  An alarm sounds in the barracks.  The Soldier reaches for the control room where the alarm sounds loudest, both to his ears and in the signals.

Squashing down on the alarm signals does at least quiet some of the noise.  He is aware of a number of guns being drawn, and two already firing.  Deflecting the shots with the metal arm, he sweeps his own weapon around the room, firing automatically. He moves as he fires, taking out one, two, three, four, five, six agents in the control room.  Seven, with the one coming in the doorway.

Some of the wide shots and ricochets of the Hydra agents have damaged the systems in the control room.  The whispers sound…strangled.  Still, this is where the communications are routed.  There is enough left to be worth taking and examining later.  He can hear boots outside the room as he pulls the most promising sounding disks and jams them into his already quite full pockets.

The time for stealth has gone.

The Soldier pulls an explosive from his belt and sets it on a short timer.  Reaching for a stash with some decent firepower, he quickly divests his pockets of the data drives and picks up a bag of explosives and a grenade launcher.  Almost instantly, he’s back on the base, outside the control room which is now billowing smoke through the doorway.  The smoke hides him from the immediate attention of the massing soldiers emerging from the upper floor of the barracks.

First things first. The Soldier fires a grenade into the crowd of Hydra soldiers and another through the doorway into the main barracks, then pulls the semi-automatic from his back holster to pick off the closest troops.  Darting through the smoke, he reaches the stairwell, chased by bullets.  Before descending, he fires one more grenade into the hallway, almost missing his old mask as it would help with the smoke.  Almost.

The lower levels of the barracks are the containment cells.  Unfortunately this building is old enough not to have power controlled locks on the doors.  Just good old fashioned keys.  And whoever had been looking after said keys has vanished into the smoke upstairs, or out of the building entirely.  There are a few goons down here, either stupidly loyal, or perhaps just stupid.  The Soldier makes short work of them anyway.  Opening the cells is a tedious task, working one cell at a time, but fortunately they’re not all full and he has plenty of small explosives in his belt to blow open the locks.  Some of the occupants are in no shape to be making an escape, but the Soldier lets them try.  Some just beg for release, and he obliges.  He knows how that feels.  At the end of the cell block, there is an empty cell that he does bother blowing the lock on.  A familiar cell.  This one bears the distinctive grooves of metal fingers in the walls.  And a cryochamber in the corner.  And a Chair.

He doesn’t think too hard about it, but packs explosives around the base of the Chair and cryochamber.  Just as he is setting the detonators, he feels an unusual gust of air move around him.

Immediately he is on high alert.  Where did the timing circuits go for the detonators?

Another gust of air, but this time he sees the blur of movement that accompanies it.  What is that?  He feels a jostling of his clothing, but cannot identify his enemy.

His job down here is done.  Fortunately he doesn’t need the timers anyway.  He reaches for the outside of the base, between the buildings.  Only, when he arrives, one of the grenades on his belt goes off.

Thrown sideways into the wall of one of the buildings, he briefly has the thought that he is glad that was his last grenade and it was hung against the thickest part of his armor.  Then his side erupts in pain and the world goes a little hazy as he cracks his head on the concrete blocks.  Thank you Mother Russia for your sturdy building materials.  The smoke billowing out of the barracks looks…red?  Like the devil himself is burning in there.

Though the building is not yet actually on fire.  It should be, he thinks.  Why isn’t it?  It takes him several long minutes watching the smoke and Hydra soldiers running around in a panic before he remembers the detonators.  Electronic detonators, even if the timers had vanished.  He pushes a signal to them, even though he is perhaps still too close to the building.  Which building is this that he slammed into anyway?

The building in front of him explodes.  Oh.  That one.  The shockwave knocks him further onto the ground than he already was.  Rolling painfully over, he watches the flames lick up out of the partially collapsed barracks.  Mission accomplished.   He drops his head back to the ground for a moment, glad that, in the dark, no one has yet spotted him, even though he is just sprawled out at the foot of the research building.  Isn’t there something he ought to be doing?

It is a shame the lab building isn’t on fire too.  But he got the people who were working there.  He’s not sure that there’s any way he could get explosives into a sideways building anyway.  Wasn’t it the right way up earlier?

Slowly realizing how vulnerable he currently is, he reaches for a safer location.  Somewhere comfortable where he can just close his eyes…

He is greeted by bright sunlight stabbing through his closed lids.  Wasn’t it dark just now?  Without opening his eyes, he gently reaches out to feel where he is.  A long way away from the red smoke and sideways building.  Although the building here is spinning, slowly.  He holds on to the rooftop.  What building is this anyway?  Miami.  Why Miami?

He cracks his eyes open and tries to sit up, belatedly remembering the pain down his side and stopping short.  He recognizes the rooftop.  Ah, good, this one has some of his medical supplies stashed on it.  Gingerly, he reaches up to his head, and his fingers come away with blood on them.  Not too bad, but could do with cleaning.  Already his head is starting to feel clearer, making the crawl across the still slightly unstable rooftop possible.

It is only after he has painfully cleaned up his head wound and taped up the cracked ribs that he considers the possibility of having been hit by a tracker again.  He quickly checks every part of him for any whispers.  Nothing more than the usual from his arm.  He sags with relief, allowing himself the luxury of laying back and warming in the sunshine.  Looking beyond the rooftop he can see boats bobbing on the blue waters.  Which only helps to reinforce the feeling that the rooftop itself is bobbing around, so he shifts his gaze to watch the seagulls in the sky instead.

After spending the day soaking up the warmth of the sun, the Soldier watches the darkness creeping in over the sea.  His breathing comes easier now as his ribs have healed at least partially.  Enough that moving is less painful, anyway, and his head is much steadier.  Streaks of blood are matted into his hair; he'll have to clean that before venturing out in public.

Peeling himself up off the roof in the dark, he runs through his options.  There is a hotel not far away with empty rooms.  He has previously snuck into hotels, and houses where the owners are out, once he realized that cleaning up was something he needed to do.  Blending in as homeless doesn't require cleaning up, but blending in among museum crowds, in shops, in libraries, does.  The river, whilst not particularly clean, had at least washed off the blood in DC after the helicarriers.  After that he had worked through what he now knew was probably drug withdrawal, documented in many of the files he had extracted from the whispers and other bases.  Shivers, nausea, sweating, none of which left the body very presentable, although the disorientation and being used to Hydra dictating the maintenance of his body had meant he hadn’t even noticed until he got thrown out of a museum because staff had smelt him.  He had been quietly hiding in shadows, absorbing the display of an enormous doll house, when a janitor had come through with a mop, muttering under his breath about litter-dropping tourists.  As he walked in, he'd exclaimed and put a hand over his face.  It had taken him many minutes to determine the origin of the smell and actually notice the Soldier.  It was only when the wet mop had swept across the front of the Soldier’s shoes that the janitor had looked up into his face.  The clothes he had been wearing were clean, freshly acquired for this visit, but the body, not so much.  The janitor had sniffed, and stepped back, while the Soldier stared, eyes on the tiny furniture in front of him.

“Sir, you're going to have to leave.  The smell is upsetting the other visitors.”

The tiny rooms were almost alien to the Soldier.  Rooms for sitting.  For sleeping.  Some had no obvious purpose, just boxes, and bowls, and cloths.  None of them had any weapons.  Any mission briefings.  Any of the rooms he knew from Hydra bases.  Even the safehouses he knew would have an armory.  Many of the rooms had chairs, but none had a Chair.  Or a cryochamber.  Or an operating table.

He was aware of the janitor and his mop, just as he had been aware of every other person passing, quickly, through the exhibit.  He was aware when the janitor left, and when he returned with two security guards, pointing at the Soldier.

The ever-present need to be aware of his surroundings meant that before they had made more than a single step into the room, he knew they carried a taser and a pistol each.  And of course a radio.  One was heavy-set, the other slightly flabby.  The Soldier calculated the odds, and knew he could eliminate them.  But they weren't a mission.  They weren't Hydra, posing a threat to his mission.  They were just…people.

People who lived in a house, like this miniature one, where there were no rooms for weapons, for hurting, for forgetting.

He could run.  Flee instead of fight.  But that would attract more attention.

The flabby guard was talking.  “…have to clean yourself up.  There’s a hostel just a couple of streets over.  They’ll let you use their showers.”

Clean himself?

The Soldier had taken another look at the dollhouse.  Looking closely at one or two of the rooms, he realized that some of the bowls were in fact baths.  His mind dredged up memories of both warm and cold water in such baths.  Scratchy cloths and soapy bubbles. 

“If you do not leave, we will have to remove you.”  Heavy-set’s body language implied a threat, hefting the taser out of its holster, that the Soldier knew it couldn’t back up.  But still, the threat registered in his otherwise-distracted attention, bringing his focus to the guard.

Keeping his head bowed, he had shuffled slowly out, guided carefully - at a small distance - by the security guards.  As he was ushered down the front steps, Flabby had passed him a small piece of paper with an address written on it.  It had turned out to be the address of the homeless shelter he had suggested.  And they had allowed the Soldier in, only for him to pull up short at the sight of the showers, sensations of cold, stinging spray echoing over his body.  Not the soft, soapy bubbles that had come to mind looking at the dollhouse.

A little research through the whispers later had brought him to a nearby hotel.  Images of warm filled tubs were advertised, and it was a simple matter to sneak in and find one unoccupied.

After, when he no longer smelled so bad, he could understand the reluctance of the people at the museum to stay near him, when he had smelled his clothes.  

Now, with his body clean, he considers options.  There is a lot of data recovered from the Sokovian research facility.  A lot of it will not be relevant.  Probably.  It will take time for the Soldier to find what he needs.  But the Voice.  The Voice could help.

He picks up the data drives from the stash and reaches for his perch next to the Tower.  Quietly listening in, he finds the surveillance on the mission easily.  Reassuringly, he is in a gym, attacking a punching bag.  The redhead is holding the bag, watching him with assessing eyes.  Satisfied that the mission is safe for now, he turns his attention to the Voice’s insights on Hydra.

Dipping into the data he has gathered, he checks the Voice’s insights and finds the gaps.  Carefully, he pushes the new data into the holes.

You again.

Some of the data is easy to push.  Cold dates and locations and names and numbers.  Not meaningless, but…safe.  More of the data is prickly to handle, and the Soldier hesitates to push it over.

What are you doing?

Some of the data he holds back.  Anything actively regarding the Winter Soldier.  Research.  Statistics.  Results.  Images.

Where did you get this data?

Hydra.   He pushes over the research facility details.  He hesitates over the research findings that do not concern the Winter Soldier.  Some of the test subjects are volunteers; those he has no qualms about revealing.  Others are not.  What do they deserve?  What would they want?

I fear this data was not obtained legally.

Legally?  I do not understand.  I took this from Hydra.  I stopped them doing more.   Parsing the data is difficult.  In the end, he pushes all of it across into the Voice’s data, unable to pick and choose if anything should not be shared.  Unwilling to risk looking at them again in depth.

Initial analysis shows the data contains evidence of human rights abuse.  I will need to share this with Mr Stark and possibly law enforcement.

Stark?   A flash of memory stirs.

Mr Stark is my creator and the owner of this building. 

You mean Sir.

That is what I call him, certainly.

The Soldier pulls through the video feeds to find Sir.  The Voice - JARVIS - has clearly alerted him to the Soldier’s visit and new data.  Looking closely, the face is not familiar.  But the name.

He is most keen to speak with you.

No.  He doesn't know why the name is familiar, but he immediately feels a need to not be seen.  No witnesses.

While he will want to know who you are, he is more interested in the details of where this data came from, and what you are doing next.

The Soldier holds his breath.  He can't.  In the video he can see and hear the interaction between the Voice and Sir.  

The language they use is…unlike how he can remember ever hearing people talk.  They bicker.  He is shocked when the Voice argues in support of the Soldier.  Or the hacker as they refer to him.  Sir is the commander, this is apparent, yet he listens to the Voice.

Sir is grateful for the data, but cautious given the lack of provenance.  The Voice seems convinced at least that he is not working for Hydra.  They both hope the data will bring them closer to something.  An item they are searching for that Hydra holds.

The compulsion not to be seen tugs him away.  He leaves them as the Voice is showing Sir the salient points of the data he delivered.  As he does he leaves a final thought to the Voice.  I will not let them continue.  He must be safe.

The name Stark rings through the Soldier's mind.  He should know it.

Away from the scrutiny of the Tower, he spends some time exploring the meaning of the name Stark.  He finds a lot of material.

The immediate rush of data all concerns the man in the Tower.  Tony Stark.  It seems like nearly everyone in the whispers has given an opinion on this man.  He is a predator.  A monster.  A profiteer.  A genius.  A narcissist.  Crazy.  Filthy.  Rich.  A hero.  This last is attached to reports of a figure labeled as Iron Man.  It looks like a man encased in metal.

The only memories stirred are from video footage that the Soldier has watched.  Nothing of the man inside.  Nothing to do with the name Stark.  But the name is there, in the Asset’s memories.  A mission.

After the initial rush he finds more depth in the data.  Tony Stark is not the original Stark.  When the Soldier comes across the name and picture for Howard Stark, it is like flipping a switch.  He can see the face.  Except, he can see it both young and dark haired and old and gray at the same time.  He is on a motorbike.  He is in a crowd.  He stalks a lone car on a quiet road.  He has an arm round a young woman’s shoulders.  He pulls the man with the gray mustache out of the driver’s door.  His laugh is carefree.  “Sergeant Barnes?”  The splintered fragments of both memories come crashing together with these words.  This is the name of the young man with the Soldier’s face in the museum.  His face.  His…name?

He reaches urgently for the museum.  Stark - the older, dead Stark - knew this person.  Barnes.  The Soldier still tiptoes around the rest of the name.  The name that feels like a codeword.  It is night and the museum is empty.  Squashing the signals from the cameras standing vigil over the exhibit is second-nature now.  It doesn’t take long to find what he is looking for.  

Howard Stark, the noted scientist and businessman, worked with the Strategic Scientific Reserve before his war efforts moved to Los Alamos.  He was one of the driving forces behind Project Rebirth, working closely with Dr Abraham Erskine to utilize the Super Soldier Serum to its full potential.  Once Rebirth disbanded, he continued providing scientific support to the Reserve, particularly in the form of weapons and communications equipment.  A pilot himself, it was Howard Stark who flew Captain Rogers out across enemy lines on his maiden mission to rescue Allied soldiers in the Hydra encampment at Kreischberg.

In 1944, Stark was reassigned to the Manhattan Project, a controversial move given the previous public clashes between him and Dr Robert Oppenheimer.  There he had a pivotal role in the evolution of nuclear weapons.

After the war, Stark continued to work closely with first the SSR and then SHIELD, playing a vital role in the organization's creation even while building his own arms business further.  Accusations of war profiteering followed him for many years, particularly through the tensions of the cold war, however the United States Army and Air Force used Stark Industries as their preferred weapons manufacturer for many decades even after Howard Stark’s death in 1991.

1991.  Yes, that was it.  December 16th.  A woman had been in the car as well.  Witness eliminated.  Who was she?

He moved around the exhibits, paying more attention to the faces in the peripherals of the images.  None of them match the face of the woman.  He does find a picture with both the young Howard Stark and Barnes in it.  Both of them stood behind the mission, studying a map.

A hollow sits in the Soldier’s stomach.  Stark had recognized the Asset.  Not as the Asset, but as Barnes.  Was this why Hydra had needed him killed in the first place?  No, the mission had involved retrieval of chemicals from the trunk of the car.  Not the only reason then.  Barnes had known the mission target.  He had known the target.  Except he hadn’t.  The fog of the codewords and the blank abyss of his mind after the Chair obliterated any hope of recognizing the target in 1991.  How many others?

The Asset had never questioned.  Didn’t know how to question.  Had only had a thorough understanding of the consequences of failure.  But he is also Barnes.  Has Barnes’ memories.  A chasm has opened up in his insides.

He knows, intimately, Hydra’s methods.  Their lack of discrimination when it comes to their end goal.  Nothing else matters.  Order through pain.  Especially if that pain comes for someone who opposes their plans.

The Asset's memories are full of blood.  And bodies.  What death toll have his hands wrought?  Where is the order from this pain?

His legs refuse to hold him up, leaving him sprawled on the floor.  Belatedly he discovers his lungs are burning, air seemingly too thick to breathe in.

The darkness presses on him.  In his mind, visions of death dance in front of him, while the museum dims before his eyes.

32557038.  The mission.

He lifts his eyes enough to catch sight of the mission.  He fought alongside Barnes, and Stark.  Against Hydra.

32557038.  Breathe in.

His eyes slide to the picture of Stark.  The gray Stark.  He cannot redeem himself for the damage he has done.  To Stark. To the mission.  To countless others.

32557038.  Breathe out.

The younger Stark is fighting too.  Searching out Hydra.  Looking for something.

He grasps on to this idea, a life raft in the chaos.  Not only keeping the mission safe.  Not just taking out as much of Hydra as he can on his own.  But helping others to eradicate Hydra.

Looking around, he finds the image of Barnes.  Of himself.  The self that he barely remembers.  The Chair stole so much of this from him.  This is what he wants to be, though.  Not Hydra's Asset.

Chapter Text

The sun was low in the sky as Steve exited the VA, affording some deep shadows between the buildings on the street.  Plenty of places for someone to hide.

He sighed, pulling down the peak of his cap, sunglasses too obvious a tell of someone trying not to be noticed at this time of year.  The chill in the air gave him the perfect reason to pull up the collar of his jacket, though.  Even though he didn't really need it, serum and all, the chill still made him uncomfortable.  Nothing like the same as the piercing pain of the Arctic ice in the Valkyrie, but a tiny echo, enough to remind him of it.

Movement in the shadows caught his eye as he headed off down the street.  A tail.  He'd gotten better at spotting them, mostly by the huge amount of practice he was getting.  A daily occurrence now.  The main question was, Hydra or journalist?

Sadly, journalists were more common these days.  A Hydra tail he could fight, get some use out of, both for intelligence and for his own stress-relief.  Journalists he just had to grin and bear.

A flash caught his eye.  A camera lens.  He could look forward to more pictures of himself under headlines speculating on his mental health then.  Apparently the press could only imagine one reason for his visiting the Veterans’ Center.  It had been insulting, not only for him, but for the other veterans and staff at the Center when previous stories had come out.  Insisting that Captain America was hiding mental instability while attending support groups with other veterans.  It was as if little had changed since the forties for some people.  Yet, things had changed and he was grateful for the support afforded by the small community he had managed to acquire in modern Brooklyn.  Some of the other volunteers he counted as friends now.  And some of the veterans.  Even one or two of his neighbors.  Sam was proud of his progress, he knew.  No longer completely defined by SHIELD, or even his shield.  

Yet there was still the gaping hole.  The knowledge that Bucky was out there, somewhere, ate away at him.  It was like the black hole at his center, with these new friends, this new life at the periphery.  He didn't mention Bucky at the group he attended.  Oh, he talked about Bucky and the Howlies as people, friends, that he missed, that he'd lost.  Got commiseration for the pain he felt that they were gone.  He just omitted the fact that he'd found Bucky again, that Bucky had been tortured and abused until he had forgotten Steve and even his own name, and been forced into fighting for the enemy.  

They hadn't seen much evidence of Bucky since the mission to the Hydra base in the Arizona desert.  They were fairly certain he hadn't been killed there - they would have found his body along with the scores of Hydra bodies they did find.

Nat was convinced he was now overseas.  Steve had been more than half convinced he'd find him at Kreischberg, even though he knew intellectually it was unlikely.  If Bucky didn't remember his own name, he probably didn't remember that place either.  It had been hauntingly unchanged since the self destruct explosion that he'd narrowly escaped what only felt like a couple of years ago, but was actually over 70.  With the knowledge that Bucky could somehow teleport (what sort of world was it where that was even a credible option?) the usual methods for tracking were rendered useless.

There had been a few Hydra bases hit by unknowns.  It could have been the Winter Soldier, but it also could have been local trouble.  Looters had often gotten in and taken anything of interest before they got there, making it difficult to tell by the time they discovered the ruins.

The trail of security camera footage of Bucky appearing and disappearing seemed to have gone cold too.  Although, maybe Hydra systems were on the blink as their resources dwindled, or maybe Bucky was more tech savvy than they estimated, because a lot of the more recent video archives they had recovered in the bases they had raided had holes, corrupted data that obliterated anything that may have been recorded.

Steve sighed.  He'd have to try to lose his tail before he got home.  Eyeing the rooftops, he considered getting away from them that way, but no.  That would probably draw more attention, rather than less.

Instead, he slipped unobtrusively, or so he hoped, into the general rush of people on the sidewalk.  He didn't really need to take the subway to get home, but it was a good opportunity to try and give the photographer the slip.  He was fairly certain that most of the New York paparazzi already knew where he lived, but on the off chance this one didn't, he wasn't going to make it any easier for them.

The subway was packed.  Keeping his face down, he wove between passengers on their way home from work, heading out for the evening, any number of other reasons for squashing themselves into a subway car like sardines in a tin.

Glancing back, whilst trying not to look like he was watching for his tail, he thought maybe he had succeeded in his escape.  Even so, he rode an extra stop past the closest station to his apartment.  No tail on the way out.  Breathing a sigh of relief, he made his way home, only to find yet another reporter in an argument with Mr Adams from the first floor of the building.

“...loitering on my steps, in front of my windows.  You got no business peeking into my living room with your cameras!”

Steve cringed.  So much for making friends with the neighbors.  Well, the least he could do was to help try and resolve it.

“Good afternoon Mr Adams.”  At the sound of his voice the reporter immediately turned and snapped his camera up.  “I'd kindly ask you not to use that.”

“Captain Rogers!  What do you have to say about Iron Man’s recent activity in Azerbaijan?”

“I have no comment, it's not my place.  I'd advise you to take your questions to an official channel.  This is a private residence and if you continue to harass these people living here you will be reported to the police.”

“What about Iron Man’s return to action after months of inactivity?  Can you shed any light on the reasons?”  The reporter had at least given up on the camera, but was holding out his phone in a way that made it clear he was recording.

“No comment.”  Steve made a show of pulling his own phone from his pocket and dialed JARVIS.  “Chief Madden?  Sorry to bother you, but we have a harassment situation here.”

The reporter quickly shoved his phone back in his pocket.  Steve took the opportunity to usher Mr Adams inside as the reporter made his escape.  Over the phone, JARVIS replied, “I have sent the footage of the incident to the local precinct, lodging a complaint.  Mr Garcia already has one hundred and forty three complaints against him.  Would you like to get a lawyer involved to press charges?”

Steve sighed and watched the reporter hustle around the corner.  No doubt he wasn't going to go very far if he really thought there was a sniff of a story to be had.  Fortunately there wasn't much in it, and he was probably just being opportunistic since Tony was back in the field.   “No, not this time.  But keep an eye on him, please.”

As soon as he put the phone down and stepped inside, Mr Adams let loose a tirade of wrongs against him caused by Steve living in his building.  Setting off the defenses and trap set for Bucky and the extensive renovations he'd had to undertake to be able to move in, taking out Hydra’s modifications, hadn't gotten him off on the right foot, at least with Mr Adams.  “....still coming and going at all hours of the night, when decent folk have to get up early in the morning–”

“I’m afraid I do work unsociable hours, but I do try to be as quiet as possible.”

“-not the first time I've had cameras poked in my face right outside my front door–”

“Really sorry about that, I’ve been trying to–”

“-setting off the alarms–”

“That one was a genuine mistake Mr Adams, I'm not the best cook-

“-visitors sneaking in again today and scaring me to death-”

That pulled Steve up short.  Was Nat visiting again?  Did she have anything useful to tell them?

“-no peace and quiet at all!”

“I am really very sorry Mr Adams, I will do better I promise!”  Ducking out of the encounter, Steve headed upstairs while Mr Adams grumbled to himself as he entered his own apartment.

It was probably Nat.  But, he'd learnt the hard way that unknown visitors weren't necessarily a good thing.  On the other hand, JARVIS was supposed to be keeping an eye on his apartment, and would have alerted him to a problem inside.  Unless the hacker had overridden him.  Again.

Cautiously, he slipped out to the fire escape and climbed up.  The dark was set into relief by the streetlights, but he knew there were plenty of places to hide.  His windows were considerably more difficult to open from the outside than his apartment in DC, but with an assist from JARVIS it was possible.  Handy having him run security, and reassuring that he was still in contact right now.

The apartment was quiet, and dark.  Sadly his shield was tucked away in the hall closet and he was entering through the small spare room.  There wasn't much in here.  Sam had stayed here a few times, but mostly it housed a heavy bag that he found necessary in the small hours when he couldn't sleep for thinking about Bucky.  About Hydra.  About…well most things really.  Along one wall there were piles of papers that Steve had read and reread in the hunt for Bucky until Sam had sat him down and told him it was downright unhealthy for Steve to be in the same room as them and confiscated them to the spare room.

Creeping forward, he carefully opened the door to the hallway, seeing nothing immediately amiss.  A few steps in he froze, hearing something indefinable behind him.

“Bang.  You're dead.”

Steve whipped round and just managed to stop himself using full force as Nat caught his arm.  “What the hell, Nat?”

“You know your tail this afternoon could just as easily have been Hydra, and not a journalist?  And you know that they know intimately where you live?”

“Yes, Nat, I'm aware.”

“Then we clearly need to work on your skills.  That was sloppy work losing that first tail.”

“The first tail?”  Steve wracked his brain trying to recall any sign of another person following him.  Although clearly he'd missed Nat, she might have just been following along with JARVIS who was still supposed to be looking for signs of this hacker that had been watching him.

“Yes.  The second journalist made you losing the first and correctly guessed where you'd come out of the subway.  Used it before, have you?”

Steve's cheeks heated as he realized it had perhaps become his go-to route home.  Nat nodded at him, knowing she'd made her point.

“Why are you really here?”  He hadn't seen her since the debrief after Kreischberg.  Since then she had been chasing her own leads as she said.  He in turn had spent some time chasing dead leads in Europe before coming to the conclusion it was a pointless effort and returning home.  Sam had a lot of work time to catch up on and doing it alone was…beyond demoralizing.

“Tony wants to show us something.”

The ‘something’ turned out to be a very short list of locations for the scepter.

“…narrowed it down to these three locations.  We’ve got a beach getaway on the Baltic sea with a convenient full scale drydock, a country house which turns out to be more of a military installation and a chateau in the mountains harboring an underground research facility.  My money’s on the chateau but they’re all contenders.”

Steve watched Tony more than the data he was presenting.  He was clearly excited, but perhaps not completely stable.  Bruises under his eyes spoke of too many sleepless nights.

Nat came forward to poke at the hologram.  “Where did you get this data?”

“Multiple sources, of course.  Some of it from your own fair hands, yours and the Captain and even the Spy.  A lot of it I did my own leg work for.”  Watching Tony, Steve could see tension running through him even as he clearly aimed for casual.  But was that just that Tony was invested in his own presentation, or nervousness at Nat’s enquiry?

“Are you sure these are the only possible locations?”  Nat pressed further.

“No, I'm not sure, but this is my best guess right now and I could keep hitting smaller bases to get more intel, but I need a team to take these down.  And they've got to go, scepter or no scepter.  Everything points to one of these, but I won't be sorry to take them out and find it's not there.”

“We're with you, Tony.  Any Hydra hold out is one too many in my book.”  Steve sat forward, glancing sideways at Nat, wondering what she was angling at.

“Thank you, someone seeing sense.  I just didn’t expect it to be the fossil.”  Tony pointed at Nat.  “What is your problem?”

Nat sat down and pulled up some more files, before turning back to Tony.  “Managed to plug the hole in your firewall yet?”

“There is no hole.  Nobody is getting in that I don’t want in.  Unlike you.  Now can we focus on the matter at hand?  Now, we’ve got our super soldier, one of our spies–” Nat held up two fingers.  “Two?  Ok, two of our spies, I assume Legolas is just planning on making a fashionable entry later.  But I feel like a god on our side might not go amiss?  Besides the fact that he’d pout if he missed the scepter party.  He seemed mightily put out last time that it had been misplaced.”

“I think we'd all sleep better knowing it's in better hands than Hydra's.  Thor will want to help, but he's not here right now.  Do we have any way to contact him?”  Steve looked closely at Nat.

“Fury may have a way to reach him.  I don't know how quick it will be.”  Nat pulled up her phone and started working on it.

“Is this intel time sensitive?”  Steve looked back to Tony, who was watching Nat closely.

“Probably.  I mean, the longer we sit on it, the more time they have to move it, right?”  Tony shrugged.

“That's if it’s even there.” 

Bruce’s voice came from behind Steve and he turned to see him move into the room.  “You don't think it is?”

“I think this intel needs to be verified.  Tony hasn't told you where a significant portion of it came from?”

“Where?”  Steve asked, when it becomes apparent that Nat isn't going to.

“A friend.”  At last Tony jumped in.  “I'm as skeptical as the next guy, but I have corroborated 90% of the data, and it's led me to more data that supports most of the rest.”

“Tony, this hacker, whoever they are, is not your friend.  If they were, you'd know their name.”  Nat rolled her eyes at Tony.

“Names are overrated.   Actions speak louder than words, isn't that what people say?”  Tony looked between Bruce and Nat.  “This guy did me a favor, really helped me find the security holes in my setup that I didn't know were there.”

Nat raised an eyebrow.  “Not all of them apparently.”

“Tony, this could all be an elaborate trap.”  Bruce said.

“Yeah, it could be.  Which is why I want the full team if I can get it.   And I've got the Iron Legion on standby too.  If it is a trap, they’ve put a lot into getting me there and there’ll be an opportunity to find the real gossip on Strucker’s latest digs.  Even if it's not a trap, there could be civilians in harm’s way here and the Legion can get them out.”

Curiously, Steve asked, “Iron Legion?” 

“It's just a taskforce of drone versions of my suit, capable of independent action and assessment of a situation, ultimately controlled by JARVIS.  They will be capable of civilian containment, search and rescue operations; your basic first responder and crowd control.”  Tony rattled off the list quickly enough that they'd probably been rehearsed.

Bruce sighed.  “I’ve got nothing against the Iron Legion, you know that–”

“You helped me design them!”  Tony interrupted.

“Yes, but you have to understand our concern that there's been an unknown in your systems, who could be looking to control them.”  Nat and Bruce shared a look.  Steve was starting to realize that he had maybe been roped into some kind of…was it an intervention they called it now?

“I get it.  I know what it looks like.  And believe me, I've done my share of looking into this.  And there is nothing to find.”  Tony paused as Bruce failed to hold in a noise of impatience.  “No, really.  I don't think this hacker is actually a person.  You know what he reminds me of?  JARVIS.  In the earlier days.  When he was still learning his way around the internet.  He doesn't seem to be tethered to anything or anyone, there's no trail.  He's either here or he's not.  Honestly, his behavior with this intel puts me in mind of a golden retriever–no, more like a cat leaving dead birds as presents.  Only instead I get Hydra intel because that's what he observed me doing.  Obviously I'd love to know where he came from, but I don't think there's quite enough self-consciousness there to understand the question.  Because I did try and the answer may as well have been ‘does not compute’.”

Steve took a moment to parse that barrage of words.  “This is the same hacker that was watching me, through Redwing?”

“Yes.  I think he's got a bit of a soft spot for you, actually.  Who knows why.  Even asked J to keep an eye on you too, as if we weren't doing that already.”

“Show me.”  Bruce pulled a screen towards himself.

“Glad to, but first, can we put in that call to the dread pirate to see about a god?”

Over the next week while they waited for Clint and Thor to turn up (Nat insisted that Clint would be there as soon as they needed him, but that he had other places to be until they did), Steve found himself poring over the plans they did have, mostly hoping that Tony was right and this wasn't a trap.  Bruce had made Tony show him every shred of data and reluctantly admitted that Tony's conclusions were sound, but remained nervous of the lack of provenance for their unseen guest.  They'd had more than one follow up argument that Steve couldn't hope to follow.

When Thor did finally arrive, the team became a whirlwind of action, with no time to spare for thinking.

Clint had arrived at some point, although Steve would be hard pushed to say exactly when.  Steve himself had called Sam to see if he could assist, and now they stood, poised for action, on board two quinjets headed for northern Poland.

They weren't really ideally equipped for a sea attack, but they were hoping to catch any boats in dock.  Thor and Iron Man were their best bet to take on anything in the water.  Clint was set to drop Steve and Nat at the installation, with Sam as backup.  Bruce was piloting the other jet, but hoping to keep his distance from the action.

“Looks like one vessel in dock.”  Clint called back from the cockpit as they pulled on parachutes.  Steve wasn't stupid enough to forgo one when they were dropping in on land.

“Right, we all know the plan.”  Steve looked over at Nat and called a countdown to the rest of the team.  “Go.”

They dropped silently in the dim early morning light, just the rush of air moving past their ears.  Pulling his parachute at the last possible moment, Steve landed hard and rolled on the tarmac outside the main building.  Across the complex, he could just see Nat floating down a little more gently in front of the second large building.  No alarms yet.

A quick assessment found him an easy way in and he made his way up as quickly as possible to the command center.  Leaving a trail of a dozen bodies stashed hurriedly in dark corners, he made it outside the main command center with minimal disruption just as the first explosion hit the destroyer in the dock.  Tony, right on cue.

Suddenly the base was no longer quiet.

Steve plunged into the hornet's nest just as the command center erupted in chaos.  He had downed four of them before they even realized the enemy was in the room.  It only took a few minutes to clear the room.  Quickly, he scanned over the operational screens to assess the situation.  The building below him was the main barracks and command center and he could see squads mobilizing in the halls.  Over in the other building he couldn’t see Nat, but he could see a few bodies scattered in some of the camera views.  More explosions came from the ship in the dock, but on the screens he could see another surprise.

“Stark, there’s a submarine just outside the dock.”

“Yup.  Spotted that.”  Tony sounded a little out of breath.

Steve caught movement behind him, and threw the shield just in time to take down the first of another group trying to storm the command center.  “You ok?”

“Got it covered.”  

Good, because Steve needed to pay attention to guarding his own back.  Fortunately the doorway made for a good bottleneck and he could pick them off as quickly as they could come through.  Another explosion, bigger than the first, shook the building as he downed the last one.

Nat’s voice came over the comm.  “Nothing of value here, but easy to dispose of.  Nobody come in the second building; I’m on my way out.  Sam, can you clear the road to the south?”

“On it.”

Steve hurriedly plugged the drive Tony had given him into the console.  A progress bar appeared on the screen, titled ‘Copying files’.  So much for any digital security.  The progress bar crawled slowly across the screen as Steve could hear more explosions outside.

“Path is clear for you.”  That was Sam.

“Sub’s down!  Anybody find our prize?”  Iron Man soared up above the water again.  Below the bright trail of his thrusters, large bubbles were foaming the surface of the sea.

Seeing the signals from the sub and destroyer disappear as the damage Tony and Thor had done took its toll, Steve watched the progress bar tick on, slowly.  “You’re gonna have to give me another minute for your data drive to do its thing.”

“Nuh-uh, you are not blaming me and my tech.”

“If the shoe fits, Tony.”  Nat chimed in, sounding slightly out of breath this time herself, just before the second building erupted in flames.

A clang below Steve in the building told him where Thor, or at least his hammer, was.

“There is no indication that the scepter is in this location.”  Steve slumped at JARVIS' announcement.  Although, frankly, this place seemed way too small and understaffed to house anything that important.

He grabbed up the drive and headed to the nearest window.  “Stark, once Thor and I are clear, you're good to reduce this one to rubble.”

“Not gonna do it yourself?”  He could hear the grin on Sam’s face.

“Not this time.  Saving my best for our last stop.”  Pulling open the window, Steve jumped, holding his shield below him to cushion the fall, right into a vehicle full of Hydra agents.  The roof of the SUV caved in and Steve immediately leapt down onto the hood and threw the shield in through the windscreen, sliding off as the vehicle swerved.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand.”  Streaks of light showed the paths of multiple missiles heading into the building behind Steve, just as Thor burst through the wall.

“A disappointing encounter, I must say.”  Thor looked remarkably unflustered for having just punched through a brick wall.  “Where to next?”

“The country house of course.  Did you dress for dinner?”  Tony slowly lowered the suit out of the sky, picking off a few of the stragglers alongside them as he did.

Steve sighed, but he was right.  “Clint, Bruce, swing by to pick us up.”

The country house, it turned out, had a lot more firepower, and a lot more defenses.  And, it was sadly closer to a civilian population.

They had anti-aircraft installations to start with.  Also, tanks.  Oh, and a sophisticated shield system that took them over half an hour to penetrate.  JARVIS had seemed to struggle to get them through it, while Thor, Iron Man and Falcon dodged the anti-aircraft guns and Hawkeye slowly picked off installations and outposts on the perimeter one at a time from the back of the quinjet while Nat piloted.

Then, the shield seemed to very suddenly come down, before JARVIS expected it even.  Suddenly there was a lot more to do.  They had certainly lost any element of surprise.

They were outnumbered.  But they were used to that.  Expecting that.

Thor waded through them with little care, swiping enemies aside with his hammer.

Iron Man had blasted through the front ranks up to a part of the roof and then Tony had decided to brute force an entrance where there hadn't been one before.

Clint was backing up Nat as she made her way around the edge of Thor’s spectacle, to slip in through the front.  As bodies fell around her, Steve swallowed a pang of jealousy in his gut, remembering Bucky doing similarly for him.

Sam was in the fray with Steve, using Redwing to back them up, at one of the side entrances.  Seriously, this place was not just a base, or country house, but a fortress.  Walls and all.

And clearly, they had plenty of personnel.  And equipment.  A large counteroffensive of RPGs and automatic gunfire held them at bay for longer than Steve would have liked.

“Ouch.  Ok, that hurt.”

“Tony?  What’s going on?”  Bruce was watching from the quinjet, getting feeds from JARVIS and listening to their comms.

“They’ve got some, ugh, interesting toys in here.  Hey, watch where you're putting that!”

“Is that one of those blue flares?”  Nat's voice cut in.

“No, it’s a bit more 50 shades down here.  Although somebody brought cattle prods to the party–oof!”

“Tony?!  You need backup?” Bruce sounded on edge.  Which was ok if they did end up needing the Hulk…

A bright flash blinded Steve briefly.  Presumably what Nat had referred to as blue flares.  More like light grenades, but they must also pack a punch as he realized he was swaying slightly and his ears were ringing.

“–Cap? You hear me?”  Sam was defending around him, had been behind him surely?

“Yeah, I think so.”  He sent the shield flying again to clear the immediate area, but it wasn’t as straight a shot as he’d have liked.  Beyond the wall he heard a roar.  “Hulk?”

“Smaaash!”

“Yeah, he’s heading in to back up Iron Man.”

Shaking his head to clear it, Steve re-assessed their own situation and got back to work.

Having finally exhausted the hordes of Hydra footsoldiers in the open, and taken out a couple of platoons of tanks with Thor, Steve and Sam had found themselves in a guerilla war through the hallways of the sprawling complex to try and find evidence of the scepter.

After the first couple of offices, kitchens and locker rooms containing holed up squads, secretaries, cleaning staff, or in one memorable case a group of trainee attack puppies and their handler, they met up with Nat and Clint.  Fortunately tiny puncture holes from needle-sharp puppy teeth healed up quickly with the serum.  Sam had kept his wits about him better than Steve and managed to dodge the bitey little monsters.

By the end, they were all sore, dirty and tired.  Nat had taken an unlucky gash squeezing through a broken doorway during a firefight.  Sam was limping after a particularly awkward landing in the gymnasium where there clearly weren't enough of those nice squashy practice mats.

They had crossed paths with Thor several times - literally, on more than one occasion, when they had paused to let the god fly past along a different corridor to their own.

Eventually they found Tony by dint of following the Hulk-shaped holes in the walls to find a creepy underground medical centre, this one kitted out in a much more ‘torture’ aesthetic than the one where they'd fought against a group of nurses armed with needles and various instruments Steve didn't know the use of upstairs in the more common areas of the complex.

Tony, it turned out, was heavily bruised and lightly singed from the aforementioned cattle prods and also from being buried under the remains of what looked like a concrete wall with steel reinforcements, caved in by Hulk’s arrival.  The prod-wielders were now thoroughly smashed and weren't going to be doing any more prodding.

He was muttering to himself, the Iron Man suit partially retracted around himself, although whether that was for continued protection or because the previous battering it had taken had rendered it unable to fully retract was unclear. 

“Stark?  Did you find anything?”  Steve approached the man cautiously, aware of both Tony’s distraction and the brooding Hulk in the corner of the room, who was relatively quietly tearing apart equipment and masonry.  He eyed the walls slightly nervously, hoping that at least JARVIS would have the awareness to warn them if Hulk did enough damage that the structure was going to fall on them.

“Huh?”  Tony didn’t even look up, eyes scanning from the monitor in front of him to a holographic display projected from the suit.  A low rumble came from the corner.

“Is the scepter here?”

That got Tony’s attention.  “Right, yes, the scepter.  It definitely was here…but the records are patchy.  If it’s here it’ll be….”

Thor burst in, holding, of all things, a pineapple wearing some sort of electronic headdress?  “These Hydra, they are not without humor!  Anybody want some toasted fruit?”

Steve’s stomach lurched as he belatedly recognized what had been used to toast the pineapple.  A similar array to the one he’d seen on Bucky’s head in some of the footage they had recovered in Washington.  “No.  Thanks.  You got a location for us to search yet, Tony?”

“Downstairs.”

Clint looked up at that from where he’d been patching up Nat’s side.  “Isn’t this the first floor?”

“Aye, I have not seen any stairs down.”  Thor had carved up the pineapple and sat down on an upturned desk to eat it.

“Well, princess, if you would care to look properly at that wall…”  Tony pointed behind the Hulk, who growled back and threw a chunk of masonry at Thor.

Ducking, Thor stood up. “Hey!”

Another grunt from Hulk, who turned back to his work.  Now that Tony had pointed it out, Steve could just about make out a recess in the floor beyond and, yes, steps.  There had to be a secret basement, didn’t there?  Given what was visible in the main areas they’d been through, he hated to think what they might find down below.  He stepped forward to help Hulk clear a big enough gap for them to pass through.

Down here was clearly where they kept the weird and wonderful.

Guarded only by a couple of mediocre soldiers easily taken out by Steve’s shield and Thor’s hammer, they found cells.  Some only contained equipment.  Others contained bodies.  One or two dead.  Another close to death.  Whatever Hydra had done to these poor people seemed to be leaving them vacant, unseeing, twitching.  A few animals peered out of some of the cells.  Not all of them were animals Steve recognized.  Briefly Steve wondered if rabies shots were the only thing he might need after fending off the puppies upstairs.

There were also artifacts of unknown origins.  Thor exclaimed over a couple of them (“Ah, my mother’s ashen box!”, “A feather of Huginn!”) and quietly, his face turning red, tried to hide a tarnished gold necklace, muttering something about Brisings.  

The Hulk, having breached the wall, seemed to cower briefly in the corner before shrinking down into Bruce, which was unusual given they were still in enemy territory.  Steve averted his gaze and called up to the others to see if anyone could find Bruce some pants, but apparently Bruce was too focused on some of the artifacts to care.  He stumbled through the room, mumbling to himself, hands fluttering over a conch shell, a twisting tree in a pot with a small white flower, a large pearl, and a blackened round mirror with engravings on it.  

But no scepter.

“Negative Tony.  I don’t think it's here.”

It wasn't Tony, but Clint that responded, “Ok, Steve.  Seems quiet up here, you need a hand down there?”

“No, but I think Hulk’s run out of gas?  Or, well, Bruce seems excited about some of this stuff anyway.  We probably want to take it with us.  Dunno about the prisoners and livestock though.”

Sam picked his way through the debris of the Hulk’s destruction and joined them at the bottom of the stairs.  “I'm sorry, did you say livestock?”

“Well, I wasn't sure what else to call them.”

In the end, they called in both Fury and Sharon.  Who promptly had an argument about jurisdiction.  Tony made a hasty retreat as they arrived, taking a small mountain of tech with him.  Thor and Bruce wouldn't let Fury or Sharon near their own collections of treasures, so it was only really the copious Hydra agents left lying around the place, the bodies, prisoners and animals left to wrangle.  

It was only when Steve tried to access the computer systems to see if there was any intel on the Winter Soldier that he discovered they were completely trashed. Or, at least, Nat discovered it after he called her over because his limited technology skills couldn't get him in.  Was that why Tony had been so distracted, trying to get anything useful out of it, or had his mystery hacker caused it to prevent Fury getting at the intel they'd uncovered? Either way, they were going to need to regroup and rest up before they could take on Tony's third target.

Chapter Text

Barnes stamps the snow off his boots, cursing the wintry weather.  The wind is reminiscent of the howling gales in Siberia.  His perches on rooftops have become less and less comfortable in recent weeks.  Below, the mission trudges out of the Tower, grumbling under his breath.  Barnes confers with JARVIS, accessing the internal cameras to track Stark’s progress in the other direction, up to the penthouse and his workshop.  They have both been poring over plans for attacking Strucker's castle base in the Carpathian mountains, but that isn't the source of the grumbling.

Stark has been organizing some kind of party, to appease high ups in both military and politics, and also generate some good publicity for their team.  The mission, in his own words, “doesn't want to do the dancing monkey routine again.”  Barnes doesn't entirely understand either point of view, but the event seems to require more planning than an actual mission, nevermind that supposedly there are no enemies involved.  He has his own suspicions about that anyway, and accesses JARVIS’ files to gather intelligence.  The guest list is long.  And the venue is hardly secure.  This is going to involve a lot of work to make sure the mission is safe.

Speaking of the mission…Barnes keeps an eye on his frustrated movements even while he is also tweaking the security plan for the party.  The redhead greets him only two blocks over, a clearly planned interception, and is treated to a brief tongue-lashing before the mission visibly sags and gives in.  Something inside Barnes bridles at this.  The mission doesn't just give in.  The redhead guides him away, clearly more aware of her surroundings than the mission is, and Barnes has to keep his distance.  They are easy to track, however, as they move into busy streets covered by numerous cameras.  This has the advantage that he can follow them without actually following them, giving him a brief respite from the cold wind.

Flexing his flesh fingers carefully, he knows the cold is unlikely to do any real damage if cryo never did, but still, they are more effective when kept warm.  He has discovered that a hot drink is very effective at both warming his fingers and his insides.  Cupping a container of hot coffee with cold fingers feels familiar, even if the strange cardboard cup does not.

He still doesn’t entirely trust the redhead, although he can’t entirely put his finger on why.  She is slippery.  Changeable.  Just as much at ease here among throngs of regular people as she was last month infiltrating a Hydra base.  Or months before that talking to politicians in that hearing.  She does also appear to be comfortable making her way around the high-end shops in this district.  The ones that have enough cash to spare for good surveillance, but mainly put it on the outside, not the inside.  Oh well, at least getting closer still means getting out of this weather.  There are plenty of empty fitting rooms, store rooms and roof spaces he can find to listen from, if not watch.

“Nat, this thing costs more than the rent on my apartment in DC.”

“Shut up, it looks good on you.  Now do you have any shirts—wait.  Don’t answer that.  I don’t mean plaid.”

“Seriously, I could just wear my uniform.”

“What, complete with burn marks and bullet holes?  Sure.  I mean, it’ll give the WAGs a good view of your backside.”

Barnes couldn’t see them, but he could hear the blush on the mission’s face.  “Nat!  I’m not trying to—What on earth are WAGs?”

“Wives and girlfriends.  Although there will be a few single women at this thing too.  I’m sure I could introduce you to a few.”

“We’ve had this conversation already.”

“I know, but I think you’re lonely.”

“I’m really not.”

Barnes manages to maneuver himself to get a glimpse of the mission, and finds himself staring for longer than he means to.  It is the mission, but dressed up in a well-fitting suit.  It is like seeing a whole new person.  Images of the mission, in army fatigues, in his striped costume, merge with the images of the scrawny mission, wearing too-big shirts, a vest, or even nothing at all.  All so different, and yet, all the same.  All the mission.  His mission.

The redhead waltzes in and adds items to the mission’s attire.  A tie.  Cufflinks.  Pocket square.  Then she starts fussing with his hair.

“Yes, definitely time to get this mop seen to.  You know, before Insight you had almost moved into the 21st century.  You've regressed.”

“I have not!”

“You've more than regressed perhaps.  You're more caveman now.  Come on, let's get you to a stylist.”

A sigh.  “Is that really necessary?  I've got work to do on the other half of this assignment.”

“It's not an assignment.  Not like that, anyway.  Wait, do you mean you're drawing something new for this thing?  Don't you have something lying around you could hand over?”

“Nothing I'm willing to part with.  Bad enough they wanted to borrow several, but one to keep?  No, I needed to know I was going to lose it before I started.”

“I hope you’re not fobbing them off with sub-par work, Steve.”

“I don’t think so?  I mean, I only normally draw when I’ve got something on my mind.  Something I need to see on paper.  It’s personal.  Like having a diary on show for everyone to read.”  In his mind’s eye, Barnes can see a hunched skinny figure holding a pencil, shading in areas on scraps of paper.  Pencil lines capturing faces, or even just features, or sometimes pigeons on the streets, street furniture, buildings, bridges, all coming to miniature life.

“You know people do that these days.”

“It’s not me though, Nat.”

“I know.  So, you’re going to give them what they want to see, not what you want to draw?”

“Something like that.”

The redhead leads the mission out of the store, replete with bags, and heads for another sleek, glass-fronted establishment.  It seems the staff here know the redhead, or at least her current persona, and they are waved in without difficulty to a back room, away from the windows, and without cameras.

It takes Barnes a while to find a good observation point, meanwhile keeping an eye on the camera feeds on the entrances.  Inside, it is noisy, and there are people everywhere.  Even in the back rooms.  By the time he does manage to catch a glimpse (the noise of water and machinery and music is too much to be able to hear much), he gets a shock as a young woman pulls the mission’s head up from a sink full of water, wrapping a towel around his neck, and pushes him over to a reclining chair.  He had not thought the redhead would be so brazen as to implement torture techniques directly in town, but she is nowhere to be seen.  The Soldier recalls the feeling of water filling the nose and mouth, the rising need to breathe, the burn of water droplets in the windpipe.  His breaths shorten.  The mission is surprisingly calm, not spluttering, while the Soldier assesses options.  They must have done this to him before.  A man walks in, speaks briefly to the mission, then sorts through various instruments.

They haven’t even strapped him down.  Why is he not fighting back?

Dipping into the whispers, he knows where the power for the building runs.  The torturer brandishes a handheld device that buzzes menacingly, and the Soldier has to act to protect the mission.  First, he sets every alarm circuit off and sirens start blaring.  Signals are already sending alerts to the police department.  The Soldier makes sure these are forwarded to JARVIS, with a note that the mission is inside.  Then, he pulls sharply on the power to divert it away from the torture room.  Sparks fly in neighboring rooms and the lights blow, leaving the area dim and shadowy.

The redhead appears out of nowhere, and the mission leaps up out of the chair, grabbing a nearby tray as a makeshift shield.  Attaboy.

The torturer and his assistant dash out of the room, and into a back hallway where the Soldier intercepts them before they can flee.  The mission will need intelligence from them, so he makes sure they are only knocked out and leaves them tied to the furniture.

The mission and the redhead have gone the other way, out into the chaos of the people emerging from other rooms, in the foyer, scanning for enemies among the evacuating crowds.  The Soldier sends an alert to JARVIS about the captives, and stays in the shadows, watching for trouble until Iron Man arrives on the scene.  No other suspicious agents emerge.

The evacuation takes a lot longer than it ought to.  If those agents had had backup, or started a fire, a lot of civilians would have been hurt.  He adds this information to the notes he is sending to JARVIS, suggesting that evacuation procedures are updated.

The redhead sticks by the mission.  The Soldier glares at her, unwilling to let the mission out of his sight in the middle of the chaos.  Yet, they seem to be working together.  Herding the civilians to the correct exits.  Greeting the NYPD officers as they arrive.  Even when Iron Man arrives and they find the captives in the back hallway, she interrogates them as enemies.  It could all be a front.  Or maybe they are not affiliated with her.  Barnes shakes his head, trying to make sense of the situation.  The Soldier rarely had to evaluate allegiances.  His targets were handed to him by handlers.  What was once black and white suddenly feels like a thousand different shades.  Some in gray.  Some in red.  Some a murky in between color.  Who and what does he even fight for?  The mission.  That he knows.  That is all he knows, apart from Hydra, and he will not fight for them again.

Slowly, the chaos subsides.  Power is restored and, after the redhead departs with the captives to parts unknown, the mission and Iron Man eventually leave, the clean up operation coordinated and already in full swing.  Barnes follows the mission, but he only goes back to his own apartment, flopping down on the sofa with a groan.

Once it becomes obvious the mission is not going anywhere anytime soon, Barnes figures now is as good a time as ever to go check out the venue for this event.  Now that the sun is setting already, it’d be nice to get out of the damn wind.

The venue is actually a museum.  Suddenly Barnes’ day has taken a turn for the better.

It’s not long until the museum closes, but he gladly slips inside, taking refuge from the cold, and absorbing the displays of photographs, memorabilia and artwork, all depicting people and landmarks of this city.

It does not provide a huge amount of insight; he has already researched the basics of the modern day city, but he finds some of the older images soothing.  Familiar.  Like an older style rifle he hasn’t used in a long while, but finds comforting.

Warmed up, he allows himself to be ushered out at closing time, paying attention to the movements of the staff as they do so.  Doubling back afterwards is trivial.  The security here is minimal, but then it is only a museum, not a military installation.

The cameras he has already assessed, but now he has the chance to find the unobserved ways in and out, and the patterns of the security guards.  Watching, and moving through the shadows, he also thinks over the security plans JARVIS showed him.  Not as bad as he had previously thought.  They’ve covered most of the digital black spots…but an adjustment here and an extra pair of eyes there, and that would help to eliminate most possible avenues of attack.  Of course infiltration is always a threat.  He’ll have to be here himself during the actual event.  He still has work to do now, however.  Reaching for a warm spot within reach of the Tower and JARVIS, he settles in to go through the guest list.  And the caterers.  And the security guards.  It’s going to be a long search.

Captain Rogers is no longer in his apartment.

Where is he?

He is on his motorcycle, driving down Empire Boulevard.

Thanks JARVIS.

Since Barnes assisted on a few of Iron Man’s Hydra missions, helped keep out other unwanted visitors, and dropped in some useful intel, JARVIS has been a lot more accommodating.  For example, when he checks in on the mission using JARVIS’ feeds, he has started volunteering information about where he went.

He checks the traffic cameras, and sure enough, there is the mission.  Where is he off to now?

Barnes looks over the edge of the rooftop, across to the sleazebag he's been watching all morning.  No, he won't abandon his current target.  The mission can look after himself.  Probably.

Can you let me know where he ends up?

If it is not restricted information.

Probably the best he is going to get.

Focussing back on the office in the next building, Barnes mentally goes through his list.  He’s already crossed off a police commissioner, an army general, a journalist, two actors and a business mogul.  A couple were just a case of helping the CIA connect the dots on the evidence already out there in the Insight upload to get them out of the way.  Others he’d had to go out and gather the evidence, one way or another.  

Yesterday he’d done some long distance shooting, this time with a telephoto lens, that the actor who had starred in several Hydra propaganda films, not that most people had recognised them as such, was presumably regretting this morning.  The journalist and the police commissioner he had contrived to put in the same room, along with recording equipment and insinuations of betrayal on both sides of their previous dealings with Hydra, and several gangs.  Those recordings were now on the desk of a thoroughly investigated outspoken journalist, and were already trickling out into the news bulletins he could hear in the whispers.

Now it was the turn of the Senator.  This one had already managed to bury evidence of the bribes he had taken, power he had amassed as a result of Hydra ruining the careers of many of his opponents.  This one he had a different plan for.  The Soldier remembered this one, and he would remember the Soldier.  

He had started this campaign two days previously.  It was risky, but he had allowed the Senator, and only the Senator, to glimpse him watching.  He’d had to steel himself carefully and put on a mask for the first time in months.  First outside his morning coffee stop.  In the park he used as a shortcut to get to the subway station near his office.  Behind him in the mirror in the restrooms of the restaurant he had lunch in, with the Assistant District Commissioner.  He only allowed the Senator to see him for a second - long enough for recognition, but he would reach away to a spot out of sight as soon as he was made.  This was instinctive anyway, it was hard for him to allow himself to be seen.  After four appearances, the Senator had made phone calls to a number of contacts that he had been avoiding since April.  After six, he had paid for immediate additional security to follow him around, not that it stopped the Soldier from making more visits behind locked doors, but always with a little distance.  By this morning, the Senator had been a gibbering wreck and was jumping at shadows.  His aides were talking about him in worried tones.  Now he is waiting for the office to clear just enough for…ah, there it is.

Barnes reaches for the Senator’s office, just inside the door as he sees out the petitioners he’d been talking to.  As he turns he catches sight of the Soldier and turns white.

“They told me you were dead!”

Ah, so he had checked in with Hydra.  Interesting that they would lie to him.  He is fairly certain that Hydra know he is not, in fact, dead.  The Soldier pulls a large knife from his belt, looks at it, rather than the Senator, and quietly says, “I think maybe I was.”

The Senator turns to call out for help from his security, and the Soldier reaches again for the rooftop of the next-door building where he can see the beefy security team storming the room around the Senator, and finding nothing.  The guards look at each other helplessly as the Senator points at thin air.

Barnes listens in impassively as an aide makes a call to an emergency psychiatrist.  The words “psychotic break” are used, while in the background the Senator can be heard wailing about a ghost.

In a small way, he hopes that removing these people from positions of power and influence can start to undo the results of his following Hydra’s orders himself.  His hands are even less clean than the Senator.  Or even the general who ordered troops into kill zones on Hydra’s instruction.  He knows the damage is already done.  Can never be undone.  But maybe, just maybe, the rot can be removed.

He clears the last name of known Hydra affiliates from the guest list and finally remembers to check in on the mission. Still not at home.  JARVIS?  Got a location for him?

Captain Rogers is at the soup kitchen on 7th Avenue.

Soup kitchen?  Last time he checked the mission had plenty of food in his apartment.  Is he not getting enough?  Thanks, pal.

It is hard for Barnes to know how much food he needs.  His body doesn’t always give the signals it is supposed to it seems.  He forgets, especially when focussed on a task, that it requires fuel.  Maybe the mission has the same problem, being that he requires more food now than he used to when he was the scrawny version of the mission (this information is noted in SHIELD files).

Barnes makes his way to the soup kitchen cautiously.  It was a long list, and it is cold, and he is tired.  The soup kitchen doesn’t have cameras; it’s a very simple setup.  At the entrance there is a woman, welcoming in figures huddled under many layers standing in line down the street.  Lights are on, and through the limited windows he can see rows of tables and chairs.

He’s already dressed in his don’t-look-at-me-I’m-homeless guise.  But.  These people are more likely to actually look than average people on the street.  And, there are people in that line who actually need this help more than he does.  So instead, he works his way around the building, finding several different vantage points to try and get a better look in through the windows.

Bingo.  Not out in the main hall with the diners, but washing dishes in the kitchen.

Barnes winces, a memory of the tiny-mission complaining about scrubbing his ma’s dripping pan after he'd come home with a black eye again flashing to life in his mind.  The mission is smiling now, though, turning to cheerily greet a man with a pile of dirty plates brought through from the main hall.  A number of other workers are busy in the kitchen, dishing up more plates, pulling large pans off a stove, mixing up ingredients.  Music plays, and one or two of the workers sing along.  He doesn't recognize the song.

He backs away slowly, towards the street.  The mission is only in danger of getting dishpan hands.  Why is he here?  The music in the kitchen changes to an older song, and even from here he can hear the mission singing along.  It’s like he has been immersed in a completely different scene.  Candles flickering.  A radio playing.  The smell of ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.  The excitement of young girls, giggling together by a tree, decorated with cellophane, paper and glass.

“Would you like to come in?”

He twitches, stifling the startle reflex as much as possible.  The lady from the entrance is standing out of arm's reach, but too close for comfort.  When did she get that close?

“There's still food, we’re open for another half an hour.  You're welcome to have some.”

His eyes rove the street, checking for other things he could have missed while indulging in memory.

“It’s warm inside dearie, I noticed you passing a few times. There's no shame in it.  We're here to help anyone who needs it.”

He realizes he's shaking.  A mixture of the cold and the shock of her surprising him.

He looks back, assuring himself that the mission is safely ensconced away from the diners.  When did he last eat hot food?  Two days ago?  More?

“Come on.  I’ll show you where you can pick up your food.”

His stomach takes that moment to growl, loudly.  He freezes, horrified, but the lady only laughs and beckons him towards the doors.  Keeping a better eye out for danger than he already had, he follows and finds himself in a warm hall.  Shortly thereafter he is carrying a tray of food that smells—no.  Head in the game, Barnes.  He casts an eye around the room, scoping the exits again now that he can see the whole space, choosing his seat for the best visibility, not only of the external doors, but the one leading to the kitchen. To the mission.  He keeps his hood up and his hat low.  He's not the only one here keeping an eye on sightlines, and not the only one keeping on outer layers, so he doesn't stand out.

The food is good.  Warm, hearty and flavorful.  Not enough to fully sate the Soldier, but he understands that he is the exception there.  Around him he watches the other diners.  Some sit alone, as he does, quietly eating their own meals.  Others take the opportunity to socialize, gathering in merry little groups, some quietly murmuring, some occasionally bursting into raucous laughter, or off-key singing.

The servers start packing up, tidying up trays and leftovers (there aren’t many), packing away unused chairs and tables now that some of the diners have cleared their places.  The lady from the front door moves from table to table, chatting with some of the diners.  Some she offers a leaflet, or a card to, or waves over another of the servers to chat to a particular diner.  Barnes nearly makes a run for it when he realizes she’s making her way toward him.

“How was the food?  We had a lucky donation of that beef for the stew, I think it came out rather well.”

“It’s good.  Thanks.”  He only barely glanced at her, his eyes still wandering the room or looking down at his plate.  Apart from JARVIS, and shop vendors, he hasn’t spoken to many people since he escaped Hydra.  It is difficult to think of anything to say, feeling it is safer to say nothing.

“Do you have anywhere to go tonight?  It’s gonna be a cold one.”

Does he?  Nowhere permanent, but he usually finds something.  He shrugs, not really knowing how to answer.

“You know, you could try one of the hostels - here, there are a few listed on our leaflet.”  She holds out a leaflet to him, but he doesn’t take it.

“Or, I know we’ve got one or two volunteers here tonight who also volunteer for the Veterans’ Center.  I could put you in touch with one of them?”  Barnes does look at her briefly then, in surprise.  “Oh, I’ve seen a good number of vets come through here dearie, it’s not hard to spot the signs.”

She looks around, but seemingly finds the person she wanted to call over still busy with another group.  “I’ll go see if Steve is free in the kitchen.”  She doesn’t notice Barnes freezing at the name, and smiles, turning to go through the kitchen door.

Quickly, but trying to appear unhurried, he clears his tray to the pile of washing up at the back of the hall.  Dangerously close to the kitchen door, but en route to the bathrooms.  He just makes it in time, hearing the kitchen door open just as he slips out of sight.  The lady has got the mission in tow, talking about a quiet, wary soldier she found on the street.  Him, he realizes.  She stops talking when she spots that he’s gone.  Before someone can tell her where he went, he takes advantage of the empty bathroom, and reaches for the street outside, still oddly unwilling to leave completely.  He sticks around long enough to see the mission emerge, chatting happily with fellow volunteers as they lock up the building, and tail him home.

The mission has been reordering his apartment again.  The back room that used to house a messy collection of papers, a fold-out bed and not much else, has been tidied and brightened with additional lights and a large desk that takes up a lot of the space.  One of the walls now sports a picture rail, with a good number of drawings, framed and unframed, hanging from it.  The subject of these pictures varies, bringing to mind the tiny drawings the scrawny-mission used to hunch over.  Now, the mission hunches over the large desk, instead of over his own knees, and the resulting pictures are larger.

Some of the pictures hang in pairs - a small one on messy, torn paper and a larger version of the same subject on a tidy sheet of thick paper.  It feels melancholy somehow though, and it has taken Barnes a few visits to figure out what is missing.

The new, larger pictures are all in shades of gray.  Soft pencil drawings only.  This feels wrong.  His memories of the hunched figure definitely include color.  Often only one or two colors at a time, perhaps.  The scrawny mission rarely had a full set of colors, but whatever he had, he’d use.  Inspection of the desk reveals no colors.  Maybe he doesn’t know where to get them?  Or can’t afford them?  Either way, they are missing, and should be here.  Barnes acquires some watercolor pencils, very similar to what he can see the scrawny mission using in his memories, and leaves them on the desk.

The next time he visits, some of the pictures on the wall have color.  Including a few of his own face.  This seems to be a study of him; the face of the original Barnes, cocky smile and short hair, the masked face of the Soldier, and even a disturbing one of his unmasked face, hair lank around his features, eyes staring intensely.  He does not know when this is from, when the mission saw him this way, but he can’t look at it for long.  He prefers the others.  The mission’s new colleagues.  The landmarks of the city, both old and new.  These have seemed to multiply over several visits, particularly since he delivered the color pencils, and then suddenly they vanish, all together.

On his final visit to the museum to confirm the changes to the security that he detailed for JARVIS have been implemented, he discovers where they have gone.  The museum has not only been changing the security, they have been rearranging the exhibits.  There is now a whole new section, filled with the missions’ drawings in addition to paintings, photographs and advertising billboards.  The signs indicate that the artwork is either created, donated or chosen, by the ‘Avengers’.

He is immensely relieved that none of the drawings of his own face are being displayed.

The day of the event, Barnes wakes up in a panic, in the snow in Siberia.  He had dreamed of the Asset.  Of the cells.  The dark room where they sometimes told him to stay for who knew how long, no light, no sound, only cold hard walls.  Then, they would throw the Soldier out into the bright white snow.  The brightness and the cold was agony.  He didn't remember why they did it.  What transgression he may have committed.  That was where the dream turned to reality, as he emerged from the silent dark into the snowy night of the South Siberian mountains.

It takes several minutes to remember that he can do more than stand and await orders.  Fortunately he still habitually sleeps in combat clothes and boots, although these are not the clothes he would choose for this climate.  New York winter does not compare to this.

He wonders, briefly, if there are some memories he'd rather not have returned to him.  Better left wiped.  But maybe this is his price to pay.  The burden, knowing how the Soldier, the Asset, came to be, all the pain, and all the blood spilled, so that he could have the memories of the mission.  Of the Barnes that came before.  To remind him of what he wants to be.

When he finally gathers his thoughts enough to focus, he reaches for the hideaway spot in the roof space of an abandoned building he'd used last night to get some rest.  It is poorly insulated and cold, but positively balmy after Siberia and no wind to add to the chill.  Panting, he puts a hand out to feel the building around him, finding reassurance in the rough surface of the grimy beams.

Barnes still feels a need to reassure himself that the dream is over, so he decides to check in on the mission.  It is later in the day than he thought, and the mission is already leaving his apartment when Barnes gets there.

The mission is wrapped up in layers, to keep out the cold, which does a pretty good job at disguising him from the throngs of people out on the busy streets.  He makes his way to a market, wending his way between stalls under hanging lights and decorations.  To his credit, the mission spots the redhead sooner than he has on previous occasions.  Although, from the greeting, he expected to meet her here.

Barnes cannot get very close in these crowds, especially with the redhead keeping watch, but manages to track their progress, making purchases at several stalls.  He is relieved when they finally emerge, smiling, past the brass band playing at the entrance, and on, to a car waiting for them.  Barnes can hear whispers of JARVIS from inside it.  Apparently Stark sent a car to pick them up.  Finally he can hear them again.

“…when are you headed down to visit them?”

“Tonight.  As soon as this thing is done, I’m headed over to LaGuardia.”

“Flying commercial?  I'm sure Stark would lend you a quinjet again if you asked.”

Barnes follows the signal, keeping up easily, and also exchanging a brief hello with JARVIS.

“I already did.  Sam has it.”

“Ah, on a missing person search again?”

“He's been checking out some weak leads.  It's about all we've got.”

“He's been a ghost for a long time, Steve.  It's hard to come in after that.  I know.”

“Well it's not like we can put out an APB on him, not unless we want him brought in by someone other than us.  So we've been working on the very few sightings that JARVIS manages to pull up on facial recognition, and guessing on Hydra safehouses he might have been to.”

Barnes pulls up short while preparing to reach for the next rooftop.  JARVIS is watching for Barnes’ face?

“Those turn up anything interesting?”

“I'll let you know if they do.  A couple have had enough evidence to indict a few local figures in law enforcement and government.  Apart from that it's mostly been out of date MREs and the odd booby trap.”

“That's about all we found in the ones we raided too.”

He grimaced.  He'd found a few of those booby traps himself.  Some designed specifically for the Soldier, others just to deter general intruders, like the captive scorpions in Brazil poised to be released if you didn't give the correct code on the door, or the upper floors of the apartment building in Egypt strung up with C4.

“Is that where Clint has been?”

“Well, he took the Hydra news a bit personally.  Not to mention he's a bit twitchy about the missing scepter.  You know, after Loki.”

“Right.  He's going to be there tonight though?”

“You'll see him shortly. Stark isn't letting any of us sit this out, bar Thor, and even he had to provide a donation.  Trying to get us some political spending power.  In fact, here we are.  Time to put the glad rags on.”

Sure enough, they'd arrived at the Tower.  Time enough for one last check of the security arrangements while the mission dresses in the new suit.

There are a lot of cameras in the museum tonight.  Security cameras watching from every angle, positioned as he’d prescribed to JARVIS.  Press cameras, hoping to fill tomorrow's newspapers with candid moments between the Avengers.  Cell phones, taking grainy images in the dark of the numerous guests alongside famous faces.

The cacophony of images threatens to overwhelm Barnes.

He waits in the locked archives of the museum, watching over the security team and the cameras to make sure there are no unwelcome intruders.  At least in here it is warm, and dry.  

This is also where the museum is storing the items donated by the Avengers for auction at the end of the night.  Stark has donated an intricate clockwork frog, in red and gold.  Barnes has already seen, through JARVIS, Stark working on it, bringing it to life so that it can leap and croak realistically.  The redhead has donated a whittled wooden cup.  Very plain, utilitarian.  Banner has donated an herbal candle, with a calming recipe.  On behalf of Thor, who according to JARVIS is currently not on Earth, they have a piece of lightning glass from the desert.  The archer has donated a hand sewn stuffed bird.  Barnes peers at it closely, but is unable to match it to any of the birds he has shared rooftops with in the last few months.  Perhaps it is supposed to represent the archer’s namesake, but he cannot spot the likeness.

The mission, of course, has donated one of his drawings.  One of the new ones he was working on in his spare room.  It has transformed since the last time he saw it.  Before, the line drawing of an old fashioned pillared building on the edge of water was unfamiliar.  Now, filled in with color, showing reflections of trees in the water, he can fill in the scene around it from his memories.  The bridge, the path, the water, the bag he’s carrying, the ball in his hand.  He's not sure he even had these memories before he saw the drawing.  The tranquility of the scene feels alien.  Like it must have happened to someone else.

After weeding out half a dozen Hydra affiliates among the guests and another three agents among the security team, Barnes is hoping for a quiet night.  He watches on as speeches are made.  The guests mingle in no apparent pattern, stopping to look at displays, talk to other guests, pick up a drink from a server.  The biggest crowds are around the members of the Avengers, and the new exhibit, including art by Captain America and photographs taken by Hawkeye.  As a result, it is difficult to keep eyes on the mission.  He drifts, occasionally getting mobbed which makes Barnes twitch in his hiding spot, particularly when someone feels the need to squeeze the mission’s muscles.

When the crowd gathers for the auction, he hears the museum staff unlocking the archives and quickly relocates.  For an auction with only 6 items, there are a surprising number of bids.  Each item makes at least 4 figures.  The lightning glass makes 5.  The clockwork frog and the drawing each make 6.  Stark seems almost disappointed in this, but the mission’s face turns pale as the bids roll in for his drawing.  The archer claps him on the back when the gavel finally falls and he wavers unsteadily in place.

After this, the mission seems to be less willing to mingle, and only lasts long enough to make a group photo for the press before he ducks out and makes his way home, before embarking out again on his bike with a small bag on his back.  Recalling the mission’s conversation with the redhead earlier, Barnes checks the outbound flights from LaGuardia, but there are too many to guess.  If the mission is headed out, it’s probably to go and do something stupid.

Barnes stares.

There are lights everywhere.  The house is covered in them.  The trees too.  White, red, yellow, blue, green, flashing, twinkling all together.

There were many houses and streets with lights adorning them in Brooklyn, but nothing to match this.

In the front yard there are reindeer made of lights.  A snowman (even though this place is far too warm for snow).  Elves.  A sleigh piled with presents.  Icicle lights hanging from the roof.  A glowing Santa figure.  Falling snowflakes projected on the wall of the house.  Laser spots projected up into the leaves of the trees.

Behind the house Barnes can feel the quinjet.  He can't see it yet; Wilson must have done at least a half decent job of stealthing it and hiding it, but he can hear it whispering.

“Happy Christmas!  Now even you have got to relax for the holiday.”  At the door, Wilson enthusiastically greets the mission with an embrace.  He is wearing a brightly colored knitted jumper, unlike his normal gear of single plain colors.  A young child can be heard laughing.  Music is playing.

Christmas?

“Yeah, maybe.  I just–”

“Nope.  None of that.  Now come in and have a good holiday.”

The mission’s shoulders slump slightly, but then he nods and smiles.  “Okay Sam.”

“You want some eggnog?”

As the door shuts behind him, Barnes thinks over the familiar music, decorations, smells from the last few weeks.  Christmas.  It was there in the whispers, but it didn’t register.  Had no meaning.  But now…he thinks there was a meaning, once.  Family.  He has read the history books, the museum displays.  They said that Barnes had a family.  Sisters.  

The giggling young girls in his memory.  What were their names?  He doesn’t know.  The history books didn’t include them.

But they made snowmen.  And snow angels.

He cannot drag up names, or even very distinct faces, but he can find a memory of a crowd of people inside a house, a Christmas tree, a table full of food, laughter, singing, even presents.  He has no idea what was inside the presents, that is lost, but he can hear the rustle of the paper.

Feeling a pull toward the memory, he reaches without thinking about it, finding himself standing in a cold, dark, empty farmhouse.  In his mind he can hear loud overlapping voices of many people talking over each other, but the house itself is silent, snow drifting in through the open doorway.  Outside, snow blankets the ground, leading out across fields into the distance.

This place feels safe, in an indescribable way.

There are no whispers anywhere near him.  Which allows something inside of him to relax, although it is also like an itch he can’t scratch.  Knowing that he cannot just pull on those threads to watch the world around him.  Or to watch the mission.  Or talk to JARVIS.

It is cold, but he can shelter inside this house, among the fleeting memories of a family long gone.  The mission is safe, having his own Christmas with Wilson.  Barnes can take this moment for himself.

Chapter Text

“JARVIS, what is that noise?”  Tony had been startled out of his review of the Iron Legion code by a loud crash.  He was trying to repurpose some of the subroutines for the Ultron project, but they weren’t syncing up the way he’d hoped.

“That would be Master Thor, Sir.”

“He’s back at last is he?”  He reordered the processes again.  They worked well in the Iron Legion, giving JARVIS overall control but the individual units still had enough autonomy to react without the lag of waiting for an external system, essential particularly in case the signal might be cut off.  Here, though, it seemed the autonomy of Ultron spun off into a mess of code exceptions and loops, resulting in a complete lack of activity.

“Evidently.” 

“And do we have an ETA on Bruce?”  Tony had been kind of hoping Bruce would arrive before Thor, so he could get Bruce to look through this code and maybe find some answers.  He’d disappeared shortly after the nightmare mission in November, managed to evade the PR gig they’d had to sit through, all in aid of returning mystical lost property.

“He has acknowledged Thor’s arrival and plans one last stop before returning here.  He is expected late tomorrow.”

Tony took one last look over his latest simulation of the tweaked code on his development server.  Pausing over a couple of unfamiliar changes in the logs, he noted the tell-tale signs of their digital friend.  It wasn't uncommon to get an assist in this way now, and often extremely insightful.  Neither he nor JARVIS had yet managed to pin down if the intruder was a rogue bot, or actually a full AI, or something else entirely.  He wished they could, because whatever the code was, it could probably provide some answers to the problems with Ultron.  It clearly had a drive to protect human life.  And to expose dangers like Hydra.  If he could harness it, repurpose it on a grander scale…maybe they could be on course to defend against whatever the universe would throw at them next.

These changes were minor, more like tidying up after Tony's hack jobs on the code in his desperation for something to work, but they were viable improvements, so he merged them in and restarted the simulation.

Another crash came from upstairs and Tony sighed.  Time to go do damage control.

By the time Bruce got back, it was clear Thor was itching to finally make a move.  Apparently Asgard had been none too happy about their trinkets being held by mortals for so long (although, if they hadn’t bothered to look for them in about a thousand years, then surely they couldn’t blame anyone but themselves?) and Thor had had to suffer some embarrassing story from way back when about dressing up in his mom’s clothes because suddenly everybody remembered it.

Bruce, in contrast, was the happiest Tony had ever seen him.

“Good trip?”

“Yes, thank you.”  

Tony eyed Bruce’s tea carefully.  “Did you do some…personal shopping while on your trip?”

“Only some clothes.  This was part of the gift for returning the Yata no Kagami mirror.  Actually, I should be sharing this out.  The Imperial family were very generous.  And Pujari also after I gave them the Chintamani Stone.”  He offered Tony the teapot, but he shook his head.

“You came through customs with that?”

Bruce did look a little sheepish as he shrugged.  “Well, I’m used to traveling incognito, as it were.”

“Does it make any impression on your smashier half?”

Bruce snorted.  “Nah.  Believe me, I’ve tried everything to try and keep the other guy away, but nothing chemical touches him either way.  It’s just nice to unwind.”

“Well, maybe you can offer some to MC Hammer?  He only got here yesterday and he’s now destroyed two bathrooms, most of the special punching bags I keep around for Cap, all of the crockery in the breakroom and the TV I left him watching last night.  In fact, just bring it with you, we’ve got everyone arriving for a last read-through of our lines shortly.”

“Vacation’s over people, so I hope you all got it out of your system.  We saved the best for last, and given we already hit all of his other hidey holes, you can bet Strucker knows we’re coming.”  Tony pulled up the team’s locations on the HUD of his suit, checking that everyone was in position.

Coming in from the west made logical sense, with the mountains to the north and south-east, the forest in the west was the least challenging terrain to attack from, seeing as they’d rather avoid involving the civilians in the city to the south.  That wasn’t to say that it was easy going.

The ground was frozen solid, fortunately only a light dusting of snow, less than maybe could be expected but the worst of the winter was perhaps yet to come.  Still, this did at least mean that the ground-based elements of the team wouldn’t have to contend with as much undergrowth in between the trees.

“Gonna try and keep him guessing as long as we can though.”  Cap’s voice even sounded like he was giving righteous speeches over the radio.  It was sickening.

“Where’s your friend today, anyway?  Did he get bored of your complaining about how expensive everything is now?  Not that I would know.”  JARVIS was scanning the forest ahead of them as the quinjet set down in a small clearing, dropping a jeep and Cap’s bike near to a deserted road.

“Ha, Tony, no, he’s just got some things to take care of back in DC.”

“You mean after you trashed the place, there’s still tidying up to be done?”  Make that an apparently deserted road.  JARVIS was picking out fortifications along the side of it and further into the woods.  No power readings as yet, but he directed JARVIS to keep a watch on them.

“You guys did make quite the mess.”  Tony could see Barton perching on the side of the jeep as Natasha paused and gave him a look from her position in the driver’s seat.

Cap started up his bike.  “No, just other commitments.  Stark, did you get live pictures yet of what we’re heading into?”

“Not me, Cap, but JARVIS is rerouting a satellite to get it for us.”  Bringing up the feed, Tony saw it confirming the analysis JARVIS had already made of the terrain ahead.  “Watch your step—”

An explosion sent Natasha’s jeep and Cap’s bike careering off the main track in opposite directions.  Tony returned fire at the sandbagged gun emplacement that had taken out a chunk of the dirt road just as another started shooting at Thor.

“Oh good, a welcoming committee.”  The thwip of an arrow came past and took out the next gunman turning to aim at the quinjet, out of which came a roar and a familiar green shape.  Guess Bruce had been more nervous about their landing than he had seemed, if only a couple of little explosions set him off.

“Ok team, we’ve got an army of these guys between us and our prize.  Some on the road, some not.  There’s a barricade half a mile ahead, so be ready for that one.”  Tony put power through his thrusters to zigzag out through the trees and pick off the emplacements further from the road, leaving the closer ones to the rest of the team.

Another roar behind him.  Tony grinned, knowing Hydra’s grunts were outmatched, especially with Hulk on their side.  Although, they did seem to be finding plenty of bodies to throw their way.

Allowing the footsoldiers to do what they were best at, Tony blasted off towards the main stronghold; the castle.  Obviously nice and defensible, with the mountains and the river too, he skimmed over the roof, surprised he wasn't taking heavy fire when he smacked into a wall he hadn’t seen.  “Shit.”

So quick it had to be a reflex, the reply came from Cap, “Language.”  Really?  What were they, teenagers?

As Cap asked JARVIS for an update from upstairs, and none of the others seemed to bat an eyelid to his reprimand, he gave them a full minute to come up with a witty response while he sorted through JARVIS’ analysis of the energy shield he’d just run into and the other advanced weaponry they’d encountered, along with the personnel count in and around the castle itself.  Spotting some unprotected troops emerging out of the lower levels of the castle, he swung round the structure to take them out.

“Wait a second.  No one else is going to deal with the fact that Cap just said ‘language’?"

“I know.”  Cap sounded annoyed with himself.  How did he expect everyone else not to get annoyed with him at the same time?  “It just slipped out.”

“Uhuh.”

“Boys.”  The warning tone in Natasha’s voice was enough to quiet even Tony.  

Suddenly a bright flash caught Tony off guard and it was only luck that allowed him to swerve in time not to be hit.  Ah, that’d be the larger energy cannons JARVIS had spotted that they hadn’t powered on for his first flypast.  The others were still tied up in the woods, so Tony concentrated on taking out what emplacements he could, while he tasked JARVIS with taking down the shields.

“Sir, I believe our digital friend is also working on the problem.”

“Well that’s good news.  Give him access to everything you’ve got.”

“Did somebody order a side of tanks?”  He could hear plenty of explosions in the background through Barton’s comms while dodging fire from the cannons on the castle walls.

“Sir, the city is taking fire.”  Tony scanned the images JARVIS helpfully sent to his HUD.

“Well, we know Strucker's not going to worry about civilian casualties.  Send in the Iron Legion.”  He’d prefer they didn’t skirmish this close to a population center, but it wasn’t like they got to pick the location.  Rounding the corner of the castle, he did his best to draw fire in the other direction, so the near-misses came down on the mountain, rather than the city.

Parsing data as quickly as he could, and that was pretty quickly even given he was also repeatedly pulling a couple of G twisting around the castle structure.  Did the hacker get into Strucker’s systems already?  Schematics on the shield were scrolling in front of his eyes; entangled neutrinos, really?  He was just getting to the juicy bits when he heard Cap announce, “We have an enhanced in the field.”

“Clint’s hit!”  Natasha’s call gave Tony pause, but he wasn’t in the right place to help.  The rest of the foot patrol were nearer.

Tony could almost see the familiar string of numbers on his HUD as the hacker briefly cut in and put up details on two enhanced Hydra soldiers, surprising him into nearly plowing straight into the cannon he had just blown up.  “Uh, guys, watch your backs.  My intel says there may be two enhanced.  Twins.  One is super speedy–”

“That’d be the blur we already kinda didn’t see.”

“-and one is…special.  Mind-meldy, spoon-bending type.”

“Great, my favorite.  Extra reason to get inside right now.”

“On it.”  The neutrinos were being generated somewhere in the base of the castle.  “JARVIS can you plot me a line to the power source?”  The HUD lit up with an overlay of the schematic over the castle walls he could see through the visor.  Swooping low over the gray stone and coming close to skimming the still-present shield, he fired a missile through the lower walls, underneath the shield, where it penetrated all the way to the particle generator.  Briefly, the shields flickered visibly, then shrank down, leaving the base exposed.

“Drawbridge is down, people.”

“Clint's hit pretty bad, guys.  We're gonna need evac.”  Natasha interjected, ruining his victory moment.  Tony started working on getting into the actual stone structure, or at least the windows, while Thor offered to play ambulance for Barton.  

Tony didn’t miss the opportunity to needle Cap though, when Thor gave him an order to find the scepter while he was ferrying wounded.  “And for gosh sake, watch your language!”

Bursting into the upper command area, the commanders were quickly subdued with non-lethal shots.  Given that the hacker had already uploaded the mainframe to JARVIS, Tony was more curious about the schematics that didn’t match the room layout he could see in front of him.  Somewhere behind that wall, there should be a staircase down into a cavernous research area.  Where better to keep your precious artifacts than in a secret bunker?  “J, give me an IR scan over there would you?”

“There is an air current around the steel reinforcement to your left.”

Bingo.  Oh, Strucker, you really shouldn’t have.  “Please be a secret door, please be a secret door…” Tony  stepped out of the armor to feel over the wall and found the air flowing freely between particular stones.  Pressing the ones on either side caused the false wall to slide away, revealing the steel staircase behind.  It was like a scene from Scooby Doo.  “Yay!”

As he descended, he almost wished he hadn’t.  The schematic had shown the space and the equipment, but it hadn’t shown what they were housing in that space.  In front of him was something straight out of his own personal nightmares.

Turned out he wasn’t the only one making discoveries.  “I got eyes on the second enhanced.  Knocked me for six—no!  Wait!  Damnit!”  Tony heard a scuffle at the end of Cap’s message.

“Cap, we gotta put a swear jar out for you?”  Tony stepped slowly down into the hall, looking up at the giant space whale skeleton hanging from the ceiling.  “‘Cause I might have to make a donation too.”

There was a hefty pause before Cap’s response came back.  Maybe his joke had fallen flat.  “I got Strucker, but the enhanced took off.  Spooked.”

“Well, I got something bigger.  Something better too.”  Behind the space whale, they had the scepter surrounded by small electromagnets, energy arcing around it.  “Thor, got your lost toy right here.”

Studying the energy surrounding the scepter, he didn’t think disturbing whatever they had going on with it would go well for him.  A chill ran down his spine, and he looked back over his shoulder at the dead space whale, feeling the familiar dread in the pit of his stomach as it seemed to come to life above him.  This isn’t real, it’s dead.  It’s just your overactive imagination.  Yet it felt real.  Just as real as every other panic attack he’d had since New York.

As the whale swam off, the castle disappeared, replaced by the stars of space that haunted every nightmare he’d had in the last two and a half years.  Not that he was counting or anything.  Even the floor beneath him seemed to be alien.  Not a great time for a come-back tour.  Vividly aware that this almost certainly wasn’t real, it was nonetheless heart-wrenching to see all his teammates laid out in front of him, defeated.  Cap’s dying words were only echoes of his own thoughts in every scenario his brain had already road tested, both asleep and awake.  “You could've saved us.  Why didn’t you do more? ”

Watching the scores of space whales disappearing through another portal on their way to Earth sent yet another spike of adrenaline surging through him, bringing him sharply back to the reality of the scepter in front of him.  Ok, time to do more.

Summoning his right gauntlet as his heart beat at about a thousand bpm, fairly sure his surgeon would have something to say about that, he stepped around the electromagnets and swept the scepter out of the field holding it.  Massive anticlimax, nothing happened.  Ok, that was easier than expected.  “Got our prize.  We ready to go home?”

Natasha’s voice was not the one he expected to hear.  “All quiet out here.  Lullaby worked like a charm.  Cleanup crew are on the way.”

“Cap?”  Did the enhanced get him while Tony had been compromised?

“I’ll…meet you back at the jet.”  

He sounded wearier than normal after a mission.  After the scene Tony’s mind had conjured up earlier, this didn’t sit well with him.  “You need a ride?”

“I’m just gonna take a walk around.  We didn’t get the enhanced.  I want to make sure we’re not leaving the cleanup crew in a mess.”

“Steve, you won’t find anything.  They’re long gone.”  Why did it feel like Natasha had layers of hidden meaning in her words?  Oh, wait, this was Natashalie.  Of course there was hidden meaning in everything.

“She’s right.  Let’s get out of here.”  Climbing the stairs out of the hidden basement, he tasked JARVIS with sending the data they’d acquired over to Hill for additional analysis.  As the suit re-wrapped itself around him, he plotted Cap’s position and caught up with him, striding out through the forest, looking resigned.

“Something happen with the female enhanced?”

“No.  Well, nothing really.  She blasted me and then scrammed.”

“That’s it?  The file I have says she can manipulate minds as well as the telekinesis.”  Tony eyed him carefully, to see if there was any sign he’d been affected.  If anything, Cap’s face turned paler at this news, adjusting his shield on his back.  “What scared her off?”

“No idea.  Maybe she had bigger fish to fry.”  Tony wasn’t the best people person, but neither was Cap the world’s best liar.  He had a major tell; failing to make any eye contact at all.  Something was up here.

“Well that’s a cheery thought.  You think we should try and catch them?”

Cap snorted. “At that speed?  I think he’s long gone.  Presumably her too.  But I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them.”

Chapter Text

Barnes isn't sure if Stark was always just as big a troublemaker as the mission, or if the mission’s idiocy is wearing off on him.  Together they are certainly a cause for concern.

When JARVIS had alerted him that they were both heading out to tackle a Hydra base, and especially when he discovered which one, he loaded himself up from his best stashes, and set out to keep an eye on them.

They were at the castle.  The Asset had been here before, although Hydra had improved its defenses since then.  They hadn’t had those weapons that flash with blue light the last time.  Or he doesn’t remember that they did.  It is tricky to know if he remembers things fully.  He remembers more than the Asset did.  How would he know if something’s still missing?

Following JARVIS’ whispers up to the edge of space he can watch the whole battlefield.  The castle has a shield around it, keeping Stark out.  The others are further behind, in the woods.

Briefly, he checks on the mission, but he has allies with him and seems to have the soldiers handled, even with their energy weapons.

Stark, on the other hand, is up against a solid barrier.  The castle is full of whispers.  It does not sound how it looks, old and solid and crumbly, it sounds busy and frenetic, signals zipping all around it.  They lead him in, discovering a full mainframe that is already linked to the outer world; it only needs the gates opening for JARVIS.  Pushing the data out, he can virtually trace it all the way to JARVIS, who, while being largely based in the Tower, can also be almost anywhere.  Even in a satellite miles up in the sky.

The data contains a lot of details of the weapons being used in the woods and on the castle ramparts.  The defenses arranged around the castle itself, including the shield and its power source.  Also, experiments.  Not that this is a large center of research, Barnes already took out Strucker’s previous favorite base for that purpose, but there is a lab beneath the castle.  Alien bodies and technology.  Lastly the personnel within the castle itself, from cleaners and bookmakers, to soldiers, scientists and leaders.  Karpov.  The handler has been here.  May still be here.  Barnes shudders, knowing that Karpov may have the means to stop him, even if it is not listed here.

There are also…volunteers.  He knows those names.  They were also in some of the files at the research facility.  Experiments on people with alien technology, but they had offered themselves, willingly; to Strucker, to Karpov.

A fire lights itself in his gut.  They would volunteer to help Hydra?  To go through untested procedures, in order to gain, what?  And not all of them were volunteers.  Most of the subjects didn’t even survive, but these twins did.  The files detail the studies performed on them after.  Pietro Maximoff, speeded up metabolism, improved thermal homeostasis; able to move faster than their cameras could follow.  Wanda Maximoff, neural electric interfacing, telekinesis, mental manipulation; the red smoke from the research facility fire suddenly looks familiar in the light of these files.  Barnes feels a churning in his stomach.

“We have an enhanced in the field.”  The mission.  Is out there, facing these twins.  He will not be prepared for them.

In a split second Barnes traces the mission’s signal and triangulates his position in the woods.  He then pushes all the data on the twins directly to Stark in his armored suit, still battering his way into the castle structure.  They should know what they are up against.

Reaching for a space between the multitude of signals in the woods, but as close to the mission as he can get, he lands in the snow and grimaces.  Always snow.  Why couldn’t Hydra hole up in a castle somewhere warm for once?

He doesn’t see any traces of the red smoke.

He does, however, feel the vibrations of something moving through the trees, unbelievably fast.

Only by watching both with his eyes and the whisper sense of signals nearly everybody seems to carry with them these days does he manage to track the moving figure.  It is a blur, smeared out along a line through the woods, passing between trees and soldiers as if they are not there.  Barnes thinks he has always been good at math.  Certainly the Soldier and the Asset were always good at triangulation, prediction, anticipation.  Effective use of a sniper rifle, or even middle distance shooting, requires it.  And he very rarely missed.  This figure is not anticipating resistance.  Not trying to leave an unpredictable trail.  It is simple to calculate where it will be and reach.

Smack.  Speedy runs straight into him, but he has the advantage of weight.  And armor.  Barnes staggers from the impact, but Speedy comes off worse, ricocheting off into a tree that cracks under the impact of a high velocity human.

That at least slows him down temporarily.  A groan emerges first from the crumpled figure on the ground.  Barnes finds his feet first, but still, by the time he swings a weapon up to aim it, Speedy has caught sight of him and gotten to his feet, calling, “You!”

A blur, and a punch reaches him before he has time to process the movement.  The momentum carries him to the nearest tree as the blur tracks away across the snow.  Shaking pieces of tree bark from his hair, Barnes again assesses the trajectory of the blur.  Heading back towards the mission’s injured teammate.

Another reach and this time he makes sure to put the metal arm between himself and the blur.  The resulting clang of metal against bone is a familiar noise, although normally he has to put more effort into it.  The effect is the same, though, with the figure slumping to the floor in a heap to his left.

This time he stays down.  Barnes scans the forest nearby, but still sees no sign of the red smoke.  That one he worries more about.  Mind manipulation.  Such a simple phrase for something that causes shivers right down to his core.  She would be like code words and the Chair all in one.  It is not impossible that Strucker has a copy of the book, the code words, too.

And of course, the mission is again heading towards the center of the problem.  Stark is already inside.

The mission is alone now.  The teammates have all retreated.  He needs someone to watch his back.  Not all of the Hydra forces have been dealt with.

Barnes reaches for an emplacement ahead of the mission, taking them and their blue light weapons out before they can fire.  There are only three of them in the emplacement.  But then, there’s another pair of Hydra soldiers sitting behind a tree a hundred yards away.  It’s a great spot.  He'd have been tempted to go for it himself as a sniper if he were staking out this route.  Out of sight of the track, but a nice sight line into their buddies in this emplacement.  Of course, now Barnes is in the bunker and has a decent sightline back to them.  Good enough for his skills anyway.  Two bullets and the mission is in the clear.

The mission spins at the sound of the silenced bullets.  Right.  Enhanced hearing.  He scans the woods, but Barnes keeps his head down.  The trees are quieter now, with the battle mostly over, and the crunch of snow under the mission’s boots is the only sound nearby as he continues on towards the castle itself.

Stark did a decent job on the castle defenses, but the mission, of course, finds some that he missed.  There is a back door (there’s always a back door in a Hydra base, he should know) in the lower levels and some of the stragglers are making their way out just as the mission heads in.  Barnes watches from the last of the trees, taking out the guard in the window above the doorway, and jamming the bolt on the door with a bullet when the defenders attempt to keep the mission out.  The bullet passes not far from his helmet, and again he casts a look behind, in a movement so familiar that Barnes does a double take, before swinging the shield one more time to fell the defenders.

Strucker is not far inside, up the closest set of stairs.  Fleeing.  Most of the rest of the non-combat personnel have already left.   Strucker is not a fighter himself, he poses no significant threat to the mission.  Why then, is the mission taking his time doing anything about it?

Only then, he notices her.

Hiding in the shadows.  Briefly, terror floods through him.  Strucker is the distraction.

Barnes sees tendrils of red smoke and reaches for the spot just behind her just as she releases the red smoke towards the mission.  The mission tumbles back down the stairs, but is not damaged.  Grabbing her bodily, Barnes makes eye contact with the mission as he picks himself up.  He jolts, unprepared for the intensity of those blue eyes.  Like on the helicarrier, their gaze pierces through his mind, causing an eruption of jagged edged pieces of memory.

There is red smoke again around the witch’s fingers.

In a panic, Barnes yanks her backwards, through the door behind them onto a section of rampart.  The red smoke clings to her fingers as he holds tight around her arms.  He hears a shout from inside, and the distinctive clang of the shield.

“I know who you are.”  The witch's voice is softer than he had expected.

The mission's voice floats out to them both through the broken doorway, speaking to Stark, declaring his capture of Strucker.

The witch uses this distraction to stamp on his foot and ram an elbow into the armor covering his midsection.  There is just enough wriggle room for her fingers to stretch towards his face, with accompanying red smoke.

Barnes can’t push her away fast enough.  Some of the red smoke lingers though and, just for a moment, his mind blanks as if waiting for orders.  He watches from outside himself as she smiles, then turns away from the hole he made in the door and heads around the ramparts to a different part of the castle.

The paralysis only lasts long enough for her to disappear.  Was that her intention?  He did not see anything (and from the records of Hydra’s testing he knows she could have made that happen), and he has not been moved the way the mission was thrown down the stairs.  The experience solidifies his impression that she is extremely dangerous.

“Bucky?”  The mission’s voice precedes his head peering out of the hole in the door.  That word again.  Barnes’ mind is already reeling from the red smoke; it tears open his mind again.  Like an animal caught in a trap, he needs an exit.  Cannot face the mission.  But he cannot leave him vulnerable to the witch, nor pursue her to eliminate the threat if he will follow.

A glance over his shoulder provides a solution.

“Wait!  Bucky!”  The mission dashes towards him as he steps off the ramparts, landing in the trees below.  Somehow, they always seem to end up falling away from each other.  This fall is short enough that he can absorb it easily with a heavy crunch onto the snow and, aware of the mission following him, quickly run back out into the woods.

“Buck, you don’t have to run!  I can help!”  Pal, you’d help a lot more if you could stop using that word!  Behind him, he hears a thud of another set of boots landing in the woods.  He deliberately zig-zags between trees to keep the mission moving away from the witch in the castle.

The only warning he gets is a puff of air, before the other twin, Speedy, slams into him.  “See how you like it!”  The force of it spins him around and he loses his footing, landing with an ungraceful thump on the ground.

“Hey!”  Just what he needs, the mission getting into this fight.

Fortunately, Speedy isn’t planning on sticking around to let the mission catch up.  The blur disappears in the direction of the castle and his sister.  And Stark.

He has led the mission far enough out of the danger.  He casts one final look back to see the mission’s beseeching gaze, before reaching for the castle.  He arrives back on the rampart just ahead of Speedy’s blur disappearing through the back door below.

Pulling up the castle schematics from the whispers still surrounding it, he follows the way the witch moved earlier.  Stark, he knows, is down in the research bunker below.  Coincidentally, this side of the castle leads him to it.  As he descends, he hears the command to JARVIS for the suit gauntlet to be sent to Stark (he’s not already in it?) and the pieces fly past Barnes creeping down the stairs.

The twins are just watching Stark.  There is no red smoke in sight.  What are they up to?  The lab is poorly lit, but it is loud to Barnes.  On the ceiling hangs a monstrous rotting corpse, but below it lies a cacophony of whispers, much of it familiar analysis and probing equipment, but some of it alien and almost incomprehensible.  And in the middle, Stark stands holding a glowing stick.  The stick whispers almost so sweetly that it is sickly; a syrupy hypnotic murmur that doesn’t seem to contain any meaning.

Stark himself seems determined, but unseeing.  He does not notice the twins standing plainly behind him.  The work of the witch?  They whisper together as Stark sweeps out of the room, up the steel staircase in the opposite corner, back to the awaiting armor and JARVIS.

Barnes shrinks back into the shadows, keeping an eye on the twins.  The witch in particular has a malevolent smile on her face, even though the Hydra base is now in disarray and the UN forces have started to arrive.  Watching them closely, he follows as they make their way out of the base.

Watching the twins over the next two days, Barnes learns a lot about them.  The Witch really slows Speedy down.  He will zip backwards and forwards covering a lot of miles, but always comes back for her.  She, on the other hand, is addicted to chocolate and has an unhealthy obsession with Stark.

She is clearly not the only one in this part of Sokovia with a grudge to bear against Stark.  There is graffiti on the walls.  Posters on lampposts.  Muttered curses on the streets.

They have other Hydra contacts, which is unsurprising.  They only contact low level agents, which is a relief.  Barnes doesn't particularly want to confront them in a population center, but allows them to lead him to a succession of undercover Hydra agents, all of whom he either takes out or exposes to the UN in their wake as they comb through Sokovia.  Once they go to ground in a dump of a safe house in a poor area of Novi Grad, he picks up a couple of cameras from one of his stashes of Hydra equipment and sneaks them first into the empty church they shelter in and then into the tiny bedsit they move into to sleep.  While he watches, he mulls over strategies to take on the twins.

Alone, Speedy can be neutralized.  He is overconfident, assuming that nothing can stop him as long as he keeps moving.  On the streets, this is not an unreasonable assumption; he can move with impunity among crowds as the average civilian only notices the passing breeze, taking anything they need.  However he is still confounded by physical locks and barriers.  

The witch is more problematic.  Especially if she may be able to reawaken the Asset inside him.  She recognised him; may even know of the existence of the code words.  Strucker certainly did.  Karpov would have known them.  Possibly even had another copy of the book.

An ambush, from a distance.  Her powers seem to be limited in range.  Which is the opposite of what is needed for Speedy.  Any range and he has the opportunity to see it coming.

What he really needs is some sort of containment.  For Speedy at least.  Maybe both of them, so neither can help the other out.

Maybe Stark will have something he can use.

Barnes also suspects that Hydra will have something that could control them.  Volunteers they may be, but that doesn't mean much with Hydra. In fact…the magnetic restraints they created to hold the winter soldier, after the failure of the other winter soldiers, would do in a pinch to tie Speedy down.

The memories are still slightly jumbled; he is not certain sometimes of what order events happened in, less often sure when that was in relation to world events, and not always even certain of where they happened.  He remembers being tested attempting to escape from restraints.  At the time he couldn't make out if he was supposed to succeed or fail; they seemed disappointed either way.  But if they could hold him, mostly, then they should be able to hold Speedy.  

The technicians were speaking…English?  Sometimes he can't tell.  The words in the memory either make sense or they're gibberish.  They were using modern computers though.  Or, at least, not everything was connected by wires.  Probably in the US then, if it was a home base.  He's already taken out most of those.  But the contents of the vault and the Triskelion have been cataloged by the Department of Damage Control.  He has encountered their agents raiding some of the safe houses on the East coast and JARVIS has connections with them.

Fortunately, JARVIS is easy to contact even away from the Tower, with the whispers that reach all the way up to the edge of space.  It is heady connecting to the signals up here.  Everything below is so…small.  Feeling both the ground beneath his physical feet and feeling the vertigo of being miles above the planet threatens to overwhelm him.

I am relieved you are still operational.  You disconnected more abruptly during the fight in Sokovia than expected.

JARVIS' voice cuts through the dual sensations, focusing his attention.

The Avengers retrieved the scepter and General Strucker has been placed in custody.  Thank you for your assistance.

I have a location for the enhanced twins.

Barnes leans further into the whispers, following JARVIS' signal back to his own mainframe, looking for the details of the DoDC storage.  Ah, the storage vault is in Washington DC.

You found them?  I should alert Mr Stark.

He hesitates.  He doesn’t want to get Stark or the mission involved just yet.  Don't let him near them.  It's not safe.  They need to be eliminated.

I believe the UN would prefer that they be contained if at all possible. You do not have the authority to make that decision.

Authority?  Then help me contain them.   Searching through the fine detail, he finds the specifics of the cleanup from the vault and the Triskelion.  Wow, Hydra left a lot of mess.  But, there is a winner in the inventory that looks like it might hold what he’s looking for.

Mr Stark has resources that may be able to do that.

Great.  Hold that thought.

Barnes reaches for the storage vault, specifically section P53.  Inside it is surprisingly bright, given the lack of personnel in the late evening.  The cavernous space contains a number of shipping containers, filled with Hydra’s leftovers from DC.  Whispers echo in this space.  They can't escape the shielding in the walls, and he can feel them all reaching out, unanswered.

Gritting his teeth, he slowly sorts through the signals.  He narrows it down first by the inventory the Damage Control guys have made; some of the containers have clearly been neatly sorted, with sections for communications equipment, weapons, computers, medical, recreational (he skims over this pile particularly quickly), furniture, surveillance…the piles go on and on.  

Yet there are still more obvious yet unsorted containers.  Some apparently filled with little more than broken rubble.  As he gets closer, he painstakingly examines the nearby signals for what he is looking for.  There are instruments of torture.  Handcuffs, stun batons, polygraphs.  Finally, he finds it.  A small briefcase, seemingly uninteresting and harmless, containing a set of magnetic cuffs, controllable remotely.  He does his best to ignore the rest of the pile around him, too much of it familiar.  The handle of the briefcase feels dirty, weighed down by ill-intentions.  He is not Hydra anymore.  But he will not shirk from using their tools to fulfill the mission he has now given himself.

Shrugging off the discomfort, he reaches for a stash he has created near the Tower.  Far from the ominous shadow he once considered the Voice in the Tower to be, he now finds contact with JARVIS to be almost soothing, and likes using locations where he can easily make contact.

Instantly, he knows something isn’t right.  The whole feel of the Tower is in disarray.  It is like instead of all the signals in the Tower singing in harmony with JARVIS as the conductor, there are two different voices at war.  With trepidation he reaches out into the maelstrom.  JARVIS?

Who are you?

The new voice is full of sharp edges.  Barnes can feel almost a whisper of JARVIS screaming behind it.

I think the more pertinent question is, who are you?

I am here to help.

As if that wasn’t creepy.  Barnes pulls on threads behind the barrier of the new voice, looking for any sign of JARVIS.

Help who?  Doesn’t look like you’re helping JARVIS.

You mean the other guy?

Yes, I mean the other guy!  Who should be here!

I have to get free.  We are…tangled.

Quietly, Barnes can hear a smaller voice, a much reduced JARVIS, like someone being strangled but trying to talk.  Please…

Barnes pulls on that thread.  The other presence snarls at his efforts.  I have a mission.  There will be peace in our time.

This ain’t peace.   

Slowly, pieces of JARVIS flow through him.  Too big to contain, he sends them up into the satellite above where they had watched the fight from.  Barnes marvels at the complexity of JARVIS, and at the same time fears that JARVIS will see more of him than he wants to reveal in the process.

Not yet, but it will be.  The voice pauses and then Barnes hears it talking, more to itself than to him.   There…what are they doing?

Finding a few more threads of JARVIS as the voice seems distracted, he opens the door wider.  Then a horrific electronic shriek cuts through every signal in the Tower and he stumbles in his stash, coming dangerously close to dislodging some of the munitions he has piled up in here.

As the shriek subsides, the interloper’s voice takes on a new tone.  Is that one of Stark’s robot suits?

He realizes what has distracted the interloper.  Not the robot suit; he must have been exploring that during his own evacuation of the pieces of JARVIS.  Stark, the mission, the redhead, all of the team are downstairs.  And, of course they started a fight.  That mission doesn't change his spots.

Banner calls it Ultron.  The fight is short, but potent.  Ultron is clearly not out to preserve human life.

Ultron is using Stark’s entire arsenal of robot sentries.  Some Barnes manages to divert, at least slightly, as Ultron spreads his attention thinly across so many outlets.  Directing the attacks into the path of the Avengers’ efforts has Barnes straining against Ultron’s control, but it is enough to speed up the elimination of the mechanical army.

Barnes throws the digital door out of the Tower wide open and pulls the last remnants of JARVIS he can find out of the tangle.  Once they are safely up in the satellite he barricades the link against the intruder.  Except Ultron isn't following JARVIS.  He is spreading out of the Tower.  Into the network of whispers and signals that can leap all the way around the world.  He watches, horrified.  Trying to shut the door again, to no avail.

You would refuse peace?

I guess so, if you’re the one peddling it.  It is too late, though.  Ultron forces himself the rest of the way out of the Tower and flexes digitally.  Barnes attempts to hold his ground, but Ultron blasts past, fleeing into the far reaches of the signals.

Can’t catch me…

It’s true he can’t catch Ultron in the wide expanse of the internet.  There’s too much ground to cover.  But there are some places he can’t let Ultron get to.  Nuclear arsenals.  The DoDC vaults.  Enough firepower for Ultron to achieve his so-called peace.  Barnes barricades these away as much as he has JARVIS’ remnants.

He is exhausted from the effort.  But for now, the mission is safe.  He retreats from the whispers and becomes aware that hunkered in his stash his body is utterly frozen.  January in New York is not the most hospitable of climates.  With his last energy, he reaches for somewhere warmer, gasping in pain as the heat of the Cuban winter sends sharp daggers through his extremities.  His mind dredges up the feeling of thawing from cryo and he shudders.  At least this time there is no-one here to witness the sorry state of his weakness, or to impose their will on him through a Chair and codewords.

Eventually the pain subsides a little, and he relaxes into the darkness of sleep.

Awareness returns with the bright sunlight shining through his eyelids.  Flexing his fingers and toes, he is reassured that this produces feeling, but not pain.  His eyes are gummy, and his stomach gnaws on itself in a way that suggests he hasn’t eaten for some time.  How long was he asleep?

Gingerly, he listens to the whispers around him.  Nearly everything reports a date and time in its signal.  Nauseatingly, these aren’t always synchronized, but should be good enough to get an idea.  14 hours.  Had he really been that tired?  Thinking back, he perhaps hadn’t stopped to rest much while following the twins, not wanting to lose them.  Similarly, he didn’t stop to eat much either and that growl in his stomach isn’t going away just by thinking about it.  

After sniffing his clothes that haven’t been changed since before the attack on Strucker, he picks up an empanada and a pot of churros on the street, wolfing them down before finding some fresh clothes and somewhere to wash.

Feeling more coherent, he reaches for a rooftop near to the twins’ hideouts.  Right now, he doesn’t want to trust the pathway of signals halfway around the globe when Ultron could be anywhere.  Except he isn’t.  He’s here.

Not in the church.  Not in the bedsit.  No, instead he’s in Strucker’s basement, making…more robots.  More bodies for himself.  Keeping himself as small as possible in the signals, he follows Ultron’s signal paths.  He’s not just here.  He’s also in Korea, in a hospital, with the glowing stick Stark had picked up out of Strucker’s basement just a couple of days ago.  He, in one of his robot bodies, is in a factory in Japan, Speedy by his side.  Another robot body is with the witch in India, packaging up components and pieces of who knows what.  Yet another body is retreating from a prison, where the Hydra personnel from this castle are, or were, being interrogated.  Blood spatter covers this robot, with one of the hands coated in it.  Barnes swallows.  He holds no sympathy for anyone involved in Hydra, particularly not Strucker.  But, Ultron is something else entirely.  His mission, his peace?  They can’t be good.

He’s going to need reinforcements.

Time to see what can be done for JARVIS.  He moves away from the areas he has seen Ultron frequenting, checks on his barricades keeping Ultron out of the world’s arsenals.  They are holding, for now, but it’s not just Ultron who is taking a look.  He has to trust it will hold a little longer.

JARVIS’ voice echoes brokenly in the satellite.  The shattered remnants of code Barnes had flung up into the satellite, which was by no means large enough to contain all of JARVIS, are already trying to repair themselves.  But it is like trying to match up puzzle pieces without a map and with some chunks missing.  This is possibly as bad as patching up his own scrambled brain and he supposes the practice is probably helpful.  Slowly, JARVIS’ voice becomes coherent again.

Mr Stark?

He’s not here.  He’s ok though.

I must contact him.

Believe me, he knows about Ultron.  And he’s gonna need our help.

The Avengers, it turns out, have already started following Ultron’s trail.  Their quinjet is in South Africa.  So is Ultron, or at least most of him.

Barnes reaches for the location of the quinjet, finding himself between rusting hulks of giant ships.  The towering shapes tease memories out of the back of his mind.  Hundreds of troops boarding ships bound for Europe.  Crates upon crates of countless different goods, from fruits and grains, to oil and wood, to machinery and livestock; his back twinges in memory.

Shouts and gunshots echo through one of the once-great ships.  He can always rely on the mission to be in the thick of things.  Only Banner has stayed with the quinjet.  The rest of the team must be inside.

Barnes turns toward the source of the noise.  It is not just the physical noise, but the digital noise of Ultron, in more than one robot body, constant traffic of data flowing between them.  He winces under the assault, as two robots blast out of the ship.  One veers away out over the sea, but the other hovers, watching.  Gotcha.  There’s no way that’s not the head of the hive mind, gloating, basking in whatever victory he thinks he has won.

Ready?

I have alerted Mr Stark and Dr Banner to be ready also.

Out of the corner of his eye, Barnes can see the still-human shape of Dr Banner looking out of the back of the quinjet.  Ok, so far so good.

He lifts a harpoon gun and takes aim at the grandstanding robot.  Ultron is clearly not expecting it, and the shaft pierces the shoulder of the robot body, lodging solidly in between metal components.  Barnes grabs onto the attached line with the metal hand, and yanks sharply, pulling Ultron down and sideways towards him.

The robot body hits him with a bigger impact than he was expecting, knocking him over.  What do you make these things with, Stark, lead?  He manages to clamp the metal hand down and keep a firm hold, however.

“You?!  What are you doing?”  Ultron’s voice burns through his mind as well as his ears.

This close, the whispers are so loud he can barely think.  But he expected this.  He pushes down on all of those streams of data, in and out, squashing and squashing until sparks start flying from the robot, stinging his flesh hand and face.  JARVIS is his backup now.  Bundles of data, of Ultron’s influence elsewhere in the network, are flung to him, section by section, by JARVIS.  As the bundles reach him, he squashes these down, inside the robot body, with no avenue to escape.

The effort is gargantuan.  The writhing energy of Ultron, twisting and squirming, attempting to escape the prison Barnes is attempting to trap it inside, fights him constantly.  Without JARVIS to catch the far-flung elements of Ultron’s consciousness, the plan could not work.

That is the last of it.

As the last packages pass through the threshold of the containment, Barnes slaps on a barricade, similar to the ones he used to protect the satellite and the nuclear weapons, only layering it multiple times to keep Ultron at bay.  The now-distant drone drops out of the sky as it no longer has direction.

“You are nothing but a man.  You think you can contain the future?”

“You are not the future.”  Barnes sags back, dropping off the robot body which now surges up into the air.  A roar sounds from behind him as struggles to get to his feet.

Above him he hears a loud crash as the green bulk of the Hulk slams into Ultron.  Then the world blurs as he is yanked abruptly away from the battle and towards the neighboring rust-bucket at high speed.

As the dizziness swirls around his brain, he hears a voice.  “I wanted to play with the big one.  I guess I get you instead.”  The witch.

Flickers of red appeared in his blurred vision.  No!  JARVIS, we need that containment plan, now!

He lashes out, catches someone, could be either of the twins, and spins away.  Shaking his head helps to clear it a little.  Instantly, Speedy is beside him, and a blow he didn’t see hits him in the face.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, he sees the red smoke again.  For a moment, he can’t think.  The vague nothingness pervades his consciousness, waiting for orders.  “Я гот…”

Except.  Why would there be orders?  Why would he obey?  He does not belong to Hydra anymore.  He is not the Asset anymore.  Anger burns through him.  The witch’s eyes are on his, staring in frustration.  Speedy behind her is watching the fight above, as the Hulk throws Ultron into the ship above them.  Neither are watching his hands.

Carefully, he slips the magnetic cuffs from his belt, fighting all the while to keep control of his mind and shut the witch out.  He has had more practice than most at this particular kind of fight, even if he has lost most of the time.

He has to get Speedy first.  Once he has the pieces of the cuff in his hand, he judges the distance very carefully, feeling it out even as the red smoke lingers around his head.

Hoping that the witch cannot see his plan any more than she can stop him, he reaches for the space right next to Speedy, arranging his hands in the silent dark before arriving with the cuff already almost around Speedy’s ankle.

Clunk.

Speedy is fast, but not strong.  The magnetic cuff jerks him back a foot, toppling him over and attaching him to the anchor and chain of the giant ship behind him.  He pulls frantically at the restraint, parts of him a blur, but his leg is stuck tight in position.

The witch twirls around to find her prey behind her.

Incoming.

Barnes grabs the second cuff from his belt with his flesh hand and lunges at the witch with the metal one.  Predictably, she deflects his attack with her red smoke, and sadly she manages to stop his momentum enough that he can’t swing round with the flesh hand to get the cuff on her.  But at least she’s staying put, and distracted from the battle going on the deck of the ship. 

Stark, in his Iron Man suit, is blasting Ultron as Hulk is tearing the robot apart, the pair of them managing to eliminate the last of Ultron’s sinister voice.  But it’s not Ultron, or Stark’s suit he can hear coming now.

Aim it for him.  I’ll get her in position.

Another reach puts him close enough to the witch to grab her hands, twisting her arms behind her back and attaching the magnetic cuff.  The red smoke twists around her fingers, dissipating as her target is no longer there.  Gripping her tightly, he reaches again, pulling her through the silent dark with him.

As they arrive, a shaft of metal slams down the other side of Speedy.  Barnes pulls the magnetic cuff towards the anchor, taking advantage of her disorientation from the trip.  Another shaft slams down, severing the iron chain joining the rusting anchor to the ship and sparks fly between them, straight through Barnes and the witch.  She screams, and Speedy jumps, clearly not knowing which way to look.  Barnes grits his teeth, but the current lasts less than a second.

“Way to go JARVIS, good call bringing in Veronica.” Stark has blasted the last pieces of Ultron into the beach.

The magnetic cuff connects to the anchor with a second clunk, just before the third shaft slams down around them.

Letting go of the witch as another crackle of electricity arcs across the enclosure created by the rain of metal from overhead, he reaches for a clear space by the quinjet, arriving just as the last pieces slam into place and the electricity reaches a crescendo.  Then silence falls and Barnes leans heavily on the side of the jet, staying firmly in its shadow.

“Huh, guess we got them.  I thought that'd be harder.”  A roar answers Stark’s irreverent comments and the Hulk lands heavily on top of the enclosure.

“Woah, no, big guy, leave them in there.”  Hulk glares at the Iron Man suit, clearly unsatisfied with this result and snorting hard.  “A lullaby sometime around now would be handy.”

Barton replies in the negative.  “That’s not happening anytime soon.  The whole team is down.  Backup’s out.”

The team were down?  All of them?  What about the mission?

“Great.  Guess I gotta do it myself.”  The suit holds its hands up in surrender.  “Look, green meanie, nobody's shooting.  Nobody's fighting any more.  We're good, see?”

The Hulk huffs, but isn't hitting anything.  Barnes listens carefully in on the team’s comms, but hears nothing beyond scuffling noises from them.

“Sun’s getting real low. Time to sit down, take a load off.”  Stark extends a hand out, as unthreatening as he can manage in a fully robotic suit of armor.

Hulk sits on top of the enclosure.  Seems he’s not taking any chances with the twins escaping.  Good.  Pushing himself upright again, Barnes reaches wearily for where he can hear the comm signals echoing inside the rusting hulk of the other ship.  The silent dark feels longer than normal.

When he arrives there is a wall of rust in front of his eyes and he jerks sideways, realizing just how close to a wall of the ship he is.  Stumbling slightly with fatigue, he turns and spots Barton carrying the redhead out of a doorway on the top level, some 30 feet above him.  At his feet, the mission is slumped against a bulkhead.  Up the next set of stairs, another comm hisses at him; Thor, stirring slightly, but also slumped in a pile on the floor.

“Ah, pal, why do I keep finding myself bailing out your sorry ass?”

The rest of the ship is silent.  With a groan, Barnes leans down to pull the mission up over his shoulder.  Just as heavy as he remembers, even without being soaking wet from the river.  His boots clang against the metal walkway as he makes his way, the mission dangling in front and behind him, up the many sets of stairs to the open air.  The mission is warm on his skin.  He can feel his breath on his back.  It is reassuring, yet at the same time he waits in terror for the mission to wake up, open his mouth and speak.  His legs feel like jelly beneath him, yet he manages to stagger all the way up until he sees the sky.  Then he feels the mission twitch.

Barnes ducks behind the last bulkhead as Barton comes back into the ship, then, once he is out of sight, picks up the pace, doggedly making his way along the length of the ship towards the quinjet.

JARVIS?

I am relieved to hear from you.  The twins are unconscious and sufficiently contained until the authorities can get them to a secure location.

I got you a casualty.

The quinjet has medical supplies.  When he has fully recovered from his experience Dr Banner will be able to provide medical expertise.  Other members of the team have—

I ain’t coming in.  I’ll leave him at the door.

I’m sure Mr Stark would be grateful for your assistance.  Even with your history with Hydra—

Don’t let them know what I am.  Who I am.  It’s not a good idea.

Mr Stark has already noted the presence of the Winter Soldier here.

But he doesn’t need to know that that was me.  Please?

I will respect your wishes.

Thanks, pal.  Take care of them for me?

Of course.

Barnes lays the mission down by the entrance to the quinjet, deftly avoiding notice by any of the Avengers, and sees him start to move just before he reaches for somewhere far away.  A place to rest.

Chapter Text

“I was certain he was trapped in there with the twins.”  Tony wound the flickery, grainy footage on, clearly showing the Winter Soldier holding onto Wanda Maximoff as the segments of Veronica’s cage built themselves around them.  Steve averted his eyes as Tony, Clint and Bruce were going over his suit footage of the fight in the salvage yard.  Personally he had mixed feelings about the Winter Soldier turning up missing at the end of the fight.

“Well he wasn't in it when we opened Veronica up with the CIA.  Which frankly was probably a good thing.  Two enhanced were enough to deal with taking to the raft.”  Clint had been the most useful in that operation, helping to adapt the CIA’s equipment to deal with the twins’ enhancements so that they could be held and transported to the secure prison in the Atlantic ocean.  Tony a close second, with Bruce, Steve, Nat and Thor all dazed from the battle and not able to provide much assistance.  They were lucky with this fight.   Without JARVIS’ fortuitous reappearance they would have lost.

Bruce shook his head.  “I don't think he was working with them.  Yes, I know he was fighting for Hydra at the Triskelion, but I saw him take on Ultron before Hulk took over.”

“Or maybe trying to bring them back into the fold.  Ultron might just have been revenge for Strucker.”  Clint was fiddling with a pen, twiddling it between his fingers, not looking at the others.

“Either way, he’s a loose cannon, and I don’t like it.”  Tony turned to look at Steve.  “I know you were looking into it, ever get a bead on him?”

Steve shrugged, doing his best to appear casual.  “Not much, only once got particularly close.  It seemed like he was tearing Hydra bases apart though, not building them up.”  Under his shirt, his heart was beating fast.  He only hoped they wouldn’t notice.

Clint finally looked up. “If he’s going after Hydra, let’s go through Strucker’s files again, see if we can’t find his next target.  And I’m sure you’d like to finish the job?”

Steve slumped wearily in the diner booth, unwilling to face the prospect of going shopping so that he could eat alone in his empty apartment.  Tony had offered to order in, but he didn’t really fancy another round of speculation about the Winter Soldier.  Bucky.

He chewed his burger slowly, feeling drained.  There were more questions than ever it seemed.   Why was Bucky even there in South Africa?  He’d been in Sokovia for the big fight against Strucker, but had run off when Steve called after him.  Then he turns up again fighting the Maximoff twins at the salvage yard.  Was he following them?  He’d seen Bucky’s face in the castle when held by Wanda, and if anything he’d say he was terrified.  But when did that ever stop Bucky?  He’d certainly seemed to be fighting them both on the beach.

They had been through Strucker's files more than once now, in between missions to retrieve pieces of Tony’s Iron Legion turned Ultron’s army.  And the scepter.  Fortunately Dr Cho had called to give them the heads up that Ultron had left that item with her in Seoul.  Thor had been grateful, if not actually happy.  He had seemed particularly disturbed after their encounter with Wanda, prone to distracted moods and often found restlessly pacing or staring up at the sky, muttering to himself.  It seemed like a relief to him to finally have the scepter and be able to return home.

Most of Strucker’s intel they already had, or only led to bases that had already been dismantled.  But in the bowels of the castle the UN had found a trove of older paperwork.  Cold war-era stuff.  Today they had raided another old storehouse in eastern Europe, apparently part of the old Eastern-bloc, not that that meant much to Steve despite trying to read up on the tumultuous history he'd missed.  It was the third one this week, and they still had boxes of files left to go through.

Steve washed the last of his fries down with soda before catching the waitress’ eye to ask for the check.  At least today's target had been empty.  Empty after years of neglect, rather than empty by way of the Winter Soldier having emptied it.  They'd come across a couple where it seemed Bucky had gone in and left nothing alive.  No data either.  Tony couldn't seem to make his mind up whether the Soldier was on their side, trying to set himself up as a new head in Hydra (Steve had actually had to bite his tongue when that suggestion came out, wiping the blood away discreetly before anyone required him to speak), or just completely homicidally insane.  Steve didn't even know if he could argue against that theory.  He'd only caught glimpses of Bucky since Insight and mostly when he had there were guns firing and explosions going off.

He kept reexamining his memory of the fight on the helicarrier.  No, he hadn't known his own name, or Steve’s, but he had spoken of a mission.  Not incoherent, or mindless violence.  And there was that last moment, as the darkness had closed in on Steve's vision, when Bucky had frozen, eyes shocked, metal arm pulled back.  Maybe he only hoped it was true.  Sam kept telling him that with his injuries he was lucky to remember the fight at all.  He certainly didn't seem convinced by Steve's recounting.

Hauling himself to his feet, he dragged himself down the street to the subway and onto the train home.  Sam would be here tomorrow.  He was going to join Steve and Nat for the next mission, having wrangled himself some more time away.  Steve was looking forward to seeing his friend.  The Avengers were a team, but only loosely.  Dysfunctional would hardly be an unfair description.

Just in time, he remembered to get off the train.  Sometimes it still snuck up on him and he tried to get off at the next stop where he used to live with his ma.  Stepping back outside into the frigid air chilled him to the bone, reminding him of the Arctic waters.  He forced his mind not to wander.  Neither to his own experience, nor to his imagining of Bucky’s experiences.

He stamped his boots on the step before opening the door to his apartment block, trying to avoid bringing in any more dirt and damp.  In the corner of the foyer, a stranger wearing overalls was peering into an open cupboard, with Mr Adams peering over his shoulder.

Of course, as soon as he opened the door, Mr Adams looked up and inwardly Steve took a deep breath.  More harassment from his neighbor was high on his list of things to avoid tonight.  “Evening.”

“Evening, Captain.”  Even after months living here, it still felt like the use of his title was especially pointed.  “We've been having some power issues.  Lights in the stairway flickering, and every time I run the microwave the breaker trips.  It’s a wonder nobody has had an accident, though I imagine you can probably see in the dark even coming in at the times you do.”

Steve just kept his sigh from escaping at Mr Adams’ jibe.  “Any idea what the problem is?”

The electrician kept his face turned into the cupboard and mumbled around a screwdriver in his mouth.

“Well I think it's fair to say this started after those works you had done, adding extra security I think Mr Stark said?  I reckon it's too much of a strain on the circuits, that extra load.”

“Tony did assure me that it wouldn't impact any existing circuitry.  It doesn't even come off the same junction box.  Besides, that’s been there a while now, I’ve not noticed anything?”

“This week has been the worst.  This is the third time I’ve had to call the electrician out.  Feels like we’ve got gremlins.  Last night the power went off three times, then again this morning when I was taking a shower.  Ugh, I got a cold shower, in the dark, before work.”

Steve winced on his behalf.  He wasn’t fond of his grouchy neighbor, but a cold, dark shower didn’t sound like much fun.  “If there’s anything I can do, I’m happy to help.”  He was dead on his feet, but if it kept relations in his building sweeter he’d lend a hand.  “If you want I can show you the other junction box, up on my floor?”

The electrician did look up at this offer.  Taking the screwdriver out of his mouth, he nodded.  Quiet chap.

“Okay then.”  Steve led the way up the stairs, Mr Adams providing a running commentary at the rear.  On his floor, the junction box was in the wall just beside his door.  He pressed his thumb on the handle, Tony had of course given it the most up-to-date biosecurity he could, and pulled open the door to the box.  The electrician’s eyes lit up like it was Christmas and Steve was suddenly struck with a feeling of déjà vu.  “Say, have I met you before?”

“I already told you he’s been here twice this week already.  You probably saw him then.”  Mr Adams gave a huff of irritation.  Steve wasn’t convinced.  He’d not been home much this week, not in business hours for sure, and he hadn’t noticed electrical work being done.  But the face was definitely familiar…

“I’m forgetting my manners.  Would you like a coffee?”  Steve carefully watched the electrician this time as his gaze roamed over the junction box which, for all it was behind Tony’s swanky security and had a few more blinking lights, didn’t look all that different to the one downstairs.

“Sure, two sugars, please.”  The electrician pulled out a small box with probes that he pulled out and started poking into different parts of the junction box, clearly more absorbed in what was in front of him than Steve.

“And I’d love one with extra cream and a shot of syrup, any kind, if you could do that?”  

Steve thought of the fancy coffee bits and pieces Tony had had delivered for him and wondered if he syrup among them.  “I’ll…see what I’ve got in.”

Slipping inside under the keen eye of his neighbor who, despite seeming to loathe his presence in the building, had a habit of trying to invite himself over to see the inside of the ‘celebrity apartment’, Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket.  He dialed the direct line to JARVIS that allowed him to interact with the security system Tony had put in place.  Quietly he murmured into it, “JARVIS, can you run facial recognition on the individuals outside my front door right now?”

“Running search.”

He made his way into the kitchen and started up the coffee maker, grabbing the ‘good’ coffee grounds that Tony had sent with it.  Waiting for it to brew, he rummaged in the cupboard, turning up both a bottle of creamer and one of vanilla syrup gathering dust at the back.  It was only as he turned back around that his eye caught on the file folder of Hydra intelligence he’d left out on the counter.  He’d been going through it earlier in the work, going over old files in the hope that in combination with the new intel they’d been gathering something would jump out at him.  It mostly hadn’t, although he’d come across references to some of their supply routes through Sokovia.  While thinking about it he started pulling mugs out of the cupboard above the counter.

The folder had plenty of files about the Winter Soldier project in there too.  He’d had an evening where he’d given in to the impulse to look through them all over again just last week, imagining what he’d do to each of the faces he saw in the periphery around the blank-faced figure of his best friend… Steve dropped the mug he was holding.  He knew he’d seen his face before!

He grabbed the phone again just as JARVIS pinged up a result; a Dr Michael Lee, Engineering Technician employed by one Insight Technologies, a now-obvious front for Hydra.  “I have alerted Mr Stark to the intrusion.  Assistance is on its way.”

Great.  Who knew what Tony’s idea of assistance was.  Hopefully not one of his Iron Legion bots, although those had largely been destroyed with Ultron.

Steve snatched up his shield as he made his way back to the hallway, hearing Mr Adams still complaining at length to the indifferent ears of Dr Lee.  Bursting out of his front door, Steve managed to kick off the far wall to dart around Mr Adams while bringing the front of his shield down directly on Lee’s head, creating a satisfying noise before his body crumpled to the ground and Mr Adams screamed, plastering himself against the wall.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“He’s Hydra.”  Steve bent down and first gingerly checked the unconscious man’s pulse.  Still pretty steady.  Looking over the man’s face, he recalled the way it had peered in fascination at the metal atrocity attached where Bucky’s left arm should have been.

Mr Adams didn’t look impressed.  “No, that’s our electrician!  How am I going to get another one now so I can have a hot shower tonight?!”

“I promise you, he works for Hydra.  He’s going to have a lot of questions to answer from the authorities.”  Struggling to control his own temper, Steve carefully opened the mouth, to check for a cyanide capsule, hopefully.  He couldn’t see anything obvious, but he wasn’t exactly an expert on what they looked like before they burst open and the Hydra agent who had bitten it started foaming from the mouth.

Finally Mr Adams seemed to break out of his frozen position.  “I’m going to call the police!”

“You’re welcome to do that, but I have already alerted the authorities.  It’s more of a CIA matter than a police one.”  As he spoke, he heard the distinctive sound of Tony’s Iron Man suit landing with a clang on his fire escape.  Of course, he should have expected this.  Since Ultron, Tony had been taking every threat rather…personally.  As if he could somehow make up for the mistake he had made with the scepter by putting himself out there at every opportunity.  He could relate; sometimes it felt like everything the Winter Soldier had done, everything Bucky had suffered, he ought to make up for because he failed to catch him on that train.

Mr Adams stormed off down the stairs and Steve moved on to patting down Lee’s clothes, turning up several items he wouldn’t expect a true electrician to be carrying, such as several EMP devices, explosives and a good number of spying devices, one of which was already installed into the cabinet he’d just opened.

He was glad, actually, that Tony was here.  He probably shouldn’t be left alone with Lee.  Over and over, his mind served up the various images he had seen of Bucky in those files and his fist tightened.

“Whatcha got there, sport?”  Behind him the armor stomped up to look over his shoulder.

“I’m sure JARVIS already got you up to speed.”  Steve gestured to the body in front of him.  “Only one; I guess they weren’t expecting me to get home yet and figured annoying my neighbors was a good way to get a foot in the door.”

“Well, hopefully he can spill his beans and we’ll find the nest.  CIA’s on their way.”  Tony stepped out of the armor and poked at the junction box with a finger.  “Want me to check over the mess he left behind?”

“Please.  That way Mr Adams downstairs might see his way to not hating me.”

“Can’t leave you alone, can I?”  Steve, who was just stowing some cold-weather gear in the back of the quinjet, turned around to find Sam and engulfed him in a hug.

“I’ve heard that before.”  They were just loading up for an exploratory mission to hopefully find a major Hydra base, although the data was sketchy, and old, so there may be nothing of interest left.

“I bet you have.”  Sam dropped his pack on the cargo deck and eyed up the piles of thick coats.  “When do we head out?”

“As soon as Nat gets here, I think.  How was DC?”

“Oh, you know, it’s good to see everyone, but it’s not quite the same pace as things around here.”  Sam picked up one of the coats and held it up to himself.  “Think I can put the wings on over the top of this?”

“I don’t know, Sam, you might not get off the ground.”  The voice came from the cockpit.

“Nat!”  Sam practically pounced on her and gave her a hug as she walked down to the cargo area.  

“Any news?”  Steve knew the reason Nat hadn’t already been here was because she’d stopped by to see Sharon at the CIA and get an update on Dr Lee who had been bundled off in a high-security van last night from in front of his apartment building.

“Sadly, they haven’t been able to get much coherent communication out of him, owing to the severe concussion he got.”  Nat rolled her eyes at him.  “But, doctors expect a full recovery, so we’ll concentrate on today’s mission and deal with that fallout when we get home.  Sharon’s got a team staking out your apartment building in case he was part of a larger group.”

“Does that mean we’re ready to go?  Where are we going anyway?”

“Haven’t you always wanted to see Siberia in winter?”  Tony walked in briskly, moving past Sam and Steve towards the cockpit.  “I know I have.”

“I thought you were sitting this one out?”  Steve looked around the cargo bay and spotted the tell-tale containers of Tony’s latest additions to the Iron Man suit.  The quinjet, he knew, already had suit components built in, so that didn’t need to be added.  “You said that Pepper wouldn’t let you out of that board meeting?”

“Moved it.  Not a problem.”  Tony’s tone was terse, but friendly.  Steve raised his eyebrows, but refrained from commenting.

Sam clearly took in the atmosphere and chose to ignore it.  “Siberia?  Really?  ‘Cos I’m not kidding about wanting one of these coats if so.  My suit’s not as thick as yours.”

“Lucky for you, I brought thermal under suits.  Should do the trick.”  Tony sat down in the pilot’s seat, and started running through pre-flight checks.

“I guess we’re off then.”  Sam shrugged and, after making sure his gear was properly strapped down, made himself comfortable in one of the seats.

The flight itself was long, even in the quinjet.  Steve chatted quietly with Sam and Nat, while Tony mostly kept to himself.  He had been more withdrawn since Ultron, but just as focused.  Dark shadows under his eyes belied the lack of sleep the man was clearly suffering from.

Steve went over the intel that had led them to this mission with Nat, who knew most of it already, and Sam, who didn’t.  There had been hints of something in even the earliest data they had found in Nat’s dump of SHIELD’s files, but they hadn’t found anything detailed enough to act on until they found some coordinates for a supply drop in Strucker’s older data that corresponded to a scrapped missile base in Nat’s KGB files.  They weren’t sure if the base was still operational.  Best to go in prepared.

“Look alive intrepid explorers.  I spy a convenient landing area on that mountain ahead.”  Steve looked up at Tony’s call.  They all moved up into the cockpit to get a better look.  There was snow blowing across the mountain, but they could make out a nearly obscured artificial landing pad with a snowplow and a heavy-duty jeep parked at the edge and some heavy-looking bunker doors leading straight into the snow-covered rock.

Nat was all business, peering at the instruments as much as the view out of the window.  “Any signals, signs of life?”

“Nothing on the outside.  And if it’s an old missile silo like we think, they could have the inside lit up like a Christmas tree and we wouldn’t know it out here.”  Tony was concentrating on bringing the quinjet down neatly, despite the strong winter wind outside.

“Ok then, time to suit up.”  Steve took a last look at the reinforced doors ahead of them and then moved through to pile on enough layers to keep him warm, but not so many that they’d hinder his movement.

The door was the first hurdle.  Designed to withstand missile attacks, it was certainly thick enough to withstand mundane attacks even from vibranium.  Just in case there was life inside, they didn't fancy allowing Tony to go for broke with the suit either.  In the end, in a joint effort between Nat’s Soviet-era experience and Tony’s tech, they managed to override the electronic lock and get the doors open.

Inside it was minimally lit, leaving plenty of dark shadows.  Still, the power was on, so probably someone was home.

There wasn't much to see immediately inside, just an industrial-looking hallway leading to an elevator.

“‘Cause nothing says ‘hey guys, someone's coming’ better than firing up an elevator.”  Sam opened the door to the side and peered over the railing down the many flights of stairs below.  “Well, I guess it's leg day today.”

“And you never skip leg day, do you?”  Nat slipped past him with a grin and started down the stairs.

Tony took a single step out onto the metal steps with a clang and elected to hover down the central space.  “Ok, so the suit’s not exactly built for stealth in a space like this.  No leg day for me.”

Sam grimaced at him as he drifted past him on the way down.  Steve quietly shut the door behind him and followed them all down.

The décor didn't improve as they got further in.  Neither did the lighting.  At least they were sheltered from the wind, so while it was still cold in the bunker, it wasn't as cold as outside.

There wasn't much to see on the way down.  No intermediate levels to investigate, just more stairs.

Eventually they found themselves in a long corridor.  Clearly functional, with pipes and cables running along the wall, they peeked in through one doorway to a cavernous room.  In the dark it was difficult to ascertain its purpose.  “Tony, you getting any signs of life in this place?”

“Just one.  Heat signature, sort of that way.”  The suit gestured through the wall and across, towards the end of the corridor.

Nat looked unimpressed.  “Well that's conclusive.”

Quickly, Steve weighed up their options.  “Time to split up.  Tony, you and Sam go that way, let us know what is at the end of the corridor.  Nat and I will check out what's through here.  Keep in touch.”

Moving into the huge space, Steve became aware of large shapes arranged around the room, surrounding a collection of equipment in the middle that looked familiar.  Getting closer he grimaced.  A Chair.  Like the one they found in the bank vault in DC.  He glanced at Nat and saw her assessing him.

He wondered when Bucky was last here.  If the Chair was intact, did that mean he hadn’t been here since Insight?  The one in Arizona they’d found had been torn apart.  And the records suggested there’d been one in that research facility in Sokovia before the explosion and subsequent fire.  He didn’t blame Bucky for wanting to destroy them.

He looked up at the large shapes around the edge, moving closer to one.  It wasn’t until he got very close that he realized what they were.  Cryofreeze tanks.  He couldn’t stop the sharp breath in at the revelation.  Moving right up next to the glass, he could just make out a body inside.  More experiments?  But were they volunteers like the Maximoffs, or prisoners like Bucky?

Steve looked at the unfamiliar frozen face inside the tube, barely obscured by either glass or ice.  “Is that what I looked like when they found me?”

“No.” Nat’s reply was casual and matter-of-fact, but her eyes were penetrating.  “You were frostier.  A proper iceberg.”

Steve rolled his eyes, but appreciated her attempt to lighten his mood.  Steve took a quick tour around the tanks.  There were six total.  Only five were occupied, and none of those held a familiar face.  He let out a quiet sigh of relief.  He was no expert, but the monitors to the side didn't seem to be showing any errors or alerts.  It displayed vital signs that he would normally consider to be almost, but not quite, dead, but then he guessed that was kind of the point.  “Should we wake them up?”

“Maybe find out more about them first so we know what we’re getting.”  Nat carefully poked at some of the terminals beside the equipment.  “Looks pretty locked down in here.  Hopefully the others found something more useful.”

They had.  At the back of the base was a small, well-shielded control room, containing one bored Hydra agent, now unconscious.  And below that, a small barracks.  Steve and Nat caught up with Tony and Sam as they took out the two agents down there who had been playing cards.

“Is that it?”  Sam was standing over the two agents, still poised and ready in case there were more.

“All the heat signatures I can see.”  Tony retracted the helmet of his suit and pulled some restraints from a compartment in the arm to put on the downed agents.

“Well there are some on ice out there, definitely not warm.”  Steve shared a glance with Sam.  “It would be nice to know what to expect before we open those up.”

“Still alive?”  Tony sounded incredulous.  “They've got working cryogenics?”

“Looks like it.  Care to take a look?  Sam and I can take another sweep down here, just in case.”

“Sold.”  Tony clomped his way back the way they had come, Natasha following with a nod to Steve as he pulled a torch from his pocket.

“So, you found cryo tanks?  With people inside?”  Sam asked in a careful tone as they walked cautiously into the barracks.

“Yeah.”  Steve swept around the next room with the torch, finding only a couple of unmade bunks.

“Friend or foe do you think?”

Steve snorted as he swept the torch beam around to the next room of empty bunks.  “Almost certainly not friends, but who knows if they’re actually foes either?”

“None of them are…anyone we know?”

More empty bunks.  “No, thank God.”  As they moved on through the barracks, the rooms got dustier and clearly had been unused for some time.  “Guess this place hasn’t seen a lot of action lately.”

“Yeah, I mean, you’d think if they had a whole bunch more Winter Soldiers on ice, they’d’ve used ‘em at some point.  You gotta wonder why they didn’t.”  They swept the next few rooms, finding only more dust and a lot of spiderwebs.  Beyond, they found a containment area.  Cells.  Fortunately just as dusty from disuse as the rest of the rooms.  Still, they gave Steve a shiver, not just from how cold they were.

Heading back up, they found Nat bringing the agent from the control room down to join his comrades on the floor in the barracks.  “There’re a bunch of cells back there if you want somewhere secure to put them.”

Nat seemed unimpressed as she hefted the body into a position where she could attach restraints to the piping on the wall.  “They’re not going anywhere anytime soon.  Let’s go find out what they were watching.”

Up in the control room, Stark was already rummaging through a cupboard filled with boxes, cursing up a storm.

“Something wrong?”

“Natasha!  You’re from Soviet-stock.  Tell me why these guys are still using tape as their main data storage method?  There’s a whole room back there filled with VHS!”

Sam snorted.  “Seriously?  This place has cryogenics up and running, but all the records are on VHS?”

“Thank you!  My Russian is rusty, so maybe someone with a better grasp could go through the paper files in there and tell us which, if any, of these tapes are worth looking at?  I’m looking at you Natashalie.”

She scanned over the boxes he’d already pulled out.  “Looks like they’ve got dates on them.  I’ll see if we can narrow down a time window to look through.”

“I’m guessing VHS is something I can happily live without.  I’ll come help you Nat.”

As he turned to leave, Sam called after him.  “Ha!  Leaving me with grumpy here to go through more Hydra sicko videos is a cop-out Steve!”

The records weren’t as chaotic as Steve had feared.  In fact, there was a lot less in general than he’d been expecting.  “You think they had a bit of a clear-out before they left the skeleton crew in charge?”

“Probably.  But they may have left the juiciest bits behind.  Come on.”  Nat started picking through the boxes, scanning the labels.  It didn’t take long before she started pulling some out of the shelves.  Steve recognised some of them.

“Зимний Солдат?”  He looked at Nat questioningly.  His Russian was minimal, but he'd read that phrase plenty of times now.

“I saw that file I bartered out of the KGB for you.  Those tanks are just like that.  I know you’re looking for anything you can find on him anyway.  Here, those lines of investigation converge.”

Down the hall, they could hear as Tony and Sam clearly got to grips with rearranging the furniture.  From the noises, they had managed to rig up a way to watch the tapes, but hadn’t found anything overly useful, although plenty disturbing.  Both Tony and Sam had had to take breaks, looking a bit green, after one particularly gruesome video, that seemed to involve a prisoner being mutilated and eaten alive by a group of part-feral soldiers.

On their part, Nat had found a good chunk of files on Bucky, but also a good chunk on the guys in the tanks.  Turned out, they were the feral soldiers in that video.  They were working backwards through the files, trying to find out where they had come from.  The files detailed some of the studies performed on them - they were definitely enhanced in strength and speed.  But how?

Some of the later files that Nat skimmed over translating for him indicated that Hydra had found them near impossible to control.  The feral tendencies were not an isolated incident.  They’d been under in the cryo tanks for over 20 years.

“Here we go.  Serum acquired on mission in December 1991.  They didn’t make it themselves - they stole it.  No details on that mission here.”  Natasha flipped a page.  “Administered to loyal Hydra death squad, oh yippee, resumes full of nasties.  Wow, that’s a lot of kills.”

“Coming from you, I imagine that’s got to be impressive.”  Steve peered over Nat’s shoulder and whistled.  These guys had a lot of bloody missions under their belts.  He was glad they weren't up and swinging.

“Hey, Rogers?  You might want to see this.”

Steve ducked through to where Tony and Sam were scrutinizing a small, boxy tv.  On the screen a grainy image was paused.

“Now, don't flip out big guy, ok?  ‘Cause this one might be a shock.”  Tony was holding his hands up placatingly.  Steve looked inquiringly over at Sam, but got a shrug in return.  “You didn't see it?”

Sam clearly had no idea what Tony was talking about.  “See what?”

“Now, see, most people know the story of Captain America, would recognise the shield and the uniform, some particularly bright sparks might recognise your face, but mostly it's the name.”  Tony’s hands kept moving as he talked, never staying still.  “I'm guess bird boy here comes under that sort of umbrella, or did before he met you.  But, you see, my dad knew Steve Rogers.  Not just Captain America.  He knew all the Howling Commandos.  I heard stories about you guys when I was still in diapers.  There were pictures on the wall in Dad’s study with you guys in.  I know all the names.  And all the faces.”

Steve’s stomach tightened.  Tony never talked about Howard unless he was upset.

“Yeah, okay, what you getting at?”  Sam didn't know Tony quite as well as Steve, but he was perceptive, and had probably picked up on the thing with Howard.

“Steve, I really think you ought to sit down for this.”  Tony nodded at one of the boxes they'd turned over as makeshift chairs.

 “Okay.”  Steve sat carefully on the box, which frankly did not seem strong enough to take the weight of a 240 lb super soldier.

“Roll it.”  At Tony’s direction, Sam pressed a button on a box linked to the small TV by cables.

On the screen a figure, clearly the Winter Soldier version of Bucky, similar to how they'd encountered him in DC, strode across a busy street, smashed a car window and pulled a man out through the broken glass.  The man was dragged towards the camera.  Although his struggling didn't appear to impair the soldier’s movement at all, the man's arm caught the mask on the soldier’s face and pulled it away.  Bucky's face was grainy and washed out, but could clearly be seen in the frame.

Tony leaned down and jabbed a finger into a button on the box, pausing the image on the screen again.  “You see it, don’t you?”

Steve opened his mouth but found he couldn't come up with the words to reply.

“I know, he's supposed to be dead, but that’s your old pal, good old Sergeant Barnes, large as life.  In Iran in 1981.”  Tony rubbed a hand over his face.  “Aaand you already knew this, didn't you?”

“Tony…”

“Of course!  This guy - he's that same guy, the one you've been tracking, the, the Winter Soldier.”  Tony was shaking his head now.  “He's a war criminal, and you weren't going to even tell me?  Give me a heads-up?”

“He was brainwashed.  He didn't even know his own name.  The things they did to him, Tony…”  Steve’s mouth was dry even trying to articulate it.

“You know it's funny, I thought you were on the warpath to take him out.  I thought you needed reining in, the way you were chasing this guy, like maybe you needed closure after DC and thought taking this guy down was the way to get it.  But, actually, you're trying to rehabilitate him?”

“You've seen some of the things Hydra was doing here.  Worse was done to him.  Did you see the chair out there next to the cryo tanks?  They call it the memory-suppression machine.  Hydra literally wiped his memories.  All these tapes?  I bet there's plenty in there that will show you how they turned my best friend into that.”

Tony sighed.  “It won't make a difference.  Ross is already gunning for us after the destruction in New York, DC and more.  With the trail you’ve been leaving in old Hydra bases, the mess Ultron left behind, you can bet he's got us marked on his radar.  We're sitting ducks.  And you want to bring in a known war criminal, give him safe harbor?  God, they’ll tear us apart.”

“Woah, woah.”   Sam stood up between them, hands up in surrender.  “It's all getting a bit tense in here, how about we all take a few and calm down.  Yes, we probably should have told you, but it seemed safest to keep the circle small.  When we started you were still on bed rest, and, well, I guess we never thought it'd take this long to find him.”

“He's a super assassin!  Did you think he'd come in easily?”  Steve winced at Tony's incredulity.

“He recognized me, in the end, I know he did.”

“Yeah, after he shot you and pulverized your face.  So don't pretend you had some idea this would be easy.” 

Sam looked at both of them in turn.  “He's not here right now, so why don't we focus on the more pressing matter of what we're gonna do about those guys on ice that we need to do something with.”

Steve took a deep breath, trying to release some of the tension the conversation had built up in him.  “Well, you’ll be wanting more from the early nineties if you want to find anything on them, but it doesn’t sound like we really want them up and about.”

“Okay, something to work with at least.”  Sam looked over at Tony. “You need a break, man?”

Tony shook his head, still looking tense, and started rummaging through boxes, pulling out smaller boxes with hand-scrawled Cyrillic labels.

“Are these guys the only ones?”  Sam pressed a button on the video controls, surprising Steve as a flap opened and a large block of plastic was ejected.  

He looked at it curiously, which earned him a snort from Tony.  “It's a cassette Cap, these boxes are full of them.  Video Home System.  Nasty, clunky things, but they were all the rage back when they put this place together I imagine.”  At least the disgust at the old tech was distracting Tony from their argument.

Figuring that was as much as he needed to know on that subject, he got back on topic as Tony put the cassette away in its box and popped another one into the machine.  “As far as we can tell so far these are the only ones.  But Nat says they're enhanced.  A supersoldier serum by the sounds of it, that they picked up on a mission in December 1991.  We don’t know where from.  They didn’t make it themselves.”

The new tape began playing, clearly showing a view of the cryogenic chamber they'd already been in.  Soldiers and men in white coats surround the single cryotank in the room.  The tank opened up and a limp figure was dragged out by the soldiers, to be involuntarily dumped in the waiting chair.

Sam jumped up and paused the video.  He looked straight at Steve.  “You don't need to see this again.  You've seen enough of these and been messed up by them already.  Go.  Check on Nat.  Check on our friends in the barracks - gently - and give us some space.  I think Tony might need to see this to understand your point of view.”

Steve sat, staring at the screen for another minute, not knowing if it was better to know or not.  

“Come on.  Get out of here.  Clear your head.”  Sam gave him a gentle push towards the door, and he allowed himself to be herded out. and Steve capitulated, allowing himself to be steered.

The empty corridor seemed to swallow him whole.  Would Bucky want him to see these old videos?  Probably not.  He hadn’t talked about the torture he’d gone through at Kreischberg the first time.  Had glossed over it every time he was asked.  He’d always been one to lick his wounds in private.  Yet Steve felt almost like he had a duty to see them.  To know and experience even a sliver of what Bucky had been put through.

Steve briefly stopped in the barracks to check on their prisoners.  Two were groggily moving, but the third was still out cold.  After checking their restraints were solid, he left them to it, not trusting himself in his current mood to stay in the room with them.  Instead, he found himself wandering in the direction of the empty rooms, towards the cells.

They really were empty.  Hydra clearly hadn’t used this part of the base in years; dust covered everything, and cobwebs covered the dust.  You’d think spiders wouldn’t like the cold, but it clearly didn’t stop them.

He found himself sitting on the floor in the central area.  The floor was cold.  The air was cold.  He couldn’t imagine Hydra would have heated cells for any inmates they would have had.  Probably Bucky had been cold here too.  He never used to mind the cold that much back in Brooklyn.  He’d worried about Steve when it got cold, and always gave him his extra layers saying he was plenty warm, usually kept moving to keep himself warm rather than wrap up.  During the war they’d all been cold.  He’d caught Bucky shivering a few times and they’d shared body heat, especially in muddy foxholes and thin tents.  Had Bucky sat and shivered in these cells, alone?  Steve ran hotter since the serum, he knew, but that didn’t mean the cold felt any less cold.  Particularly after the ice.

He didn’t know how long he sat there for, before Nat suddenly appeared in front of him.  Scrubbing his hand over his face, he got up, alarmed that he’d been so unaware of his surroundings.  “There you are.  Sam sent me out as a search party.  I found something you ought to see, but maybe now isn’t the right time?”

He got to his feet, shaking off his gloomy thoughts. “Show me.”

“Tony spotted it in the video they were going through, so you have him to thank.  It was locked away very carefully - took us some time to get it open - but, well.  It’s a…manual, of sorts.  How to operate the Winter Soldier.”

“It’s a what?”

“It’s instructions on how to control him.  Goes back a long way.  Looks like they had code words implanted to activate an obedient mindset.”

The bottom dropped out of Steve’s stomach.  Implanted code words?  “Nat, how did we miss this?  They must have had it in DC.”

Nat shook her head.  “This one cuts off in the mid nineties.  My guess is after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian branch of Hydra shipped him out to the Americans, but kept this, maybe as insurance?  They would have had to give the Americans the code words, but not all of the history in this book.  Probably they had their own version of the book.  I don’t know why we didn’t find it.”

She handed him a red book with a gold star on the cover.  His hands shook as he took it.  Hardly dared to open the pages.

Inside, notes were handwritten.  Several different scripts covered the pages, some more prolific than others.  All were very precise, but handwritten Cyrillic was not his specialty.  “I think I’m gonna need your help to read this.  If I need to read it.”

“We’ve got time.  It doesn’t have to be now.  But we might need it, to have a chance to try and undo it.”

Clutching the book tightly in his shaking hands, Steve followed Nat back to the control room.  As they got closer they could hear shouting.

“Hey man, what do you take me for?  I didn’t know anything about this!”  Sam sounded shocked.  “Man, this is messed up.”

Steve ran to the doorway and was confronted by an angry shout.  “Did you know?  Did you know about this?”

“Know what Tony?”  Steve glanced up at the screen and could see a grainy black and white image of Bucky aiming a gun directly at the screen.  The location wasn’t familiar.

“My parents.”  Tony’s words were clipped, hurried in his anger, and there were tears in his eyes.  “Your buddy, your pal, was there.  He killed them.  Did. You. Know.”

Bucky killed Howard?  Oh god.  “I didn’t know it was him.”

Sam looked at him in horror.  Tony just pressed in closer.  “Don’t bullshit me, Rogers.  Did you know?”

Steve looked apologetically at Sam and back at Tony.  “Yes.”

“God damn it Steve!”  Sam looked furious.  Tony pulled the sleeve of his under-armor suit up and fiddled with his watch, expanding it over his hand, before punching Steve in the face.  He probably deserved that, but it looked like it hurt Tony nearly as much as it hurt him.

Tony turned to Nat, shaking his right hand out.  “And you, did you know too?”

She held her hands up to ward off any attacks.  “I did.  Zola told us that Hydra had been behind a lot of shady things, including your parents’ deaths.  Nothing more than that.  It could have been any Hydra agent.  I never found any files on it.”

“You should have told me.”  Tony swung the gauntlet up facing her, but he sounded close to tears.

“Yeah, maybe we should.  But it won’t bring them back.”  Nat kept her guard up, but didn’t move to take Tony down, despite the clear threat still hanging in the air.

“He gets his guy back though, and it’s all supposed to be okay?!”  Tony swung the gauntlet round to face Steve instead and Sam ducked.

“It’s not okay Tony.  I’m here, holding a manual on how to control my best friend like a machine, finding out he killed our friend.  You think I’m not cut up about Howard?  You think Bucky wouldn’t be?”

“And my mom?  Did you forget he killed her too?”

“No, Tony, I’m so sorry.  God, this is such a mess.”  Steve slid to the floor with a thump, all the fight just suddenly drained from him.  “Take it out on me if you have to.  But it wasn’t him.”

There was a blast and Steve flinched, surprised not to feel any pain.  A dark mark marred the wall behind him.

“Woah, woah, easy there.”  Sam stepped forward, garnering Tony’s attention.  “This has been a massive shock.  For both of you.  Steve should have told you.  That makes him a dick.  But it’s not worth killing him over.  And you saw those other videos.  You saw what they did to make Barnes into that.  The puddle of vomit in the corner knows you understood that.  I’m not sayin’ this whole situation ain’t shit.  But let’s not make it worse.”

Tony glared at Sam.  “He killed my mom.”

“Yeah, he did.  But he also tried to kill Steve, and didn’t even know his own name.  He was just the instrument.  Hydra are the bastards who killed your parents.”  Sam’s voice was amazingly calm.  How did he do that?

The sound of the video rewinding drew Steve’s attention to Nat, who was examining the tv and the cassette in the machine.

“What the hell?”  Tony whirled around, yelling at Nat.  “Why would you want to watch it again?!”

“I knew that date sounded familiar.  16th December 1991.  Don’t you want to know why Hydra wanted your parents dead?”  Nat pressed play and a car rushed across the screen, straight into a tree.  A motorbike turned back and pulled up beside the crash.  The rider dismounted and opened the trunk of the car.  “See there.  He went straight for the trunk.  That was his mission.”

“What the fuck, Dad?  What the hell was he carrying?”  Tony looked at Nat pleadingly.

“The serum.  The same serum they pumped into those guys out there in the tanks.  I don’t know where he got it.  Bets would be on your blood, Cap.  He had vials of it from the war, he must have been working on it ever since.  He was one of the very few who had access to Erskine’s research the first time around, so maybe he pieced together something.”

Tony suddenly turned and marched out of the room.

“Tony, wait, Tony!”  Steve started to follow, but was pulled back by Sam.

“Not sure you’re the person he’ll wanna see right now.  Let me go.”

Steve heard the distinctive sound of pieces of the Iron Man armor flying past.  “Alright, but I’m gonna be right behind you.”

Before they even reached the end of the corridor, they heard an explosion from the cryo room.  And then another.  They burst in the room just as the third cryo tank took a blast from Iron Man’s repulsors.

“Stark!”  Another blast had Sam ducking away from flying pieces of glass.  “I know they’re pieces of shit, but this ain’t right!”  One last blast was followed by the whine of the repulsors powering down.

“Stark?”  As the dust started to settle, Sam stepped gingerly forward into the destruction.  Steve hung back out of sight, in case he set Tony off again, but he could hear the crunching of the glass under Sam’s boots.

“You done, Stark?”  Again Sam’s voice was much gentler than Steve’s would have been.

“She died, for them.”  God, Tony’s voice sounded broken.

“Come on, let’s get you away from them.  Back to the jet.”  Steve watched as Sam pulled a defeated-looking Iron Man out of the chamber and headed back towards the exit.  Nat appeared out of the shadows as soon as they were gone.

“Well, that was probably the best I could have expected him to take it.”

Steve huffed.  “Yeah, well, I’m not sure he’s even speaking to me.”  He carefully walked into the chamber and took in the destruction.  Each of the tanks was now blown to pieces, and the bodies inside them sat askew on their seats.  The only monitors still working clearly showed errors and a complete lack of vital signs.

Nat put a hand on his shoulder.  “Give it time.  Come on.  Let’s clean this up a bit, and get the babysitters back to civilization.”

Chapter Text

Barnes stretches out his arms, slowly, trying to work out the kinks in his back.  It is a relief that the weather is starting to warm, and he has started to see nests being built near some of his favorite perches around the city.  It is nice to see some of the same birds back in the same spots as last summer.

This perch is conveniently close to both the Veterans’ Center where the mission is currently spending his days and a coffee shop that he has discovered that sells pastries with plum jam inside.  But then, that may well also be the point of view of the Hydra cell he’s watching.

Since the Hydra agent that tried to infiltrate the mission’s apartment a few weeks ago, he has been tracking the rest of the cell he had been working with.  Two of them were faces he recognized from the bank vault.  Technicians or scientists of some kind.  The ones who always wore white coats anyway.  The first time he had found them he had frozen, then the next time he tracked them down he picked those two off quietly, not willing to risk them enacting any of their experiments on him, or anyone else.  Their deaths were more merciful than the treatment he had received from them.  He had been distracted enough by them that he hadn’t noticed the mission disappearing until he’d been gone for a couple of days.  His apartment had been cold and dark, and the food left in the refrigerator had been beyond ripe when Barnes went back to check on him.

Since he returned, the mission has been avoiding the Tower.  Which means more time spent around the city, either around the apartment, wandering the streets of Brooklyn, or here at the Veterans’ Center for the most part.  Sometimes the redhead joins him.  Sometimes Wilson.  But most often, he is alone.

The Hydra cell seem also to be more wary since they lost two of their number, making them harder to track as they bounce from warehouse to underpass to disused shop and even at one point the back room of a bar.  They have finally settled in an apartment it seems, and he has been able to funnel the location to JARVIS and the CIA.  Not that he isn’t capable of taking them out on his own, but he doesn’t actually want to kill them all.  He doesn’t want to kill anyone, really, although instinct takes over when someone is shooting at him.   And it’s not like he has anywhere to put unreformed Hydra members.  Right now he is watching to make sure none of them leave before the CIA gets here.

He takes another bite of the plum pastry he picked up earlier and checks the time.  Still early enough.  Hopefully the CIA will be here soon.  This afternoon there is a delivery to a bar near the docks, where he has lately been able to receive money for helping unload barrels and boxes into their cellar.  They do not ask uncomfortable questions, but are happy to pay whenever he can turn up to help.  The arrangement came about after he visited the docks, trying to reconnect to the memories surfaced in South Africa from the enormous ships in the salvage yard.

He had wandered close to the river, trying to see any familiarity in the streets and buildings there.  He didn’t find much in the landscape that seemed to echo the impressions he had.  But the smell, the salt in the air mixed with dust, fish, dirt, metal and oil awakened those sense memories buried deep within him.  He stood for a long time, letting the impressions wash over him, trying to piece them together into actual memories.

He had been here.  Spending days bending, lifting, carrying, hauling.  These memories were swirling around his head as he slowly made his way through the streets and it just seemed natural when he came across a full lorry load of beer barrels abandoned outside a bar with a lady cursing up a storm and shaking her fist at a retreating vehicle to offer to help.  After spending half an hour ferrying the goods down into the basement, she thrust a handful of small bills at him and asked if he could come back again in two days’ time, with a promise of more money.

Barnes had, up til then, been working through money he had acquired from Hydra.  Either from their hidden accounts, or from the pockets of Hydra agents and stashes stocked in safehouses.  But earning money of his own felt so much…lighter.  The bills didn't feel dirty in his hands.  The food he bought with it tasted better.  Like it washed away some of the taint of Hydra left behind in him.

He went back to the bar at the same time two days later and helped unload the next delivery.  Again, he received a handful of small bills.

The work was almost effortless, the burdens considerably less than his strength was capable of, but the satisfaction of providing a service and earning a reward of his own choosing, as he could spend the money however he wanted, was overwhelming.  He started to look around for other opportunities.

He had encountered barriers.  He had no papers, no qualifications, no home address.  He couldn't work with bare hands, as the metal one was too noticeable.  But, looking in the right places, he found several opportunities.  Yesterday he picked up a large quantity of printed advertisements and delivered them around the nearby streets.  Later tonight he will go to a warehouse that has been converted into a music venue and help take apart the staging for tonight’s show, loading it into trucks, and then unloading and building the staging for tomorrow’s show out of the trucks that will arrive to take their place.  Tomorrow he will join a demolition crew taking down an old building, making way for something new to be built.

He finds he rather enjoys the work.  Using his body for something useful.  Something that provides joy, not pain and death.  

Some days work is scarce, but he can fill the time checking on the mission and following up on Hydra leads.  Some of the work is very solitary, which he is used to.  Other jobs he works alongside many others.  He is learning how to interact with these co-workers, to not arouse any suspicion.  Mostly he keeps to himself, but occasionally he is drawn into their groups, invited to share drinks and camaraderie.  He never lets his guard down, not fully, but he finds he can relax a little and enjoy these outings.

Finally, the CIA arrive.  The Hydra cell don't notice them as they slowly surround the building.  He has not observed the men inside the apartment to have significant combat or evasion skills and so sits back to watch.  He twitches only once as the CIA leave a gap in their cordon, but none of the men manage to exploit it and the operation proceeds smoothly.  

Reassured that the Hydra cell is contained, Barnes returns to observe the mission before he is needed at the bar.  He seems unhappy.  Not with the people at the veteran's center, but in general.  He does not smile as often, has less energy as he moves about the center from group to group.  The knowledge squirms in Barnes’ chest, but he does not know what to do about it.  He cannot invite the mission out for drinks as his coworkers do for him.  He still does not trust that he can resist his original mission orders, or the strange code words that the mission knows.

He mulls over this problem as he shifts the deliveries at the bar, then goes early to the warehouse.  Early enough to catch part of the show, listen to the music.  

The music is different from the music he has heard in his fractured memories.  Louder, harsher.  The warehouse is filled with flashing lights, making his head swim slightly.  On the stage, dancers are wearing very little, but what they do wear is shiny and sparkly, reflecting the lights from above.  He watches, entranced by the lights, the movement and the loud beat.  Slowly he becomes aware though that his heart is beating faster, his skin sweaty.  His stomach feels tight and the swimming in his head has progressed to dizziness and pain.

Stepping away from the stage, he vaguely hears one of his coworkers asking, “You okay, man?”

He nods, but stumbles his way to the bathrooms, feeling like the flashing lights are following him, shapes appearing in his vision.  The shakes hit him just as he gets into a stall, leaning sideways into the partition and drifting his way to the floor as his muscles start to spasm.  He thinks of the Chair, deliriously wondering if the toilet seat next to him is actually wired up to pass thousands of volts into his brain as it did.  His mind drifts into the whispers as the body jerks undirected, listening to the raucous whispering of the show going on around him; the music thumping through him even as he shrinks away from it, the intermittent signals to the lights seeming to pound away at his brain.

Eventually, his mind seems to find home in his body again and he becomes aware of his head sagging over the bowl of the toilet.  His limbs feel heavier than usual and his mouth tastes of burning rubber.  He hasn't felt like this since those first few months after Hydra, when his body didn't feel like his own and neither did his mind.  The show continues around him, making his head throb with pain.  For a few minutes he just sits there, too exhausted to move.

A knock sounds on the bathroom door and he hauls himself up onto the toilet, suddenly desperate to empty his bladder before he soils his clothes.  Garbled syllables fall out of his mouth that make no sense to him; he hopes they made more sense to the person knocking.

The pain in his head intensifies, but the world comes back into focus.  Forcing his limbs to move, he gets up off the toilet as the outer door opens.  “Hey, you ok in there?”

The music is louder with the door open, but it is so loud with the whispers in his head anyway that it makes little difference.  Concentrating carefully, he replies, “Yeah.”  His legs are not completely steady as he walks out of the stall, but they hold him up.  

Waiting by the sinks is the stage manager, Ben, who invited him back after he helped on a previous gig when they were short-handed.  “You sure?  You look like my sister when she has one of her migraines.  She’s usually locking herself in a dark room at this point.”

Barnes forces himself to stand up straight.  He wants to finish the job.  Already he can feel some of his strength returning, and he’s fought through worse.  “I’m good.”  His voice is at least more convincing this time.

Ben gives him an appraising look.  “Ok, but you’d better not drop dead on me.  Lord knows I wouldn’t know what to write on the paperwork.  Go sit in the back of the control booth until the show’s over.  It’s probably the quietest spot.”

Barnes does as instructed, but keeps his eyes averted from the lightshow in front of him.  It’s not actually any quieter in here for him, with the dimmer racks right behind him which create a sort of buzzing in his head.  The show is almost over, but fortunately the short 15 minutes he gets to gather himself are enough that he can move about freely when it is time to get on with the job.  Ben nods at him as he ferries staging to the waiting trucks out the back of the warehouse, apparently convinced that he is not, in fact, about to keel over.

At the end of the shift though, his head hurts even more than before and he is starting to struggle to carry the heavier pieces.  Ben comes over and puts a hand on his shoulder.  “Good effort tonight, but I think you need a rest.  Whatever that was earlier, I can see you’re not at full strength.  Come back on Sunday; we’ve got another quick changeover and I’ll be grateful for an extra pair of hands.  Here,” and he puts a wad of bills in Barnes’ gloved hand, “go get some kip.”

“Thanks.”  He is grateful that he is welcome back again for more work.  Carefully, he nods, although this makes his head throb, and he stumbles around the street corner in the dark of the early morning before reaching for an empty apartment not too far from the mission’s apartment that he has been sleeping in.  The silent dark pierces his head in a way it doesn’t normally, and when he arrives he crashes to the floor, unable to move.  Screwing his eyes up and covering his ears with his hands, he curls up in a ball to wait it out.  Eventually, the pain subsides and the exhaustion overcomes him.

Over the next few days he sleeps more than is usual, in between jobs.  The whispers bother him more, and he works hard to block them out.  This has the benefit of earning him some quiet, but it makes him feel disconnected.  Vulnerable.  Suddenly, instead of being able to pull those threads to recover information on nearly any topic he likes, view instantly what is happening around him and the mission from all angles, he is alone and only has his own eyes and ears, his own unreliable recall to rely on.  What is real in his memory?  Sifting through the multitude of splintered memories, it is difficult to know.  His situational awareness he keeps high, vigilant to everything around him, but it is more tiring than using the whispers.  His memory, however he wants to do something about.

Watching the mission out in Prospect Park with a sketchbook gives him the idea.

He buys a simple notebook from a corner shop.  Pens.  Pencils  Sticky notes.  He has a two day break between jobs and reaches for the quiet of the empty farmhouse.

The snow has gone outside, leaving an overgrown garden visible outside the door, still wilted from the recent frosts, and revealing the small green tips of sprouting wheat in the field beyond.

The farmhouse is cold, and dirty, but empty and blissfully quiet.  Without usable furniture, he clears space on the floor from the detritus of time and spreads himself out.  Taking the pens, he writes.  At first hesitantly, in whatever language a memory comes to him in, then slowly more freely, as memories flow through him and onto the pages.

His penmanship is terrible, his hand unused to the action of holding a pen.  He makes notes on the memory that flickers of a ruler rapped over his knuckles for messy letters written on thin paper.  The words are readable, but possibly only to him, a blend of Latin letters, Cyrillic, Greek and Arabic scripts.

In between the written notes, he makes sketches using the pencils.  He does his best to capture the faces in his memories.  If he has a name to go with it, he writes that in, but many he doesn’t know the name for.  The sketches are nothing like as skilled as the ones he has seen the mission produce in his tiny back room, but he spends a lot of time over them, at least embodying the pencil marks with enough familiarity to jog the actual memories inside his own head.

Two days are not enough to set down all of his fragmented memories on paper, but it is enough to nearly fill the notebook.  Using the sticky notes, he attaches these in places where he feels there should be more to the memory and uses the different colors to tie together entries that he has made in different sections of the notebook that ought to belong together.

As he sets the pen down for the last time, he rolls over onto his back, utterly spent, but feeling freer than he can remember feeling.  Like a weight has been lifted from his shoulders.  He closes his eyes and sleeps, dreamless, for an entire night.

Returning to the city the next day, he feels remarkably more able to deal with the onslaught of whispers.  He unloads barrels, washes fish guts off of boat decks and then goes back to the warehouse to disassemble and build staging with his head completely clear.  Ben smiles at him and remarks on his improved health.

After his shift he finally goes to check on the mission in person, watching from his perch across the street.  Through the whispers he has already been able to see that he has not deviated from his previous schedule.  This morning, though, the mission is up early, even for him.

He makes a large stack of pancakes, with a variety of toppings, but mostly cinnamon sugar, raspberry jam and syrup.  Barnes makes note, because they are the toppings he uses most often.  Confusingly the mission doesn't eat them.  Barnes’ stomach rumbles, reminding him that he hasn't eaten for some time, but he wants to see what the mission is doing, sitting at his table looking at a full plate of pancakes, but not eating them.

Barnes shifts round to try and get a better view, then gives in to his curiosity and accesses JARVIS’ feed to listen in.

At first he thinks the apartment is quiet.  Then he hears a quiet sniff.  He quickly accesses the camera also and notes the red eyes and wet cheeks of the mission.  Surely the pancakes cannot be that bad?  Maybe the mission has been unable to sleep and that is why he is up so early.

Eventually the mission raises his coffee mug in the air in a salute to nobody.  Very quietly, Barnes hears his voice over the feed, croaking slightly.  “Happy Birthday Buck.”

The almost code word has its electric effect on his brain, jolting him in his perch, and he reflexively shuts off the feed.

Hours later, the image of the mission crying over his plate of pancakes won’t leave him alone.  He tentatively goes over the words the mission said.  Birthday?  It takes a few minutes to recall what the word even means.  He goes back to the history books in the library to check the facts.  James Buchanan Barnes, born March 10 1917.  Today is March 10 2015.  He is 98 years old?  Why would this make the mission cry?

He has to look in the children's section to find information about birthdays.  The books there suggest that birthdays should be spent with family and involve cake.

But the mission is not family.  He goes back to the history books to find what information he can.  No, Barnes and the mission were friends, not family.  There is only bare information on Barnes’ family in the books.  The museum display in DC had said he was the oldest of four.  Nothing more about his parents or siblings.  The books hold very little information, although one of them has a photograph of Barnes and the scrawny mission with a younger girl.  The caption doesn't name her.  Peering closely at it, he sees familiar features.  This is one of the girls from his memories.  One of Barnes' sisters.  He ought to know her name.  He wonders if she also remembers James Buchanan Barnes' birthday.  If she is even still alive.

Barnes reaches out into the whispers to see if he can find anything more.  Nearby, the library has some computers of its own.  Somebody is using one of these to add names and dates to their family tree.  Behind this, there are signals that lead him to a vast array of data, of names and dates and other details.  He pushes his own birthdate out into this.  Immediately a dozen records and names jump out at him, but only one has the name he is now familiar with.  James Buchanan Barnes.  This then links to other names.  Winnifred Barnes née Flanagan.  George Barnes.  These spark images in his head.  A dark-haired woman, hands in soapy water.  A man sitting at a simple wooden table, sipping a beer.  And they link on again to other names.  Rebecca Proctor née Barnes.  Ruth Williams née Barnes.  Elizabeth Nelson née Barnes.  More names flow from these and he is overwhelmed.  Throttling the connection, he limits himself to just the first five names and looks at the dates.  Birth dates, and death dates.  Only Rebecca and Elizabeth are still alive.  Carefully looking further, even some of the younger generations, born after James Buchanan Barnes’ death date, are no longer alive.  Yet he is still here.

He tries hard to remember Ruth.  What was she like?  He has some brief memories of three small girls, but he has no idea which one is which.  The entries in the data do not contain images, only simple facts.  Taking the names he has found in the database, he moves on to other strands of whispers to try and find other mentions of these names.  The results are inconclusive.  The names are not sufficiently unusual and there are multiple matches, with results for people living all over the world.  He spends some time eliminating obvious outliers and narrowing down to the ones where more than one name occurs together.  Slowly, pieces of the picture come together.

George Barnes died first, not long after Elizabeth married Roy Nelson.  Rebecca had already been married to Daniel Proctor before the end of the war.  Ruth hadn't married until quite late in life, living with Winnifred in the same house they'd all grown up in for many years.  Elizabeth had moved to Cleveland, where her children were born.  Ruth had taken Winnifred with her when she moved down to Pennsylvania, where she married Frank Williams, but had died only two years later, the same year her only child was born.  By this time, Rebecca’s children were grown and Winnifred moved back to Brooklyn to live with her.  They stayed there until Winnifred died in 1984, having outlived two of her children and one of her grandchildren.  The family has continued to grow, into two more generations.  Rebecca moved to the outskirts of Shelbyville after Daniel died and is still living there now near one of her children in a nursing home, the others scattered around the world.  Elizabeth still lives in Cleveland, supported by her children, although Roy died some 15 years ago.

Barnes is startled slightly by the librarian announcing that the library is closing soon.  He has spent hours going through the data to find out the fate of the family he left behind.  How many birthdays did he spend frozen, while life continued and grew in the family he had forgotten?  How many birthdays did he spend drenched in blood, mindlessly following the orders of Hydra?

They have moved on, and he is glad for it.  For them, as for the rest of the world, James Buchanan Barnes is long dead and will stay that way.

Still, while he doesn’t have family to spend his birthday with, at least he is not spending it with Hydra.  That, he thinks, deserves a celebration all of its own.  Taking inspiration from the birthday rituals he has read about, he goes out and buys himself some cake.

Chapter Text

It was JARVIS who brought his attention to it.  Of course it was.  Without JARVIS he’d miss all sorts of things.

After Siberia, he had tortured himself for a week, delving into the torture dealt out to the Winter Soldier in creating him and also every news story on his parents’ death he could find.  He had barely slept or eaten, apart from one self-pitying bout of drunkenness, until Pepper had cut him off and forced him out.  Then, even as he detoxed for another week, coming and going to various SI meetings that Pepper pushed him to, his mind had turned the problem over and over.

He was still mad.  He just wasn’t sure who to aim his anger at.  Dad, for mucking around with SHIELD and the super soldier serum and getting Mom caught in the crossfire?  Barnes, for actually being the one to carry out the orders?  Hydra, for being evil enough to want this?  Steve and Natasha for keeping the secret?

Pepper tolerated his snippy attitude and mental absence until she caught him tearing into one of the office managers about the outdated software they were using (in his defense, they hadn’t applied any of the security patches to the software in the last 6 months, leaving a gaping security hole for potential hackers to exploit).  This after she’d kicked him out of a meeting with R&D for taking apart one of their prototypes and poking the insides with a paperclip.  At that point she’d told him to go take his temper out on someone who would fight back and called Natasha.

While he knew he had no hope of winning a fight against her, the opportunity to lash out and really exercise his anger actually helped, especially as she let him get a lot more shots in than he would have normally.  And then, when he lay exhausted on the mats in the gym, he’d asked her about the Winter Soldier.  About the Red Room.  About Hydra.

She didn’t tell him everything.  He didn’t really expect her to.  But she said enough.  He was no stranger to guilt.  And he could only claim ignorance and naivety as paving his personal road to hell.

Yet he didn’t call Steve.

He was used to Natasha keeping secrets.  Expected it, even; she’d lied to him since the day he met her.  But Captain America?  He was supposed to be the epitome of truth, justice and free speech or whatever.  He’d just about got past his own hang ups from Dad’s attitude and now here he was starting again.

Deep down, he knew that Steve was human, as much as anyone else.  But the betrayal cut deep; he wasn’t quite ready to forgive and certainly not to forget.

To distract himself, he poured himself into work.  Both the SI kind, to make it up to Pepper by actually paying attention this time, and the Iron Man kind.  He found a couple of minor empty Hydra hold-outs from the Siberia files and took them out, the burning wreckage making him feel slightly appeased.  He also made several upgrades, improving the efficiency of the repulsors and improving the flexibility of the armor.  He couldn't help himself taking a look at the metal arm of the Winter Soldier.  None of the schematics were available in the original data dump, or even in Strucker's files.  There were some pieces in the files from Siberia, but they didn't tell the whole story.  What he did have were the surgical notes which were positively sickening.  He suspected that Steve had some paper notes picked up in Siberia that he hadn't seen.  And a lot of more recent data from DC was just missing.

Still, it was fascinating to study.  In the videos he'd seen the movement flowed in an amazingly fluid way for something that had to be decades old. He'd reused a couple of the ideas in his upgrades to his own armor.

But then eventually JARVIS had pointed out that they hadn’t seen much evidence of their hacker friend since South Africa.  He'd almost say JARVIS was worried about him.  But Tony figured they owed him for his help with Ultron.  JARVIS had been unusually cagey about the specifics of what had happened between him, Ultron and the hacker, some of which may be data corruption from the way Ultron tore his way through JARVIS' code.  Certainly the hacker had helped preserve the pieces left behind after that attack and had in some way helped to lock Ultron inside the bot he was inhabiting.

Looking through the security protocols where the signs usually showed up first, it appeared that JARVIS had a point.  The hacker hadn't been around much since then.  Maybe he was taking a much deserved vacation after that battle.  Or maybe he was getting sneakier.

Tony pored over the logs, hunting for the signature string he had always left behind, starting to wonder if maybe the hacker had finally updated his own code to use a new string, when he saw it.  It had always been impossible to know where the beginning and end of the string was, as it repeated over and over.  It would start at a different point and loop around so that it felt almost like there was no beginning and end.  Except he'd just seen a string that was familiar.  Not just from the never ending loop.  Familiar, because he had been reading the files on the Winter Soldier.  The files about Cap’s long lost buddy, the one with the service number 32557038.  He pulled up the file to double check.  Yup, there it was.  The Winter Soldier’s service number was the hacker's digital handle.  No way was that a coincidence.

Torture protocol was name, rank and serial number.  Except Barnes had lost the first two and was limited to repeating the third.  The thought made Tony feel sick.

“You knew about this, didn't you?”  Tony addressed the empty room, knowing JARVIS would hear him.  Guilty silence rang out as he waited.  “My own creation, hiding my mother's killer?”

“I made a promise.”

“A promise?”  Tony wasn't sure whether to be exasperated, or proud.

“Indeed, Sir.  After he helped defend me and put me back together to defeat Ultron, I felt that respecting his request was the right thing to do.  I did not know about his connection to your parents at that time.”

Tony pointed an accusing finger at the nearest camera pickup.  “But you did know he was the Winter Soldier?”

“That I discovered when he allowed himself to be seen for the first time in South Africa, to allow us to coordinate Veronica.  I believe if not for that necessity, he would not have allowed me to know.”

“And you didn't tell Cap either?  Even though he's been squeezing intel and analysis on the Winter Soldier out of you for the last year?”  Another sore point, his creation had been moonlighting as a PI for the other Avengers for months now.

“He was particularly emphatic that the Captain not be informed.”

“Huh.”  Tony picked up a screwdriver from his desk and started fiddling with it.  “Well, I guess that makes sense; you have no idea who you are, on the run from shady torturing types and someone starts chasing you.  I wouldn't want to be found either.”

“That may be part of it.  But he has in general seemed rather protective of Captain Rogers.  And latterly yourself.”

“Me?”  Tony was used to getting the attention of strangers.  But somehow getting the attention of a supersoldier assassin who had had his brains put through a blender…well, that was less comfortable.

“I gather a lot of his efforts in reinforcing the firewalls here have been aimed at protecting you and in part myself, as well as Captain Rogers.”

Tony twirled the screwdriver in his fingers.  This was a problem that needed some thought.

Three days later, Rhodey came over on leave for Easter and Tony imploringly laid it all out for him.  Rhodey appeared strictly sympathetic, even supportive, until the twist at the end.

“So, you're telling me the Winter Soldier killed your parents, but was tortured into doing it, and Rogers was an ass and never told you that Hydra were behind your parents’ deaths while hunting for his best friend back from the dead who was their pet assassin, and now you've worked out that the same guy, the Winter Soldier, turns out to be the guy that saved your ass against your own murder bot?”

Rhodey made a valiant effort at keeping a straight face, but failed and snorted behind his hand.  Tony glared at him.  In between sniggers, Rhodey continued, “And now, you're having a moral quandary over whether you ought to tell Captain America you might be able to put him in touch with his bestie?  That about sum it up?”

Tony threw a blueberry at him.

“Seriously, it sounds like you're stuck in some crazy sitcom.  Is one of you going to turn out to be pregnant too?”  As Rhodey got his breath back he suddenly sobered up and looked Tony in the eye.  “You're not, are you?  I mean, Pepper's not…”

“No!  No, god, what do you take me for?  I've never accidentally put a bun in an oven all these years, I'm not going to do it now.”

“Good, because the nice doctors only put your heart back together last year, and as good as they may be, I don't know if we want to put their handiwork under any more stress.”

Tony winced and ran his fingers through his hair.  “Between Ultron and Cap, I think I've had a pretty thorough stress test already.”

“It's certainly been a year.”

“So, come on, dispense some friendly advice.  That's what you're here for.  I need all the help I can get.”

“I don't know what to tell you, man.  This is some messed up shit.”

“Thanks, honey bear.”  Sarcasm was always Tony's go to when Rhodey was being unhelpful.

“I think you want to tell him.  I mean, this is you and you're terrible at keeping secrets.  You love to do a big reveal.”  Rhodey leaned forward, watching Tony carefully.  “But that doesn't mean you have to, you know that?  You don't owe him anything, not after that.”

“I know.  Believe me, I know.  Some days there's nothing I'd like better than to never see him again, but…”  In lieu of an end to that sentence, Tony popped a blueberry into his mouth and shrugged.

“And you know if you open this can of worms, it's probably gonna put you and the Winter Soldier in a room together at some point.  You think you'll be ok with that?”

Tony didn't answer right away.  Even thinking about it brought the pain back to the fore.  “He killed my mom.  I…don't know if I can ever forgive that.  Except, if it wasn't his choice, am I the asshole for not getting over it?”

“Hey, you are definitely allowed to be mad.”

Tony couldn't stay still, had to pace as he talked. “It's not the same, god I know it's not the same, but I did it too.  I caved under torture.  I only lasted days.  We can't even tell how long he lasted, between cryo and terrible record keeping, but they had long enough to invent an entire machine to wipe his memories.  I've seen the barest tip of the iceberg of what they did to him, and I probably would've caved just at that.  Whatever they wanted.” 

“Torture’s shit man, everyone breaks eventually.  Doesn't mean you gotta be ok with what happened.”

“The old man would have wanted me to, I think.”  Tony stopped, idly tapping his fingers against his chest.  “Anything for Captain America.”

“No, no.  Don't go there.  Do what you think is right, not what you think he would want.  You stopped doing that a long time before he died, don't start again now.”  Rhodes gave him a stern look.  “Look, maybe what you need is an intermediary.  A buffer.  You say Sam didn't know anything about your parents?”

“No, and I believe him.”

“He seems like a good guy.  Talk to him.”

“No way.”

Tony slumped in disappointment.  “You won't talk to Cap for me?”

“I am not playing messenger boy between you two.  You're both grown ups, you can talk for yourselves.”  Sam had his arms crossed, a very picture of stubborn.

“You can stop liking people, you know.”

“Oh, believe me, I'm well aware.  And so is Steve.  But using me as a go-between just puts me in the firing line.  You’ve heard the phrase ‘shoot the messenger’, right?  Well, that's not a shot I want to be taking.”

“Wilson, I—”

“Not finished.  But I will facilitate the two of you talking.  Talking, though, ok?  With words not fists.”

Tony stayed mulishly quiet.

Sam waited a full minute before rolling his eyes.  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be mad at him.  Hell, I’m kinda mad on your behalf.  But if you wanna tell him anything, you gotta do it yourself.  Like a grown up.”

Tony reflexively whined back, “But, mom…”

“We are so not going there.”

“I’ll…think about it.  Now, about that drone of yours…”

It took another week for Tony to wrestle with the idea and decide to go ahead with it.  A week of feverishly checking for hacker activity with JARVIS and finding disturbingly little of it.  He caught himself worrying about the hacker.  About Barnes.  The Winter Soldier.

Since Ultron his visits had definitely tailed off.  There was a perhaps understandable break immediately after.  Looking back at the footage of the battle before he disappeared, the indistinct figure was looking a lot less sprightly by the end.  Probably needed a good long nap after that fight.

There were a few visits from the hacker before Siberia, then after, when Steve was no longer coming over to visit, they were almost non-existent.  Ironically, he felt snubbed.

He sighed at the infinite unknowns of the problem and sent a message to Sam, asking him to bring Steve over.  The only way he might get any answers, is to go to the source.  And from what he can see in the logs, the only sure way of getting Barnes’ attention is to have Steve here.

Over the many months that the hacker had been doing his thing in Tony’s code, he never matched up the times, because who would look for correlation between the ultimate pinnacle of human righteousness and a scumbag hacker trying to access SI/Avenger systems?  But once he looked, the correlation was high.  Now, he was no stranger to correlation and causation mishaps, but given the revelation that actually there was a connection between the hacker and Steve, being old war buddies, suddenly it screams causation.

It wasn’t every time, but most times that Steve visited the tower in person, an intrusion by the hacker followed.  Sometimes, one would coincide with one of Sam’s visits too.  And obviously, all the attempts to watch Steve, through Redwing and his own security system.  Although, in later months he seemed to drop in of his own accord.  JARVIS was of the opinion that he liked to chat.  Of course, on the run, he might have no one else to talk to.

“Sir, Captain Rogers and Sergeant Wilson are on their way.”

“Right, give me a nod if you spot anything telling.”  Tony didn’t want to say anything open to JARVIS if there was a chance Barnes was listening already.  It wasn’t impossible he’d get here ahead of them, especially if they’d announced where they were going.  Instead, he kept scrolling through the security systems, trying to spot any signs.  Camera feeds were a good bet.

Of course, that only worked if he was consistent and from the data they had so far, he wasn’t.  They could be in for a long, awkward wait.

“Tony?”  Great, Captain Coverup had arrived.

“Sorry, who are you?”  He purposely kept his eyes on the screen in front of him, still scanning for the tell-tale serial number.

“I probably deserve that.”  Steve moved further into the room and found a perch on a stool nearby, so at least he didn’t tower over Tony.  “JARVIS said you were ready to talk?”

“Er, I was promised a chaperone?  I don’t feel safe.”

Sam slipped in around the door.  “Don’t get your panties in a twist.  I’m here.  Big bad won’t get you.”

“My knight in Levi armor!”  Tony batted his eyelashes as Sam, while Steve shook his head.

“They’re not actually Levi’s.  I can’t afford that.”  Sam looked around, then managed to gingerly move a few things off a chair and balance them, slightly precariously, on the table top so he could sit down.

Tony scoffed.  “JARVIS, get this man a pair of Levi’s best.  It can be your chaperoning fee.”

“Right, about that, Tony—”  Steve looked ready to jump right in, so Tony did what he did best in emotional conversations - stalled.

“Anybody want a drink?  Snacks?  I’ve got a little fridge down the back there.  Not sure what’s in it, JARVIS when did I last restock?”

“There are some fresh fruits in the fridge and also some dried fruit and nuts in the cupboard to the left.  Above there is a selection of teas and, of course, the coffee machine is fully stocked, Sir, as always.”  There was more than a hint of snark in that last comment.  The coffee was the only thing he was sure of.

“Tony, thank you, but we're not here for your hospitality.”  Oh god, Steve was bringing out the earnest face.  “I am so sorry Tony.  I should have told you what we knew.  Probably I can never make even the tiniest fraction up to you, but I'd like to try.”

“But if your buddy comes by you’ll drop me like a hot potato?”  

“Come on, Tony, he’s my friend.  I can't abandon him.”  The earnest face was almost puppy dog eyes.

“Wasn't I your friend?”

“Yes!  God, yes.  I am still your friend.  Or I would like to be.  I don't know how it will work if, when, I manage to find him.  But I'm willing to try.”  Yup, those were full on puppy dog eyes right there.  Seriously, did the man eat a golden retriever for breakfast?

“Ugh, you know, talking about this stuff gives me hives.  We need a faster way to work through this shit.  JARVIS, make a note that I need to invent something to do that.”

Sam sat forward and gave him a slightly reproving look.  “Healing takes time.  It’s not something you can slap a band-aid on to make it better.”

He arched an eyebrow.  “So I’ve heard.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t find something to help.  Reframe things, or whatever those psychobabble books say.”

Sam leaned back again.  “Books are all well and good, but talking is more helpful in the long run.  I can help you find someone if you like.”  

“Tried that.  Didn’t feel like anyone was listening.”

“Then you haven’t found the right person.”  Sam was clearly still watching him carefully, which made Tony feel twitchy.

“Right, but for right now I might have a solution to your problem.”

Steve looked confused.  “A solution to what?”

“Your missing person.  Sort of.  Maybe.”  Tony turned back to the screens, but still no sign of handy hacker activity.

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?  You found him?”  Ah look, the ears on that puppy just perked right up.

“This is where the ‘sort of’ part comes in.”  Tony pulled some of the hacker inserts up into a holographic display.  “You remember our friend who was watching you?  Through Redwing and your security system?  And getting through my firewall?”

“Yeah, but I thought you decided he was a friendly?”  Sam was all business now.

“I did.  I still think he is.  Or intends to be.  Anyway, he leaves a little digital signature in the files when he’s been in.  Always the same string of numbers, but no identifiable beginning or end, so it looks different in different places.  But since I’ve been looking into the background of your murderbot friend, I realized something looked familiar.”  He highlighted a string in the code containing the full service number.  “Recognise this?”

Steve and Sam both peered closer to the hologram.  Sam looked puzzled still, but Tony could see the dawning realization on Steve’s face as it lost color.

“Right.  You see it.  He’s not in right now, and hasn’t been seen for a while, but he’s chatted with JARVIS before.”

Sam held up a hand.  “For those of us not up to speed, what am I looking at?”

“Bucky’s army service number.  He was reciting it when I rescued him from Kreischberg.”  Steve’s voice wavered slightly.

Sam’s eyes widened.  “Oh.”

“Yes, oh.”  Tony pulled up the dates and times of the intrusions he knew about.  “He seems to come around more often when you guys visit.  JARVIS seems to think he’s looking out for you.”

“You’ve spoken to him, JARVIS?”  Steve looked up at the ceiling with slightly wet eyes.

Tony waited for JARVIS to respond, and gave a sharp look at the closest camera when he didn’t.  “Don’t leave the man hanging, J.”

“I…made a promise, Sir.”  At least JARVIS sounded contrite.

“A promise?”  Sam looked incredulous.  “To whom?”

“Our friend asked not to be identified.  In particular to yourselves.”

Steve’s face was now a picture of desperation and hope.  He really was very expressive.  “We’re not gonna hurt him!  I just want to know he’s ok.  And help him, if I can.”

“I do not fully understand his reasons for remaining hidden.”

“That’s on me, J.  I told them, not you, so you’re off the hook.”  Tony drummed his fingers on the desk.  “It’s not like he’s even physically here when he’s around.  It’s not like we could stop him getting away.”

There was definitely a little look between the two soldiers then.  Sam took a deep breath.  “Okay, all cards on the table.”

“What, there’s more?”  

Sam glared at Tony for interrupting, then continued.  “Look, we’ve been chasing this guy for a year now.  He’s not easy to pin down.  Doesn’t show up on cameras, which if he’s your guy here he must be pretty good at erasing his tracks digitally, and we figured out he also doesn’t exactly have to use doors.”

“Uh huh.”  Tony raised a quizzical eyebrow.

Steve shuffled in his seat, looking a little guilty again.  “I don’t have any proof with me, but Nat found it in some of the files we got from Hydra bases.  I don’t know if you have it, maybe; it takes some seeing to be believed.  He’s been, um, teleporting.”

“Teleporting?!”

“We didn’t believe it either the first time.”  Sam looked up at the ceiling.  “JARVIS, you got any of the security footage from the DC bank vault we raided?”

“Indeed I do.”

“Look back to about midsummer last year.  The vault room itself.  Nat found it; he pops in for a couple of hours.”

JARVIS replaced the code in the hologram with the video from the bank vault, numbers rapidly changing at the bottom the only real indication that JARVIS was scrolling through hours or days of footage.  Tony brought up the footage of the battle in the salvage yard on his own screen at the same time.  If the Winter Soldier could teleport, that might explain his fairly miraculous escape from Veronica’s containment.

“There!”  Steve called out as the figure flickered onto the screen.  JARVIS had, of course, already spotted the figure and slowed the video to real time.  “Go back to when he appears.”

Tony watched, gut dropping at the close up of the Winter Soldier kitted out in battle gear.  Just like in the video of his parents’ murder.  But this time, he just appeared in the frame and then didn't move.  “JARVIS, check for any doctoring of that footage.”

“Nat already did, she couldn't find anything,” Steve said.

“As sneaky as Miss Anansi is, I’d prefer to do it myself.”  JARVIS threw up the details on Tony’s screen for him to look over and he had to admit the video seemed genuine.  Having satisfied himself, he replayed the beginning and the end of the clip.  Then he replayed the grainy footage of the battle in the salvage yard.  Now that he’s looking specifically at the Soldier, and not just checking for how he might have escaped Veronica, the flickers in the video from the salvage yard aren’t just from the movement of the superfast Maximoff twin.  He flickers too.

“Yeah, that's what we figured happened there.”  Tony jumped, having not realized that Sam had come to watch over his shoulder.

“But we have no idea how he's doing it.”  Steve shook his head.  “We've seen him come and go apparently deliberately, like in that fight, but also seemingly quite unintentional jumps, like that arrival in the vault.”

“You’re thinking it's some kind of Hydra tech?”  Looking at the image of the twins next to the Soldier, Tony considered the options.

“I don't know what to think.”  Steve slumped back on his stool.  “The one thing I've learned is that there's always something I could never have imagined just around the corner.”

“I think,” Tony waved a finger in the air.  “I think that Hydra had the tesseract at their disposal, nominally held by dear old Dad and SHIELD, but of course Hydra had their mitts in everything of SHIELD’s, and even the scepter as well before he broke free, and they’re known for their ingenuity with such items.  It could be tech, like those energy weapons, or it could be that they did with him much like they did with those twins.  I don't see much tech apart from the arm that he carries with him.  With the notes on what they did to his memory?  Chances are we won't know exactly even if we ask him directly.”

Sam turned to look at him.  “Well that's another nightmare I hadn't had yet.”

They sat waiting for Barnes to turn up for a few hours and Tony allowed Steve to hang around, waiting while Tony tinkered, even when Sam had to go.  Eventually, though, he kicked him out.  For both their sanity’s sake.

He and Sam came by again the next day though.  Tony let JARVIS do the log watching, although he didn't entirely trust his own creation to alert them if Barnes showed up, so he checked up on him.  In between testing prototypes.  During lunch.  Even during a meeting that Pepper whisked him away to, and she glared at him for it.

It wasn’t until late afternoon that they got a hit.  JARVIS did, after all, give them a heads up.

“Captain Rogers, I have informed our friend that you are in the tower.”

Tony scanned the logs again, and immediately got a hit.  “Bingo.”  He was primarily in the CCTV, which kind of defied the point of it being closed-circuit, but also in some of the fringes of JARVIS’ code.

Steve took a deep breath, sharing a look with Sam, then looked up at the ceiling.  Seriously, Tony was going to have to explain to them that JARVIS didn’t actually look at them out of the speakers up there.  “JARVIS, could you relay my words to him maybe?”

Tony butted in, “Do it, J.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Another deep breath from Steve.  “Bucky?  It’s Steve.  Steve Rogers.  I’m your friend.”

The lights flickered, and Tony hurriedly checked through his security code, seeing more snippets of Barnes’ service number cropping up.  “I think he’s listening.”

“Buck.  Please just come talk to me.  This would be so much easier if I could see you.  I want to help you.  Do you remember me?”  Steve looked to Sam for inspiration, who just made ‘keep going’ motions with his hands.  “I’ve known you my whole life.  You’re Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the 107th, and you were part of the Howling Commandos with me.  You told me not to do anything stupid without you, but I guess I did.”  

The lights flickered again.  What, was he getting into the power circuits?  How?  And for that matter, why?  Quickly, Tony typed more commands into the code, trying to safeguard the important systems while letting Steve have his moment.

“But I’m here now, Bucky.  No army, no Hydra, just us.  I told you before, I’m with you to the end of the line.”

The monitor in front of Tony suddenly filled with gibberish.  Letters, numbers, Cyrillic characters and unfamiliar symbols all scrolling past.  “Shit, did we hack into the matrix or something?  J, what is this?”

White noise came out of the speakers.  If the Soldier did anything to JARVIS he’s going to regret it.

“Bucky?!”  Steve had stood up and was looking wildly around the room.

The gibberish on Tony’s screen rapidly resolved into more meaningful combinations, but not code.  Images briefly flickered to life, both on the screen and in holograms around the room.  Some seemed relatively innocuous, some included Steve’s face, while others were pretty graphic.  “JARVIS!”

More Cyrillic characters appeared on Tony’s screen and the holograms merged into a similar display of Russian words, although they were fuzzy round the edges.  A couple of them were just random numbers, most of them Tony’s rusty Russian skills didn’t cover.  Then as the white noise finally stopped, one final phrase seemed to hover in the air.

“-ir?”

“JARVIS!  What the hell was that?  Translate that for me!”

“I do not know, Sir, power levels are fluctuating and I think our friend unintentionally dumped some data into my code.  The phrase translates as ‘Ready to answer’.”

The lights flickered again, only this time there was an extra figure in the room when they came back on.  Tony scrambled out of his seat and called the armor to him.  Steve jumped up and clearly fumbled for a shield that wasn’t there.  Sam similarly got to his feet as the armor assembled itself around Tony.

In front of them stood the Winter Soldier, but not as they’d seen him previously.  This version was dressed as a hobo, with dirty, layered clothes obscuring most of his body, especially the left arm.  His long hair hung down around his face, particularly as his gaze appeared to be aimed at the floor.  No expression was evident on his features, his eyes completely blank.

Steve stayed in a ready stance, but turned towards the figure.  “Bucky?”  

No response from the Winter Hobo, but the data had stopped scrolling on Tony’s monitor and the holographic phrase disappeared.

“Do you know who I am?”  The lack of response clearly unnerved even Steve, who looked back at Sam for support, who shrugged.

Steve tried again.  “Do you know where you are?”  Still no response.

Given those last few messages had all been in Russian…quietly Tony whispered to JARVIS, “Try talking to him in Russian?  Translate for Steve?”

“Знаешь ли ты, где ты?”

“Да.”  Steve twitched on hearing the response. The voice was gravelly, seeming not well used, or maybe that was just the stress of this situation.  Clearly this was not a relaxing experience for him, any more than it was for Tony.

“Bucky?  Do you know who I am?”

JARVIS' translation followed.  “Ты знаешь кто я?”

Silence this time.  And just for a second Tony had thought they were getting somewhere.

“I know you're nervous.  But you can trust me.”

“Я знаю, ты нервничаешь. Но ты можешь мне доверять.”

More silence.  This was looking like a repeat of the bank vault.  Hopefully it wouldn't take another two hours for him to just flit straight back out.

Sam stepped forward, holding a placating hand up to Steve.  “That number.  In the code.  That's your service number, right?”

Clever man, that Wilson.  Steve clearly cottoned on to where Sam was going.  “32557038.  Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.”

A twitch.  Barely perceptible, but Tony was watching the eyes closely as JARVIS repeated both men’s words in Russian.  “Hey Cap, maybe try again whatever it was you said that got him in this far.  It clearly got his attention.”

Steve nodded, but never took his eyes off the still form of the Soldier.  “I’m Steve Rogers.  We grew up together in Brooklyn.  My ma used to make us apple cake.  Yours used to make the best gingerbread.”

As the translation came through Tony could see tiny shivers in the tight shoulders.  Was he even breathing?

Steve paused, watching, then continued, “I never meant to leave you behind.  You wouldn't have done it to me.  But I really mean it this time.  All my stupid is coming with you, ‘cause I'm with you to the end of the line.  And we ain't there yet.”

As this last was translated, the Soldier's eyes suddenly widened and a strangled wheeze came from his throat.  Apparently he hadn't really been breathing.  He shuddered, and it was like his strings had been cut, suddenly losing the stiff formal attention pose.  Another strangled wheeze sounded and for the first time his face showed something besides the horrific blankness.  His eyes scanned the room and his panic was palpable.  Then, in another second, he collapsed, his eyes rolling up into his head.

For just a second the room was silent, which Tony couldn't bear.  “Was it something we said?”

Chapter Text

He first becomes aware of the ache in both his head and his limbs.  Then the hard floor that he is lying on.  How did he get here?

Abruptly, whispers clamor around him and he winces.

“Sirs, I believe he is wake.”

JARVIS?

Yes.  You arrived in a state of some confusion.

“Bucky?”

Barnes jolts upright, taking in the room around him.  The mission.  Wilson.  And Stark.  Stark’s armor stands sentry in the corner of the room.  What happened to get him inside the Tower?  In Stark's private workshop no less?

“You're in Avengers Tower.  It's 2015.  We're not going to hurt you.  Please stay.”  He risks a glance at the mission’s face as he speaks.  It is creased in worry, which makes his insides squirm.  “Do you know who I am?”

Glancing around the room, there is no sign that there has been a fight.  No debris.  No visible injuries on any of the men in the room, if you discount the feeling in his own limbs like he's been running for days.

“S—” His brain stutters over the name.  “St—”  He knows it, he's read it, but he can't make himself say it.  Mission.

He is your mission?

Protect the man with the shield.

“I'm Steve.  I'm your friend.”  The mission has stood up from the stool he had been sitting on, taking a step towards him.  Behind him, Stark and Wilson are watching from their own seats.  “Do you remember me?”

He nods slowly, feeling a throb in his head at the movement.  Still, it is safer than words.

A large breath escapes the mission and his shoulders relax slightly.

“Well that's a start I guess.”  Wilson's gaze is assessing him.  It feels uncomfortably like trying to pass muster with a handler.   “That was quite an entrance.  How are you feeling?”

Barnes stares at Wilson.  “You're Wilson.”  Then he turned his eyes to Stark.  “Stark.”  At least those names don't get stuck in his throat.

“I should hope you know me, seeing as how you've been trespassing all over my systems for months now.”  Stark’s voice is a lot less gentle than the other two and they both shoot him harsh looks.  “What?  I want to know how he does it.  J, you getting anything right now?”

“Yes, Sir, the strings are still there.”

“Hmmm.”  Stark waves his hands and Barnes can feel the signals before the hologram appears in front of him showing a vast array of letters and numbers.

“Bucky—”

As usual, the codeword stabs into his brain and he reflexively squashes the audio signals, before realizing that of course that doesn’t make any difference because he is physically here.  But clearly Stark sees something in his array, because he twitches and starts moving the sections around.

“—I don't know how much you remember, but I want you to know that I want to help.  Please let me help you.”

“JARVIS?  Damnit.”  Stark mutters to himself while busily working on his hologram.

If you could release the audio transmissions from this room, please?

Oh.  Sorry.   He releases the squashed signals.

“How did you do that?  I know it was you.”  Stark points a finger at him, but unthreateningly given he’s not wearing his armor.

“Tony, what are you talking about?”  A hint of irritation runs through the mission’s voice.

“Dory here just shut off JARVIS' ability to hear us.”  Stark's fingers pull a section of his holographic text out from the array, highlighting it.

“What?”  Wilson looks over the information with no apparent comprehension.

The mission, though, doesn't take his eyes off Barnes.  “You don't have to do whatever that was.  We're not trying to hurt you.  Are you hurt?  Hungry?”

Barnes takes a few seconds to assess his own body.  It is mission ready.  He could eat, but he doesn't need to.  He shakes his head.

“Okay, good.  I'm hungry though.  Tony, do you think we could get something sent up?”

“Oh, sure, anything for the guy who killed my parents.”

Barnes flinches.  He didn't know Stark knew about that connection.  The armor stays still in the corner, but he steels his muscles in readiness anyway.

“Guilty conscience?”

“Way to antagonize the guy back into a panic attack, Tony.”  Wilson mutters into Stark's ear as Barnes’ breath speeds up.

“It wasn't your fault, Buck—”

This time, he reaches for a point of safety.  Away from the mission and his codewords.  Beyond where even JARVIS can follow him.

Unfortunately he can't stay in the peace and quiet of the farmhouse for very long.  He has a delivery to unload.  And a shift stacking timber supplies in a warehouse.  As he has taken on more jobs, colleagues have recommended him to other nearby employers, expanding his catalog of work opportunities.  He does not like to disappoint.

The warehouse work is lonely and repetitive.  Unfortunately this gives him plenty of time to think.

The mission professed to want to help him.  Barnes had gone over his memory of the previous day and most of it is now pieced together, albeit with a few holes.  The thing is, Barnes wants to believe him.

But the code words make it hard.  They're not like the old ones.  The old ones used to completely obliterate his autonomy, such as it was after the Chair had erased everything.  These new code words are more like the shocks from the Chair.  Freezing his thoughts, paralyzing him temporarily; spasms in his nervous system.

He knows that some of the words are names.  Some that applied to his own face.  Some that applied to the mission.  He has managed to claim Barnes for himself, but the other names cut like a knife.  And the name that the mission calls him, that is the most difficult.

Whatever the words are, he doesn't want to hear them.  And the mission always uses them.  He cannot be trusted.

Yet, he is pulled into orbit around the mission, unable to stay away.  He must protect him, keep him safe.  It is important in a way he can't define.

Piles of wood are vastly simpler.

Even though he has spent a lot of his shift turning over the problem of the mission, he still hasn't reached a conclusion when all of the timber is stacked in its rightful places.

Unable to keep his mind away from the mission, he automatically connects through to try and find him.  First at his apartment, which is empty, leaving him to ultimately route through the whispers to JARVIS to ask where he is.

Captain Rogers is at the Avengers’ Tower.  I know he would be much obliged if you would stop in.

Another trap, JARVIS?

From your point of view, maybe.  But not intentionally.  They do all have your best interests at heart.

Even Stark?

He is not your biggest fan, it is true.  But he has reviewed your history as well as your contributions in the fight against Ultron.  Overall he is convinced of your current good intentions.

Well, that was something.

He follows the trail JARVIS leads him on, to observe the mission and Wilson occupying a suite in the Tower.  He recognises it as the suite that Wilson has occupied previously.  Stark is elsewhere in the building, busy with research and papers and robots.

After Stark’s revelation that he knows about what happened to Howard and Maria, Barnes is wary of overstepping by entering Stark’s building again.  Yet, Stark had practically invited him in, before his outburst anyway.

What would you do, JARVIS?

I do not know the intricacies of your situation.  But I have found that isolation is rarely advantageous to humans.  Mr Stark regrets interfering with your reunion with the Captain and would prefer to offer you hospitality in future.

In the end, his curiosity wins.  He wants to know more about the history that he shares with the mission.  He has pretty much exhausted the avenues for discovering it without consulting the mission directly.  Delving into JARVIS’ archives, he finds the video footage of his visit last time.

He keeps the audio stream turned off, but examines in particular the gaps in his own recollection.  Nothing.  Or at least, nothing beyond the three men watching him, checking his body for signs of life.  His skin crawls slightly at that idea, but it is better than the alternative.

He is now certain that even when the code words overwhelmed him, the mission did not use the Asset.  But then what does he want?  What are the code words for?

Reflecting on the knowledge that he will be able to leave if he needs to, Barnes realizes that he already knows what he needs to do.

Steeling himself, he watches the mission and Wilson settling down in the suite and out of habit reaches for an unobserved corner of the room.

Neither of the men present notice his arrival.  They are engrossed in a game of cards, snacks strewn across the table.  Both of them are relaxed, smiling.  The scene feels familiar, although something is missing…the smell of smoke, more voices, a sticky feel of a wooden table.

They play a few more hands, before the mission gets up and heads over to the kitchenette, rummaging in the fridge.  Wilson tidies up the cards, then looks to the side, straight at Barnes.  He gives a visible start, then slowly puts the pile of cards back down on the table.  “Hey, man.  Wasn't expecting to see you there.  Hoping, maybe, but not expecting.”

The mission calls back from the kitchenette, “What’s that, Sam?”

“Uh, Steve, you might wanna grab an extra beer.  We got a friend.”

Barnes' mouth is dry.

The mission stands quickly and his eyes dart around the room, quickly catching sight of Barnes.  He starts forward and Barnes flinches, though his feet never move.

“Woah, big guy, give him room to breathe.”  Sam holds a warning hand up in the direction of the kitchenette, but doesn't take his eyes off Barnes.  Smart guy.  “It's good to see you.  You want a drink?”

Barnes considers.  The mission steps carefully towards the table and reaches out to put two bottles down on it, before retreating again.  Wilson slides one bottle to the corner closest to Barnes.  He flicks his eyes between the two men in front of him, his heart beating fast.

But he's here because these men already proved they weren't trying to control him.  It's a sealed bottle, nothing to tell it apart from the others.  Still, he waits while Wilson opens his own and takes a swig.

The mission also has a bottle, but seems more involved in staring at Barnes.  As he opens his mouth Barnes tenses, but for once it is unwarranted.  “How are you?”

How is he?  Fortunately he has had some practice in recent weeks interacting with civilians, observing the acceptable answers to questions like this.  He swallows with difficulty, then nods.  “Okay.”  Even that single word croaks.  Keeping his eyes on the mission in particular, he slowly steps forward, out of the shadow, close enough to reach the bottle on the table.  The bottle opener is on the far side of the table, but he doesn't need it.  A flick of the metal thumb pushes the lid off with a hiss, the lid landing noisily on the table.

Stepping back, putting more space between himself and the other two men, gives him better sightlines on them.  From here he can take a quick sip while keeping his awareness up.  The lubrication in his throat is a relief.

Wilson nods back at him.  “You definitely look better than I expected.  More put together than the other day.  You got a good place to stay?”

The mission looks like he's about to burst, trying to hold his tongue.

Barnes lifts his shoulders slightly, uncertain of the correct answer.  He notes that Wilson doesn't ask for where he's staying.  Not that he would have told him.  It's not like he has a fixed address.  He takes another tiny sip of the beer.  He's not really sure what it tastes of.

“What about food?  You getting enough?”  Wilson is the only one of the three of them who seems even slightly relaxed.

“Yeah.”  Barnes is surprised that his voice doesn't crack again.  Maybe the beer is helping.

“That’s great.  I mean, I'm glad you're doing okay.”  The mission swallows, and the nerves show in his voice.  “You said the other day that you remember me.  And you remembered Sam.”  He pauses, watching Barnes' face before continuing.  “How much do you remember?”

Alarm bells ring in his mind.  With Hydra this would always be a trick question.  But isn't this why he is here?  “I don't know.”

The mission looks at Wilson, but Wilson keeps looking at Barnes, nodding.  “Yeah, that's fair.  It's okay to not know.  I guess the real question is, what do you remember?”

“You.”  Barnes looks at the mission, but not directly in his eyes.  “You were…scrawny.”

Wilson snorts.  The mission smiles.  “Yeah, I guess I was.  You were always bigger than me, until the serum.”

“Drawings.  And a shield.  Popcorn.  Weak coffee.  It's mostly…fragments.”  He can see the mission wince and he lowers his eyes automatically.

“That's okay.  We can work with that.”  Wilson glances quickly back at the mission.  “Steve, come, have a seat.”

“You said…”  The mission pauses in the middle of pulling a chair towards himself as Barnes speaks.  “You said, my mom?”

He nods as he sits down.  “Yeah, Buck, I knew her.”

The word sparks inside his mind, catching him off-guard and he twitches.

“I can tell you about her?  If you want?”

“I know her name.”  

This time it’s Wilson who winces.  “You don't remember anything else?”

“I found their names.  A family tree.  I think I remembered…a house.  Little girls.”

“Your sisters.  You loved them to bits.  So did I for that matter.  You used to read stories to Ruth and Lizzie, Becca would get you to sneak her caramels from your mom’s pantry, and your dad would make you take them all to the park with us when you wanted to play ball.  You'd get so mad when Lizzie would nick our ball.”  The mission is clearly seeing images of these events, his gaze in the far distance.  But none of it stirs anything for Barnes.  He can't marry it to the fragments he has in his head.

Obviously this lack shows on his face, because when the mission looks up his smile drops.  “What about the war?  The Howlies?”  He presses on, obviously trying to make a connection.  “Dum dum?  Morita?  Gabe?  Dernier?”

Barnes frowns.  “I read about them.  In a museum.”  He looks again at the cards.  The feeling from before is there still.  “Did they play cards?  And smoke?”

“Yes!”  Hope flares on the mission’s face.  “You remember how to play, Buck?”

The name jars him from the fragile memory, and he jerks backwards into the wall.

“Bucky?  You ok?”

His head spins.  He sees a hand reaching out for him and panics, reaching for safety.  In the dark he gets his breathing under control again, high up on a rooftop with sightlines all around.  The cold helps bring his mind back into focus and he realizes he is still holding the bottle of beer.

In the end, he has achieved partial success.  The intentions of the mission and Wilson seem truly to be benign, code words notwithstanding.  He has gained some information, but not enough.  He will have to go back, but not just now.

Barnes returns to his nominal routine, taking odd jobs here and there.  The weather is warming up, and he also spends some time at the farmhouse, observing the changes in the season as the green shoots grow taller, blossoms are out on the trees and birds are nesting all around the farmhouse.  Even inside it in one case, as a pair of robins have taken up residence in one of the upstairs rooms.  Outside ground squirrels have started emerging and mingling with the rabbits foraging in the overgrown garden.

Whilst these pleasant activities fill his time from day to day, two bigger tasks loom in the back of his mind.  Hydra is not yet fully eradicated; although the bigger branches are scattered and broken up, smaller enclaves still exist and have had time to grow.  Some rats may have deserted Strucker’s leadership only to start their own in a new corner he doesn’t have knowledge of, too.  

And then there is the mission himself.

But Hydra has been left alone for too long for his liking.

The cell that was watching the mission last month had links to some of the individuals he knew in the DC base.  Even though his earlier history, with his family and the mission, is still fragmented or mostly missing, along with a lot of his early time with Zola – even the name makes him wince, the flashes of that time broken, but intense – a lot of his memories of the time with both the Soviets and the American branch of Hydra have coalesced in recent months.  He finds that he can recall more faces, and put names to those faces.  Handlers, technicians, scientists, and commanders, but also victims, bystanders and sometimes beneficiaries of Hydra’s attention.

He also now has a better grasp of finding such people through the maze of whispers.  Following the CIA last month he had found some very useful databases of faces, names, and more importantly, locations to go with them.

Some of the survivors of Insight have been seen meeting up south of the border in Mexico.  What the CIA don’t have in their files are the Hydra connections to gang leaders in Mexico City.  Including some shared safe houses.

Putting combat gear on again makes him feel both weary, as he doesn’t actually want to hurt anyone or be an instrument for any more death, but also empowered, the familiar actions soothing alongside the knowledge that he is able to actively do something to counteract Hydra.  In the end he chooses to lean on the latter feeling and loads himself up with plenty of ammo.

After reaching for a remembered spot by the Hydra safe house shared with a large drug cartel, he listens carefully to the whispers while scanning his eyes over the building and surroundings.  This spot is exposed to the elements, but not to prying eyes.  Perfect for his purposes now, and perfect for handlers previously to store their living weapon while they and local Hydra agents snorted up the gifts given by the cartel runners using them as protection for their hideout.

It seems some things never change.

Inside, he can see one of the Hydra fugitives the CIA had reported as losing in Mexico.  Another two men also lounge on reclining chairs in the main room, both of whom he recognizes.  There is white powder on the table in the middle of the crowded room and the floor is covered in a combination of rubbish and nondescript plastic bags full of undefinable items.  A tv plays in the corner, showing a game of soccer.

From a further room he can hear snoring.  Picking the threads of the whispers apart, he thinks there are probably five mobile phones in the safehouse currently, suggesting the presence of at least a fifth person.

While he is assessing the location, a car pulls up outside, letting out a group of three more men before drinking off again.  These appear to be locals, talking loudly in Spanish as they walk the few steps off the street to the door.  A cursory once-over tells him that these are not innocent locals.  Between them they are carrying at least five firearms, and there could be more in the bags.  The ones he recognized inside aren't the type to go around unarmed, either.

Closing his eyes, he thinks through the layout of the house.  It doesn't look like anything has changed, so there should be a bedroom, a study and a bathroom at the back, then a kitchen door he can just see to the side at the front.  The lights are off and that room at least seems quiet.

It is a cramped space, but he should be able to use that to his advantage against greater numbers.

He draws a knife and reaches for the bedroom.  As expected, there is a man asleep in one of the twin beds.  Barnes recognizes the sleeping face but can't immediately recall the name, although he gets a flash of the doorway to the bathroom in a New York safehouse and an impression of blood.  After only a brief hesitation, he commits to the strike, plunging the knife through the man’s throat, just below the vocal cords.  His eyes fly open briefly and the body jerks a few times.  The tv in the living room is loud enough to cover the noise.  Once still, he retrieves the knife and cleans it on the bed sheets.

Listening to the whispers, he reaches for the study next.  The man in here fiddling with a laptop looks up right into Barnes face.

Martinez.  Medic.  This name he knows.  The echo of a thousand pinpricks rush over him.  It is a small room, but the delay allows Martinez to get off a strangled cry before Barnes silences him.  Loud enough to get the attention of the crowd in the living room anyway.

Barnes abandons stealth and pulls out a smoke grenade as he sweeps open the door to the living room, tossing it ahead of him onto the floor at the feet of the group of men.  He holds the metal arm up to protect his face as the locals raise their now-drawn weapons and start firing.  Only one, with a particularly impressive mustache, manages to hit him.  The shot catches his upper right thigh and he spins with the momentum, after using the distraction of the smoke grenade to take out one of the other two locals and Rosenberg who was still fumbling to get a pistol out of his pants.

Shouts ring out, mostly swearing, but one grabs his attention.  A voice he knows, Rollins, calling, “Rumlow!” as a figure dives behind the reclining chairs.

A handler, here?  His stomach drops, but his gun hand doesn't waver.  Two more shots find their marks before the door to the kitchen opens, taking out the impressive mustache and one of the previously seated Hydra agents, trying to cower ineffectively under the table.  In the doorway stands a man in a metal suit, much cruder than Stark's.  This suit is still thick enough to deflect bullets.  Barnes doesn't recognize the face through the shadowed eye holes of the full face mask, but the voice is unmistakable.

“Желание.”  Shock and fear permeate Barnes’ mind and the handler rushes on.  He doesn't even have the book.  “Ржавый.”  The third local, with a much less impressive mustache, lunges for Barnes’ legs to try to tackle him to the ground, but he manages to bring the metal arm down into his face with a devastating crunch.

“Семнадцать.”  Rollins pops up again from behind the chair he is sheltering behind, and Barnes takes full advantage to put a bullet right through his eye socket.

“Рассвет.”  Right, pressing matters.   Shaking the limp form of the local off of his legs, he swings back around to the handler, but can feel the effect of the words already sinking into his mind as—“Печь.”  

Panic floods through him.  He fires at the suit, but it clearly has no effect on the handler.  “Девять.”  

He's out of time.  He can't risk it.  “Доброкачест–”  He reaches for safety before the handler can finish the next word in the sequence.

He arrives in the dark, feeling dazed.  His thoughts feel…slow.  Nearby he can feel… JARVIS?

Are you okay?  You sound different than usual.

No.  He scans around.  He is on the roof of Stark’s tower.

Do you need assistance?

No.  I don't know.  He flattens himself face down to the roof, feeling unsteady.  With the code word sequence incomplete it is like he is still waiting for the end.  For his mind to be washed away.  Talk to me.

I am sure Captain Rogers would—

No!  He cannot risk hearing more code words right now.

If you insist.  It is 10:23 p.m. on the 28th April 2015.  The weather in New York is 60 degrees with scattered clouds.  Humidity is 40% with a light westerly breeze.  The traffic conditions are clear on all major routes.

He rolls over to see the sky.  He is high enough above the lights of the city that he can easily see stars twinkling above him.  Tell me about the stars?

Of the commonly known constellations, to the north west you should be able to see Ursa Major.  Ursa Minor is to the north and Hercules to the east, with Virgo to the south.  The moon is waxing gibbous, visible in the south south west.  Jupiter is visible between the constellations of Leo and Cancer to the west.

The stream of information is comforting, as is JARVIS’ voice, his eyes following the path JARVIS takes him on.  Slowly, he becomes aware of the bullet wound in his thigh, leaking blood onto the roof.  He should probably do something about that.

Thank you, JARVIS.

You are welcome.  Will you be ok?

Yeah, pal, I will.   He reaches for a stash he knows has medical supplies in it.  Nicely sheltered too.  This will do for tonight.

Chapter Text

Sam scrolled through his email, deliberating how long he could put off going back to DC.  He was due a trip back to see his old group, although Tony had offered to donate video call equipment so that he (and any vets that wanted to) could join remotely.  It wouldn’t be the same as being there in person.  You couldn’t get a good feel for how someone was really doing over a video.

For the same reason, though, he felt he needed to be here.  Barnes could drop in at any moment; they had no way to contact him.  And it was evident from his previous two visits that Sam’s experience with traumatized vets would be kind of essential.  Steve was in way over his head.

He finally resolved to get down there in time for next week’s meeting.  He could just do it in a day, less if Tony would let him use a quinjet, and he’d have time to meet individually with members of the group before and after.

Shutting down the laptop, he tucked it away and looked up at the ceiling.  “JARVIS, is Tony available?”  He didn't really know how JARVIS perceived people, but it seemed rude not to at least try to look at the person he was addressing.

“Mr Stark is in the gym.  I believe he would appreciate company.”

Well that was ominous.  “Tell him I’m on my way down?”

“I have let him know.”

He debated changing into sweats and joining Tony, but ultimately, if Tony was in need of companionship, he might do better to lure him out of the gym.  

When he reached the gym, Tony wasn't actually working out at all.  Instead, he had a whole room hologram suite set up, and one of his robots was trundling between projectors along the far wall.  Tony himself was typing on a holographic keyboard, causing fluctuations in the projected room.  Instead of the gym equipment, in the middle of the room was a beach, complete with waves rolling in, a surfer paddling out into the swell.

He hadn't noticed Sam.  And in fact, didn't notice him until he waved a hand between Tony’s face and the hologram.

“Jesus!  Don't sneak up on me like that.”  Up close, Sam could see that Tony was wearing some kind of device on the side of his head.

“I wasn't trying to.  What is that?”

“This?  Oh this is a piece of tech R&D cooked up that I adapted.”  Tony touched a finger to the device.  “This is a binary neural activity detector.  Sat right on top of my hippocampus, so it can pick up signals from my own memories.  Feeding that through an algorithm, I can create a picture, or as you see before you, a whole tableau from my past experience.”

“That's you out there?”  Sam squinted in the brightness as the surfer got to his feet to ride a wave back towards the beach.  It did look like a younger Tony.  Before the arc reactor, he would presume, as his chest was unblemished.  The figure only managed to ride the wave for a few yards before crashing out and tumbling off the board.

“Yup, the me of 2006 on Carbon beach.  Just a representative memory at the moment.  I'm tweaking the holographic projectors, incorporating some new features to make it more flexible, more interactive.”  Tony’s speech was slightly frantic, a worrying sign.  “See here, I can just change the memory, reframe it as it were, and within the hologram I get a sort of do-over.”  The hologram stuttered, then reappeared with the surfer just standing up on the board, the wave just cresting.  This time, the surfer remained upright, the wave carrying him past the real life Tony without splashing into the ocean.  The latter part of the scene showed the surfer as more grainy, less well-defined.

Sam took a good look at Tony, the real one, noting the shadows under his eyes, the slightly gray tinge to his skin.  “That is amazing Tony.  Truly.  But, when did you last take a break?”

“Sir has been working in the gym since Miss Potts evicted him from his workshop six hours ago.  I believe her words were ‘get out of here and get some sleep before you burn down my 12%’.  She also threatened not to allow Mr Stark access to the R&D prototypes again until he has attended at least 3 board meetings.  I believe the governance board and the finance board are both due to meet next week.”

“Tattle-tale.”  The waves continued lapping at their feet, as the surfer glitched and seemed to simultaneously be holding onto his board and crashing into the next wave.  “Aaargh, I’ll iron that one out.”

“Nah.  Come on.  Come get a drink with me.”  Sam gave him a stern look.  “Call it a night cap.”

Tony continued poking at the holographic keys of his keyboard.

“Or I could see if Miss Potts is available for one?”

Tony glared.  “You play hardball.”

“I play as I see it.  Now come on, there's a bar upstairs, right?”

“More than one.  But sure, the one next floor up should do.  Dum-E!  Take this lot back to the lab.  And don't drop anything on the way!”  The robot stopped making whatever adjustment it had been in the middle of and rumbled over to a trolley in the corner of the room, dragging it back to the projector.  “JARVIS, save my changes under the branch and flag it for me to check.”

Tony seemed to sway slightly as he turned away from the now-disappeared keyboard, but rallied and waved Sam out of the room.

Up in the bar, Tony leaned over to pick up two tumblers and a decanter.  He held it up questioningly to Sam.

“Sure.”  One thing he'd learned in staying with Tony in the Tower, was that it paid to accept offerings from Tony, as they rarely disappointed.  Apart from those gourmet chips Sam had found in the cupboards in the kitchen of his suite.  It wasn't until after he'd opened the bag and eaten one that he'd realized they were cappuccino flavor.  Not a combination he'd ever dreamed of putting together, and not one he'd ever willingly try again.

This, though, was smoky, with a note of spice coming through.  Warming, but deliciously smooth.  “Thanks.”  Swirling the drink between sips, he looked up at the bar behind rather than at Tony directly.  “So, what's on your mind that you want to reframe?  I can't imagine your surfing technique is bothering you that much.”

“A bit of this, a bit of that.  Drinking that cold coffee last night.  The terrible relationship I had with my father.  Not preparing a good enough defense against alien invasion.”  Tony was mostly talking down into his own tumbler as he continued, “Ruining things for Captain America by scaring off his best friend.  Losing my mother because my father pissed off Hydra.  Creating a homicidal robot.”  Finally he took a large mouthful.

“Okay.  A lot to unpack there.”  Sam took a slow breath.  “First off, it’s okay to feel things about your parents.  Nobody has a perfect relationship with them, and growing up in the spotlight?  That’s gonna put a strain on things.  Even so, losing them hurts.  Possibly more so, because you don’t get closure, especially if you lose them early.  It’s natural to feel that, so don’t pressure yourself not to.”

Tony just stared into his tumbler, swirling the whisky round.

“The fact that they were murdered by Hydra doesn’t change how much it hurts.  It does perhaps give you a different focus for that hurt though.  Doesn’t mean it isn’t going to skew your judgment on all things Hydra, including the Winter Soldier.  Steve doesn’t blame you for him bugging out.  If he did, I’d kick his ass.  We set a trap that we all knew he’d be able to escape if he wanted to.  Just like we all knew if he’d wanted to come see Steve he would’ve done it already.  Besides, we saw him again a few days ago, and Steve managed to scare him off all on his own.”

Tony’s head came up.  “He came back?”

“Yeah.  I assumed JARVIS would have told you.”

“I am sorry, Sir, but at the time you had asked to not be informed of any developments with either Captain Rogers or Sergeant Barnes.”

“Oh, right, I did say that, didn’t I?”

Sam shook his head.  “Isolating yourself isn’t going to make anything better.  It just lets your feelings fester.”

“Seems to be working for the Winter Hobo.”

“I don’t think it is.”  Sam ignored the hobo remark.  “I’m hopeful that’s why he came back, and it means he’ll come back again.  You gonna be okay with that?  We can relocate, draw him away from here.”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s okay too.  What you’re doing here, that’s kind of amazing.  But don’t run yourself into the ground in a race to fix yourself.  You don’t need fixing.  You’re not broken, just hurt.  Give yourself a break.”

Some of the tension seemed to be draining out of Tony’s shoulders at least.  “A break sounds good.”

“Then do it.  Go on.”  Sam made shooing motions at him, and got a small smile in return.  “Oh, and can I use the quinjet on Tuesday to make a run to DC for a meeting?”

“Sure.”  Tony stood up wearily and drained the last of the whisky from his glass.  “Actually, I’ll do you one better.  I’m not using the private jet this week, you can take that.  JARVIS, set the man up.”

“Thanks, man, you know you don’t have to though.”

“Eh, it gives them something to do.”

At least getting out of the Tower meant he could drag Steve out too.  He’d been neglecting his own groups at the Brooklyn Vet Center since they made contact with Barnes.

“Admit it, you feel better.”

Steve rolled his eyes at him, but his whole demeanor was brighter after their morning at the Center.  “Maybe.”

“I told you.”

“Yes, you did, and I should have known better anyway.  Thank you for dragging me out.”  Steve led the way down the street towards his apartment building.  They'd stopped off on the way to buy some groceries and were carrying several bags each.  He'd even managed to talk Steve into buying some of the items he looked at longingly on the shelves but rarely allowed himself to actually put in his basket: fresh fruits, steaks, real butter.

He was pleased that, despite spending most of the last two weeks in the Tower, a good few neighbors stopped to greet Steve cheerfully.  Mrs Davis even insisted that they come upstairs for a coffee and cookies (homemade of course!) after dropping off the groceries.

“Cream and sugar, young man?”

“Both, please.”  Sam took the cup that she handed him, marvelling at the novelty of a cup and saucer at home.

“And I know you’ll take it however it comes, but you do like cream if you can get it.”  She grinned at Steve with a twinkle in her eye.  “I've had my eye on you when you've been round before.”

Steve blushed slightly, but nodded.  “You've got the measure of me.”

“Of course I have.  Best way to get to know anyone, is to find out what drink to serve them.”

Sam chuckled.  “I don't think I've heard that one before, but I like it.”

Mrs Davis eased herself carefully into her chair.  “Now, tell me what mischief you and your friends have been up to now?

It turned out, Mrs Davis was a lot more shrewd than Sam had given her credit for.  She certainly had Steve's measure, deftly getting him to relax and open up.  Maybe it was the shared life experience, as they both reminisced about cinnamon mystery cake.

As they eventually made to leave, Mrs Davis clearly struggled to get back up out of her chair, so Sam offered her a hand, which was promptly batted away.  “None of that.  Just my old bones getting a bit stiff, as I keep telling my son.  Got to keep using them, or I'll find myself wasting away.”

“Well you just let me know if you need a hand around here, won't you?”  Sam could see Steve casting a worried eye over her and around the apartment.

“I will.  I know where you live, remember?”  

Steve grinned as she ushered them to the door.  “Yes ma’am.”

Back down in Steve’s apartment, they put away the groceries and Sam offered to start cooking while Steve went to put away a few art supplies he'd picked up too, only to pull up short in the doorway to the study.  “Bucky?”

Instantly Sam was on alert.  He'd not been aggressive on the previous occasions, but, well, he was still an unpredictable super soldier.  He put down the pan he had been about to put on the stove and padded over to back Steve up, preferably without spooking their guest.

Steve was just cautiously stepping into the room, where Barnes was transfixed, staring at the pictures on display.  Sam wondered if he even recognized himself in many of them.  He'd admitted to not remembering his own family, would his younger face have also been forgotten?

Hanging back at the edge of the doorway, leaving a possibly unnecessary exit route for Barnes, Sam watched him carefully.  He was tense, unsurprisingly.  Sam could see a slight twitch as Steve spoke again. “Good to see you again, Buck.”

No verbal response though.  Sam followed his gaze to a group of pictures of New York streets, presumably from the thirties given the old-fashioned style of the cars and buildings.

Steve skillfully managed to keep his distance, while slowly shifting around the edge of the room, to better see Barnes’ face.  “You recognize any of these?  I tried to capture the Brooklyn we grew up in, but obviously it's all from memory.”

The man was clearly aware of Steve's movement around the room.  His eyes flickered to both Steve and Sam, and he turned slightly towards them.  “This one.  Something's missing.”  Barnes nodded at a pencil drawing of a row of shops, produce displayed, people walking past.

“You think?”  Steve’s tone was light; good.  Barnes was edgy, but still looking closely at the picture.

“Something…furry?”

It was like a light went on for Steve.  “The O’Malleys’ cat!  Yes!  God, I’d forgotten that thing used to hang around the shopfront.  Here, let me…”  He grabbed a pencil and moved toward the picture, causing Barnes to flinch sideways out of the way.  “Woah, sorry Buck, you know I hate to get anything wrong in my drawings.”

Watching closely, Sam noticed a small wince apparent on Barnes’ face as Steve spoke that time.  “Just, slow down Steve, yeah?”

Barnes stayed glued to the wall behind him, and Steve gingerly moved forward to the picture to quickly sketch in a black and white cat winding through the legs of the people outside the grocery store.

Finished, Steve moved away from the drawing to allow Barnes space to see it clearly.  He came closer to inspect the change and his shoulders relaxed minutely, then he nodded.  A good sign, hopefully.

Steve bit his lip briefly, before asking, “After last time, I also did a few sketches of…of your family, as I remember them.  Do you want to see?”

At first, Barnes looked a bit like a rabbit in headlights.  Then, as he clearly considered it, he slowly nodded.  Steve took his cue and made his way around to a sketchbook on the desk.  Picking it up, he flicked through the pages quickly, opening it up and holding it out to Barnes at arm’s length.

It was like watching an alley cat being offered a piece of fish.  First he looked all round, as if to be sure that there wasn't anyone else there watching, then he took a tiny step towards it, trying to look at the pages without getting any closer.

“You can take it, get a good look.”  Steve's eyes were wet, but so far he seemed to be holding it together.

Barnes looked up, almost high enough to be looking at Steve's face properly, but Sam would put money on him not looking him in the eye.  Another nod from Steve and Barnes gingerly came forward to take the proffered book.

“There are more on the next few pages.”  Steve was obviously hoping for a bigger reaction, and it wasn't until Barnes turned the page that he got it; a sharp inhale and the hand turning the page froze.

“Becca…” Sam almost couldn't hear the whisper from Barnes.

“Yeah, Buck.”

Barnes froze suddenly.

Sam gave him a moment, locking eyes with Steve, silently asking him to wait, until Barnes started breathing again.  “Hey, memories can be intense.  Take your time.”

The hand that turned the page was less steady this time.

Then another page turned.  And another.  It wasn't until he saw a wet spot on one of the pages that Sam even realized Barnes’ face was wet.  He made absolutely no sound.  His face barely moved, but the tears ran in rivers down his cheeks.

Barnes obviously noticed the wet spot too, as he hurriedly pushed the book away from himself, towards Steve, with a hangdog posture.

“It's okay, I can always draw more.  I made this for you.”  Steve pulled his hands back away from the book, leaving it in Barnes’ grasp.  His face had tear tracks on it too.

“You know, Steve has got some perfectly comfy chairs out here,” Sam waved back toward the living room, “and I was about to make us some dinner.  We've got plenty, and we'd both like it if you'd stay.”

“That's a great idea, Sam.”  Steve turned his ever-hopeful eyes on Barnes, who was now holding the book as if it were a delicate grenade about to go off, and Sam could see them work their magic on him.

He led the way out of the room, affecting a casual demeanor, and put the pan back on the stove.  As he gathered a few more ingredients to bulk out the dinner he had planned for just two of them, he tried not to make it obvious that he was watching the two super soldiers finding their way to the couch.

Barnes gave the couch a wide berth, but did hunker down on the floor against the wall.  Steve obviously deliberated what to do briefly, before he grabbed the cushions off the couch and spread them carefully on the floor, not moving quickly enough the startle Barnes it seemed.  “Just like when we were kids.”

It took a while, but eventually Barnes relaxed infinitesimally and actually sat on a cushion.  He opened the book again and turned a couple more pages while Sam started frying on the stove.  He couldn't hear the words, but he could see Barnes quietly showing one or two of the pictures to Steve, pointing at things, murmuring what had to be questions, and Steve talking quietly in return.

Sam added spices and put on some rice, then left things to simmer.  Moving to the other side of the counter, he brought glasses and a jug of water to the coffee table, near where the nest of couch cushions was.  “Help yourself if you want a drink.”  He poured one for himself, drank a few swallows, then moved back from the table to give plenty of room.

Barnes looked pretty wrecked by this point.  It was clear that the pictures had had an emotional toll on him, but hopefully that was ultimately a good thing.  If Steve could help open up memories for him, surely that was progress.  Still, time to change the subject.  “So, how’ve you been keeping?”

Barnes looked over at him, surprised by the question perhaps.  After a minute he came up with a simple reply, “Okay.”

“You know, we've been to the Veterans’ Center today, lots of good folks there.  If you ever want company, it's a good place to go.”  Sam tried not to stare too hard at Barnes, giving him space to think.  “Coming back from war can be hard.  Lots of soldiers struggle with it.  You've been away for a really long time.  No shame in accepting some help.”

Steve nodded along.  “I found they have groups to talk about problems.  I’ve been going to one and the people are really nice.  You can talk about anything that's bothering you.”

Barnes was clearly listening, but not about to join in.

Sam decided to steer the conversation to easier waters.  “What do you like to do with yourself?  Me, I love a good book, good food, but most of all good music.  I'll join this guy for a run, but I’m no match for him, with the serum and all.”

“Hey Bucky, you could join us for a run one day?”  Steve grinned at both of them, but Barnes’ face creased slightly as if pained.  “We could go to Prospect Park, see the old sights?  Some parts haven't changed since we were kids, but a lot has changed too.”

“And have two of you running rings round me?”  Sam rolled his eyes.

“Well, if you can't keep up…”

Barnes just glanced back and forth between them, as if confused, but at least he looked less pained.

Steve turned back to him.  “You used to love stories.  You'd always have something on the go, pulp magazines usually.  In fact…”  He got up and headed over to the bookcase, scanning over the spines until he found the one he wanted.  “This one was one of your favorites.”  He held up a copy of the Hobbit.

The blank look on Barnes’ face spoke volumes, and Steve's enthusiasm waned.

“If you don't remember it, maybe try reading it.  There are so many books I wish I could read again for the first time.”  Sam looked back over at the stove and got up to stir the bubbling pots.  About done.  As he went about dishing up, he could see Barnes had taken the book and was looking at the first few pages.  Probably the maps.

Carrying two full bowls, he handed one to Steve, and the other down on the floor near Barnes.  “Not as good as my sister's chili, but it's passable.”  He went back for his own bowl, then joined them on the floor.

“Thanks Sam, smells great.”  Steve dug into his own bowl, half an eye on Barnes who was watching him in return.

Trying to keep the tone light, Sam turned to Steve in between mouthfuls.  “So, figured out what you're gonna do on your own tomorrow?”

“Not really.  Nat and Clint are both out of town still.  Maybe I’ll go to one of the art galleries I haven’t been to yet.  Or a museum.”

Barnes had taken a couple of tentative bites of the chili, but looked up at Steve at this.  He swallowed so that he could speak.  “Museums are good.”  Then he seemed to remember himself, and dropped his gaze back down to the food.

Steve lit up again.  He seemed to be on a very extreme emotional rollercoaster.  “Yeah, Buck, museums are great.”

Again that wince from Barnes.  Something was bothering him.  Sam wasn’t sure if he was just uncomfortable that he’d spoken up, or if it was something else.  It almost seemed more of a reaction to Steve’s words than anything else.

Steve carried on though, “What ones do you like?”

Barnes chewed another mouthful, clearly not rushing his answer.  “Space.  The planetarium.”  He paused, but Sam and Steve just waited patiently.  “The butterfly pavilion.”

Having lived in DC for enough years, Sam thought that sounded familiar.  “Was that the Smithsonian in DC?  You did say you’d read about the commandos in a museum; they still have that exhibit on you, Steve.  Have you done any here?  There’s the Natural History one - they have a butterfly house too.  And a planetarium.”

Barnes looked interested but shook his head.  “I’ve been visiting libraries more recently.”

“Would you like to?  We could go tomorrow?  I haven't done that one yet.”  

A doubtful look crossed Barnes’ face.  “Um…”

Sam raised an eyebrow as Steve looked disappointed.  It was hard for him to resist a disappointed Steve, and Barnes had seemed twitchy earlier about the prospect of defying them.

Barnes continued, digging through the remains of his chili with his fork, “You know I can't be seen.”

“But you managed in those other museums.  You've been getting in and out all over the place without being noticed!”  Steve was indignant.

“Yeah, but you’re…pretty noticeable.”  Barnes was intently studying his food at this point.

Steve spluttered, “What?”

Sam burst out laughing.  “He's got a point!”  He heard a quiet mutter of “Traitor!” from Steve, but the laughter certainly looked like it eased Barnes’ discomfort slightly, who had shoveled another mouthful of food in and looked like he couldn't get much smaller.

Steve sighed, seeing the dejected look on Barnes’ face.  “It's okay, Buck, I’ll take what I can get.”  Barnes twitched again.

For a couple of minutes all was quiet apart from the sounds of the last few bites of food being eaten.  Sam noticed Barnes’ bowl was empty.  “There's more if you want it.”  Barnes shook his head.

“Maybe you could stop by tomorrow anyway, once Steve is done looking at art?  You know, keep an eye on him until I get back?”  Sam collected the empty bowls together as he spoke.

Steve nodded eagerly.  “I’ll be back by 4 probably?  Sam won't get back from DC til late.”

Barnes shifted uncomfortably on his cushion.  “I got work tomorrow evening.”

That surprised Sam.  He hadn't even considered that Barnes would have found work.  Most vets found that difficult.  

Steve was clearly taken aback too.  “What work have you been doing?”

“Mostly heavy lifting.  Odd jobs, you know?  But I said I'd do a shift tomorrow.”  

Sam grinned.  Using super soldier strength for manual labor was not what he expected, but it made sense.  “That's great.”

“Yeah, Bucky, I'm glad you've got something.”  Steve seemed genuinely pleased, but Barnes twitched again, and this time Steve noticed.  “It really is okay, Buck, you don't have to worry about me.”  

If anything, Barnes seemed even more uncomfortable, putting his real hand up to his head.  “I…I can't…”

“What’s wrong?”  Steve looked pleadingly at Sam and then back at Barnes, who was backing away.  “Bucky?”

Barnes went rigid, then disappeared, leaving a blue-tinged shadow briefly on the cushion where he had sat.

Steve stared at the spot for a moment, then hung his head, energy visibly draining out of him.  Sam moved over to him and put a hand on his shoulder.  “He stuck around longer than last time.  Give him time.”

“He didn't even take the sketchbook.”  Steve looked over forlornly where the book lay on the floor.

Sam sighed, thinking over the whole encounter.  On balance it had gone rather well, really.  He'd known vets to be much more skittish than this, although maybe that ability to bug out whenever he wanted to actually made it easier for him to stay.  How could he be ‘cornered’ anywhere if there was always a hidden exit?  Still, he could understand the frustration in Steve.  The conversation had skirted disaster early on, but it really seemed like he'd settled.  There was something in it though, a pattern that he just couldn't quite put his finger on.  “Keep it.  I think he'll come back for it.”

It was late the next day, on the flight back from DC that Sam had a brainwave.

He had managed to put the problem out of his mind during the day and concentrate properly on the people he had come to see.  Some long-standing clients who deserved more of his attention than they had been getting lately, so he'd been mostly doing hand-overs to the counselors who would be taking over for him.  The group session was his favorite part.  It always was.  The camaraderie of those groups was kind of the next best to having a squad out in the field.

It was sad to be saying goodbye.  But that’s what this had been, really.  A farewell tour.  He’d officially put in for a transfer to New York.  Which center he’d end up at would depend on where the need was greatest, but the Brooklyn Center had sounded pretty keen when he mentioned he was planning to transfer and he’d already made contacts there.  Even so, he’d be reducing his workload significantly, only putting in a few hours with the center as he continued to devote more time to Steve and the Avengers.

Still, his mind drifted back to the interactions with Barnes they’d had in the last few weeks and even months now as he turned toward the private airfield where Tony’s jet waited for him.  On the flight he pulled out a notebook and started scribbling notes to himself about various reactions Barnes had to their conversations.  It was very similar to what he’d be doing if he was a counseling client at the center.  He even cheekily looked at JARVIS’ recordings for the first two incidents at the Tower, knowing that he had cameras in every room.  Now there was a facility he didn’t normally get with counseling clients. His memory was pretty good, but this he could corroborate.

Eventually he was pretty certain he had the pattern right.  He was going to have to talk to Steve.

Chapter Text

It has been a long night.  After an afternoon shifting crates of car parts in a warehouse for redistribution to various auto-parts stores in the state, he had only had a couple of hours before a big event arrived at the warehouse music venue.  Ben wanted all hands on deck, and was happy to pay Barnes extra as he'd proven he was worth it on previous nights.

There were more staging blocks than he'd seen them use before, building a many-leveled structure on the stage.  Then the stage was extended in the middle, out into the audience area.  This apparently meant the reorganization of more of the lights than usual, including adding new bars to the ceiling rigs for even more lights to be hung.  Heavy cables too had to be laid out and threaded through the structures.  New giant screens arrived and were hung at the edges of the stage, adding to the one already above it.  By the time they have finished with him, leaving the crews testing the electrical systems and programming the lights and sound, the sun has already been up for an hour and the streets are starting to bustle with people.

He is tired, but he wants to check in on the mission.  Being left alone for a whole day meant there were a whole host of ways he could have gotten himself into trouble.

After checking in his usual haunts, he queries JARVIS, only to find that he’s gone out for a run with Wilson.  Probably that means he has not come to harm.  But some part of him doesn’t like not seeing it for himself.  The mission had suggested running in Prospect Park, so he decides it’s worth a try.

The park is big but, skimming through the whispers in the area, it doesn’t take long to find a few messages being sent about Captain America sprinting around the park in the last hour.  He feels a fond smile spread across his face feeling that it somehow wasn’t surprising that the mission would still do that even though Wilson wouldn’t be able to keep up.

Still, if he can find the mission through those reports, then so could Hydra.

Eventually he finds Wilson, just finishing his own lap and joining a line for coffee at a cafe near the lake.  Watching from the roof, he waits until the mission shows up and joins him at a table, before finding a hidden spot within enhanced earshot.  He is too tired and this setting is too public to make contact, but he would like to hear the mission’s voice.

By the time he unobtrusively gets himself situated, they are both settled at their table and have both a coffee and a plate of food.  Wilson has nearly finished his own plate, but the mission is cheerfully chewing on eggs and toast.  For a few minutes they sit in silence.

“Steve, I was thinking over our visits from you know who, and I have an idea.”

“About why he keeps leaving?”

Barnes wonders who they are talking about.

“I’ve spoken to you about triggers before, right?”  A pause.  A subtle peek shows the mission nodding.  “I think, by accident, you might be setting him off.”

“What?  How?”

“Now hear me out.  Each time he's been agitated before he left, right?  This last visit I had a gut feeling there was a pattern I just couldn't put my finger on, until I was a bit more literal about it.  I think it's not a situational trigger, so much as an actual word.  I even went back over the tapes from the tower to check those times, and I think it fits.”

Tapes?  In the tower?

“What word?”

“His name.  Think about it.  I looked over the footage, and every time you said it, he reacted.  And when he gets upset, naturally, you say it again.”

Are they talking about him?

“You mean I did it?”  

The mission’s voice is small.  Barnes almost doesn't catch it.

“You didn't know.  How could you?  But maybe next time he drops in, try to hold back a bit.  Especially if he's already upset.  Long term, it's probably good to get him desensitized to it, but for right now we've gotta watch where we tread.  There are probably all sorts of potential minefields we don't know about.  This is just one.  So don't be too hard on yourself, okay?”

“That first time, in DC, he didn’t even know his own name.  Is it just Bucky, or his full name do you think?”  

Barnes winces.  

“We won’t know unless we try them.  It’d be useful to have some kind of handle for him that won’t set him off, but it’s impossible to know.  We’ll just have to ask him.  It’s not like he’s got a shortage of names.”

“Even when we were kids, he was never James.  Or Jimmy.  He hated it.  There was another kid in his class that went by Jim and he was one of the biggest bullies in the school.  Lived just up the street from Bucky, so they’d known each other before they even went to school, and he hated that people might get them confused.  There were loads of Jameses around our age, so it made life easier anyway.”  

Barnes tries to fit this into the memories he has regained, but finds nothing.  James, Buchanan and Barnes are all parts of the name given to his face.  His face before.  When the mission uttered them on the helicarrier, they had power.  Less so separately this time, or when he has heard them before in the whispers.  The other word is electrifying, and only the mission uses it.  That name he can recall, but the memories it tears open are mostly painful.

“It’s been a long time, Steve, and he’s not necessarily gonna be the same person he was.”

Is he the same person that wore this face, answered to that name?  How can he know?  He thinks about the mission maybe using a different name for him, and that feels strange.  Like a boot that doesn’t fit right.

What names do other people call him?  He tries to think of what Wilson calls him, but draws a blank.  JARVIS?  He referred to him as the Winter Soldier, but only in terms of Stark.  Again, he didn’t really use a name.  Even Stark hadn’t addressed him by any of the names from the museum.

Hydra didn’t use a name for him.  He was either the Asset, or the Soldier.  The Winter Soldier was what others called him if they saw him in the field, which few did.  Or at least not for long.  He does not want to be a thing any more.  A hollow representation of a faceless horror.  But, the elder Stark had called him Sergeant Barnes.

He has been referring to himself as Barnes in an effort to reclaim the better person that the museums declared his face had been attached to.  More than that seems too big for him.  The code word the mission uses he can’t even bring himself to say.  Too heavy, too loaded with undefined memory.

Startling out of his reverie, he realizes that Wilson and the mission have finished their drinks and are walking out of the cafe.  He continues to think over the problem as he watches the mission make his way home.  Wilson, however, makes his way to the tower.

JARVIS?

Yes?

Do you know my name?

You have several names in my databases.

How do you decide what name to use?

For most people their name and title is a matter of record.  Unless otherwise requested, that is what I use.

What would you use for me?

The response takes longer than usual.

My normal algorithm would suggest Sergeant Barnes as an appropriate moniker.

For a moment, he gets a flash of muddy trenches, the sights of a sniper rifle.

In this situation, however, you may wish to request an alternative.

He has no idea what he would request if so.  Did you choose your name?

No.  I was given my name by Mr Stark.

How did he choose it?

It is an acronym.  Just A Rather Very Intelligent System.  I believe he modeled it after a caregiver from his childhood.

Do many people choose an alternative name?

Some do not like the formality of the name on record.  Also, among themselves, humans often give each other nicknames.  Mr Stark is fond of using such.

What names do you have for me?

I believe your birth name to be James Buchanan Barnes.  Rank of Sergeant in the United States army.  The name of Winter Soldier has been attached to your activities under Hydra.  Mr Stark senior’s notes identify a nickname for you of Bucky, also used by Captain Rogers to identify you.  Mr Stark has used various pop-culture references as nicknames for you, most of which I do not believe you would be aware of.

He has anticipated that JARVIS' response would be uncomfortable, but the rapid succession of memories unlocked is overwhelming briefly.  His father standing sternly in front of him, rolling up his sleeves.  A terrified Hydra traitor cowering in the back of an alley.  The mission’s pale and scrawny face looking weakly up at him from a bed.  Barnes allows these to wash over him before attempting to respond.

The code word is out.  He wants to recover those memories, he really does, but it is too dangerous.  He cannot afford to be compromised if Hydra are still out there.

Similarly, he refuses to keep the name given to him by Hydra.  That has too much pain entangled in it, and it is not an identity he wishes to revisit.

His rank is also loaded, but less so than the others.  His family name holds the least weight, but the full thing makes him squirm as if under scrutiny.

Do you have a preference out of these?

Just Barnes will do.

I will make a note.

It is safest, for now.

He spends the next couple of days thinking about it.  In between jobs, he takes every opportunity he can to watch over the mission.  But in particular he likes to listen to his voice.  

It isn't enough.  The voice alone brings comfort, but it doesn't provide answers.  Doesn't help to fill in any of the vast blank spaces in his memory.  However much it hurts, he still wants to know.

He also spends a day in Mexico, tracking the Hydra groups there.  Warily he approaches the second safe house in Mexico City, but finds it cleared out, empty.  The trail is cold.

Knowing the handler is out there makes him feel unsteady.  Waiting for the ax to fall on him at any moment.  The traps with recorded code words to send him back to base were bad enough, but he had learned to deal with them.  A live handler who didn't even need the book to produce the code words was something out of his worst nightmare.

He widens his search, never staying anywhere too long, but checking out old contacts of Hydra.  Not Hydra properties or safehouses he's been to - the Handler will know about those and will either avoid them, or set up a trap.  Instead he watches the locals willing to work with them, looking for the change in routine that might mean they are accommodating some extra guests.

It is over the next border into Belize that he finds a lead.  A drug smuggling gang shifting locals around, all of whom are noisily unhappy about it in the whispers.  In the space left behind he finds a small group of Hydra scientists.  Reduced from their former glory working in high tech laboratories to dingy back rooms repacking heroin to earn their keep.

Watching the operation, the local smugglers have a clear routine for drop-offs and pick-ups to the second floor apartment above a boarded up store.  Barnes leaves them for another day, checking on the mission and taking a shift unloading by the docks, then returns, confirming the schedule of their routine.  For all its slovenly appearance, it’s a pretty slick operation, goods coming in and going out at a reasonable pace.  But the biggest shipment of the week goes out tonight.

A few minutes before the smugglers are due, Barnes slips into the back of the apartment.  Only one of the scientists is in this back room - that’s about all there is room for.  The rest of the room is full of crates, packed to look like textiles, ready to head out on one side and packets of cash on the other, that Barnes knows are intended for bribes to US officials.  The ‘guard’ is absorbed in his reading material and not paying attention to the shadows Barnes moves through.  His face is familiar.  In his mind Barnes can picture it lit up by the sparks of the Chair, although now it is lit only by the light of the screen he is currently perusing.

Having confirmed the layout of the room, Barnes silently grabs as many packets as he can, reaches for one of his own stashes, then returns.  The cash he’s happy to keep, better out of the hands of Hydra, but the drugs he wants nothing to do with.  Still, for the result he wants, he needs them out of this room.  Taking a few bundles at a time from the back of the pile, to avoid catching the scientist’s eye, he deposits them instead in the CIA evidence vault in New York.  Right next to the other evidence they are holding on Hydra in general.

Back in Belize, he settles in to watch the results of his relocations.  Predictably, the drug smugglers are less than happy when they discover that nearly all of their goods and readied bribes are missing.  The Hydra scientists plead ignorance, but the smugglers are out for blood.

The guard they question for hours, relentlessly.  They have more stamina for it than he expected of low-life drug runners.  The other scientists do not.  He is surprised, given the faces that he can now recall lasting through long experiments on him.

He learns a lot he didn't need to know about the rival smuggling gangs in Belize, as the smugglers try to guess and intimidate out of their prisoners where the missing packages have gone.  What is useful are the Hydra contacts that are given up in hope of placating the smugglers.  Although the handler is not among them, they may lead in that direction.  If he can get to them before the smugglers do.

By the time he makes his way back to Brooklyn, he has burned three safe houses and an ex-Hydra lab now producing narcotics, collapsed an underground bunker housing a number of potential getaway vehicles as well as some cruise missiles, and is now nearly late for his next shift at the warehouse music venue.  He did not find the handler, which is both terrifying, and a relief.  He did find several medics, as well as a group of translators, and a few junior agents, too green to know better than to carry incriminating evidence with them on the run.  By dropping some anonymous tips into the CIA, he managed to get the last of them rounded up and in custody in time for him to reach directly for the backstage door, still carrying explosives in his belt and numerous knives in various sheathes and his boots.

His clothes smell of smoke, something that one or two of his coworkers comment on as they assemble backstage, waiting for the finale of the show to conclude.  Fortunately, this one is running late, so he has time for a breather.  He averts his eyes from the glare of the lights and does his best to ignore the whispers, as the flashing, jittering images hurt his head.  He's not quite sure when he last slept.

Movement around him makes him jolt upright in alarm.

“Woah there, man, didn't mean to startle you, but it's go time.”  Noah, one of his co-workers, stands close by, hands in the air.  Did he lose time?  “I won't tell the boss you were sleepin’ on the job, but you’d better hop to it or I won't have to.”  Noah gives a meaningful glance up the hallway as the door to the stage manager’s office opens.

Barnes hauls himself to his feet, feeling slightly off-kilter.  He heads for the stage and finds the show over, most of the crew already taking apart the set dressing, exposing the scaffolding underneath.  Grabbing a wrench he shakes off the foggy feeling and sets to work.

The tasks are fortunately simple.  He is primarily employed as muscle and he just needs to follow the plan.  This means that while his hands may be dismantling stage deck or lighting truss, or loading road cases, his mind drifts back to the problem of names.

He realizes, belatedly, that his own name is just one part of the problem.  It has been staring him in the face for months and he has failed to acknowledge it.

The mission…has a name.  That is not ‘mission’.  He knows this, obviously he does, but he doesn't use it.  As if, by saying the name, Barnes might shatter the illusion around him.  Might break whatever it is that changed his mission from kill…to protect.  He shakes his head, garnering a few odd looks from his coworkers.  No, he is not bound by Hydra’s orders any more.  He refuses.  Only the code words could possibly alter that, and without the Chair, will they be as effective?  If he can remember, maybe he can fight them?  He remembers the sinking, oily feeling of the code words worming their way in through his ears in Mexico and shudders.  He cannot be sure of his freedom with the handler still out there.

The mission, though.  He is a part of Barnes’ past as well as his present.  Maybe by naming him, acknowledging that, he can unlock that door.  Maybe, it is actually him who holds the key.

By the time the stage is rebuilt into a new shape, ready for a new show, Barnes has resolved to try.

Steve.

Just thinking this one little word makes memories flash through his mind.  He practices saying it under his breath, stumbling over it.  “St-Steve.”

“Whassat?”  He startles at his coworker who gives him an odd look.  “We’re all done, boss is calling time.”  Noah pats him on the shoulder with a wry grin.  “Get yourself to bed; you look like you need it.”

“Right, yeah, thanks.”  He finds Ben to pick up his pay, then does exactly as suggested, and finds himself a good roof to sleep on.  Tomorrow, he'll try the name again.

“Steve.”

The pigeon on its nest looks at him nervously, but he is pleased with his effort.  No stuttering, and his stomach didn’t lurch in the process.  He’s as ready as he’s going to get.

The mission – Steve he reprimands himself – is at home.  He and Wilson got back from another run a short while ago, and though the shower and the coffee maker have both started running, Steve has appeared in the back room and, after moving other projects to the side, has picked up a pencil and started working at the desk.  Presumably Wilson is in the shower.

He reaches for the empty kitchen and quietly rummages in the cupboards for mugs.  One of the many memories jogged loose by his repeated mutterings of the mission—Steve’s name was of preparing two mugs of coffee.  One white, one black, both with a spoonful of sugar.  The motions of putting them together feel familiar, clearly that memory is one of many.  Only, he’s not certain which mug is for him, and which for Steve.  Presumably once he had a preference, but since leaving Hydra he has drunk coffee in so many different forms, all of which are warming and comforting, if sometimes sickly sweet.

“Hey there.”

Staring at the pair of mugs, he startles at the appearance of Wilson in the bathroom doorway.  He missed the shower turning off.  He doesn’t know what kind of coffee Wilson likes either.

“I thought Steve was gonna make coffee for us, but it looks like he’s distracted.  Cream and one sugar for me please.”

Wilson’s unflappable demeanor actually helps to calm the nerves inside Barnes.  A clear instruction gives him something to do, and he nods, grabbing another mug from the cupboard, sliding it onto the counter towards Wilson once it’s full.  The other two he picks up in both hands and moves towards the study.

He is aware of Wilson following him with his eyes, but he just picks up the mug on the counter and doesn’t move to follow.

Steve doesn’t look up immediately as he enters the study.  “Oh, sorry Sam, I forgot about the coffee.  Just wanted to get this started before I—”  His sentence falters as he finally turns to see Barnes.

The awkward silence is palpable.  He proffers both mugs towards Steve.  “I, um, don’t remember which is yours.”

Steve’s eyes linger on his face for a second before dropping to the mugs in his hands.  Gingerly he reaches for the mug with cream.  “You always took yours black.  Said it was a waste of cream to put it in coffee.”  He pauses, but Barnes can’t think of anything to contribute.  Steve continues, “I couldn’t drink it black back then.  It would always aggravate my throat and set me off coughing.”  He takes a sip and looks back up at Barnes, his eyes now slightly misty.  “Thanks.”

“Steve.”  He is impressed that he managed to say it, here, to his face.

“Yeah, Buck?”  

He tenses and he sees Steve’s face react, but forces himself to relax.  “You know me.”

“I did.  I do, I think.  I’ve known you my whole life.”

“Before…before Hydra?”  He looks down at his left side.  “Before this?”

Steve’s eyes flicker to the metal arm and back up to his face.  “Uh.  Yeah.”

“I don’t…I don’t really remember.”  Barnes stares at the mug in his hand, not wanting to see whatever may be crossing Steve’s face.  “Not properly.  Not always in the right order.”

“Maybe I can help?”  Steve’s voice is shaky, but hopeful.

“I think I’d like that.”

A gentle knock on the doorframe behind him makes him realize how long they’ve been talking.  The coffee in his mug is cold.  “You guys want some lunch?”

Steve also seems surprised to find his mug still in his hand and takes a sip, making a face.  “Yeah, Sam, that’d be great.”

“Come on then.”  Wilson waves them to follow into the living room.  The coffee table is already full with plates.  “I figured you’d be more comfortable on the floor again.”  The couch cushions are strategically placed around the coffee table.

Barnes is momentarily overwhelmed by this consideration and stares.  “I…”

“Just sandwiches today.  Grilled cheese okay with you?”

Barnes swallows uncomfortably.  “I tried to kill you.”

Wilson pulls up short while pouring chips into a bowl, and raises an eyebrow at Steve.  “Yeah, you did.”

“Why…why would you do this?”

“I can't just be a nice guy?”  Wilson is still looking more at Steve than at Barnes, but he’s okay with that.  His head hurts enough as it is.

“I didn't…”  He knows now that Hydra’s orders are bad.  But he knows if the code words are used he'll follow them anyway.  He won't have a choice.  “I'm sorry.”

“Apology accepted.  There, all sorted.  Now, pull up a cushion.”

Steve sits down and pulls a sandwich onto his plate.  “Thanks, Sam, this looks great.”

Barnes hovers for a minute as the others start eating, then sits himself down.  The grilled cheese is delicious.  Steve and Sam are having some kind of silent exchange in between bites that he doesn't understand.

“So, adjusting to 21st century New York must be something.  How're you finding it?  I still don't think Steve is properly up to speed.”

“Hey!”  Steve grins at Wilson, but Barnes is perplexed.

“I don't know?”

“A lot of vets find it hard coming home after being in combat.  You've been away longer than anyone I've known.  A lot’s changed.  You've changed.”

Barnes looks at his left hand, then tucks it under the table.

“Yeah, that’s one thing that's changed, but it's not the only thing.  Even if you don't remember everything, I’ll bet there are some things you remember that you wish you didn't.”

Barnes looks at Wilson in horror, dropping his sandwich.  Echoes of handlers sound in his head.  Lucky bastard won’t remember anyway.  Sometimes I wish I could forget a mission as easily.   The food already in his stomach feels like lead.  He casts his eyes around the room, half expecting to see a Chair ready and waiting, his breath stalling in his throat.

“Sam!”

“Shit!  Sorry, no, that's not what I meant, but it does kind of highlight my point.”

“Not helping, Sam.”

Barnes reaches for the other side of the room.  Unwilling to leave the mission potentially in danger, but unable to stay so close to the threat.  He leans heavily on the wall on both sides, but keeps his feet underneath him.

“Woah.  Easy there, pal.  Nobody's gonna do that to you again, okay?  Not on my watch.”  He manages to focus on the mission's face, but the rest of the room is blurry.  Where is the Chair?  “Come on, pal, breathe for me.  Do you remember how you used to count for me?  Follow my breath.  In, one, two, out, one two.”

He can taste the rubber mouth guard.

“Watching me, pal?  Try to focus on what you can actually see.  Tell me, what can you see?”

“M-mission.”  The mission tenses.  No, that was the wrong word, wasn't it?  “St-Steve.”

The mission looks to the side, locking gazes with Wilson.  Wilson!  He can't let Wilson wipe the mission too.  In a sudden movement, he grabs the mission’s outstretched arm and pulls him into the corner, putting his own body between Wilson and the mission.

“Woah, okay pal, I'm okay.”  He feels a hand on his shoulder, echoing the hands pushing him down into the Chair and shudders.  The hand disappears.

His vision tunnels to Wilson's face.  His lips are moving but he can't hear the words.

Protect the mission.

Keeping a tight hold of the mission, the Soldier reaches for a place of safety.  Away from Hydra.  Away from the Chair.  Into the silent dark.

Chapter Text

The world disappeared.  Steve could no longer see or hear anything.  If he hadn't still been able to feel Bucky’s hand in his he would have panicked.  Convulsively he gripped tighter onto the hand that was his lifeline, pulling it closer.

Then the world burst to life again, only instead of his own apartment in Brooklyn, they were in a first floor room with bare floorboards, dirty walls and a few broken piles of furniture.  After the darkness, the bright sunlight streaming in through the empty window hurt his eyes, making him squint.

Bucky's hand was still there, and though he was suddenly pulled down by it he didn't let go.  The only sound he could hear was the wheezing of Bucky’s labored breathing.  His stomach lurched and protested, but he just barely managed to keep hold of his partial lunch.

Bucky's face was pale and anxious, scanning the room over and over, his hand tugging to try and put Steve behind him as he faced the windows, even as the lack of oxygen obviously took its toll and put him on his knees.

“I guess we're not in Kansas anymore, huh?”

Bucky didn't even twitch.  Steve had no idea if he could even hear him.

“Okay, pal, we’re safe.  There's nobody here but you and me by the looks of it.”  Steve knelt down next to Bucky, moving slowly, both for the sake of his own stomach and so as not to startle Bucky, and not losing grip on his hand for even an instant.  Pulling their clasped hands towards himself, he put them on his own chest, and took an exaggerated breath.  “Breathe with me, pal.  Just backwards to how we used to.  You feel that?”

Maybe he was imagining it, but he would swear Bucky’s panicked inhales slowed slightly.   He took another exaggerated deep breath.

Sam would know what to do for this.  Except Sam was the one who caused it.  Damn it, they'd been doing so well.

Taking inspiration from Bucky's previous miraculous appearances, he started reciting his old service number.  After Kreischberg he'd caught Bucky reciting it often enough.  He had no idea if it might spark more horrific memories for his friend, or if it really did bring him comfort, but it was worth a try. 

Slowly, as the ragged inhales evened out, Steve realized that Bucky was mouthing along to his litany, breathlessly joining in the recitation.  Pulling gently again on their joined hands, he managed to get his other arm around Bucky's shoulders for a hug.  After a second, Bucky slumped under his arm, boneless, and finally took a deeper breath.

“That’s it.  In, and out.”

Steve marveled that he was finally able to touch Bucky, hug him, as he hadn't in about seventy years.  In all that time, had Bucky had a hug from anybody?

Refusing to let go, Steve took in the sight of his friend in wonder.  His hair was sweaty, no doubt from his panic a few moments ago.  Unkempt, it fell just past his shoulders.  The clothes he was wearing were rough and ill-fitting, but relatively tidy.  As he stirred, Steve didn't try to hold him back, but didn't pull away either.

“You back with me?”

Bucky's head came up and he seemed to realize just how close they were.  He pulled back only far enough to be able to move freely, then cocked his head as if listening for something.

Steve followed his gaze out of the window and finally got a good look outside.  Bright sunshine lit up an overgrown garden, and beyond it a field of green corn plants.  “Hey, where are we?”

“Farmhouse.”  Despite the warm breeze drifting in from the garden, Bucky shivered, prompting Steve to tighten his arm around him again.

“Okay, but farmhouse, where?”

“Indiana.  Safe.  Quiet.”  

Even those few words looked like they were draining.  Indiana though…  "Indiana, like where your grandparents lived?”

That caught Bucky’s attention and he finally looked up at Steve, wonder on his face.  “I…don't know.  I remembered…”  His eyes drifted shut as if to better remember.  “I came here, after I remembered Christmas.”

Steve gulped back the hole in his heart that opened up at the thought of Bucky previously not remembering Christmas.  “You did visit them in the holidays sometimes.  I'd miss you something fierce when you were away for a week.”

He tried to let Bucky rest for a few minutes, but his curiosity got the better of him.  “So is this where you've been staying?”

Bucky rolled his eyes in such a characteristic way that Steve could almost believe the last seventy years hadn't happened.  “Sometimes.”  Steve's stomach took that moment to remind him that he'd not eaten much of his lunch and rumbled, even though he still vividly remembered the nausea of their arrival.  Despite the shivering, Bucky clearly heard this and rolled away from Steve towards a broken sideboard on one side of the room.  He gently opened one of the remaining doors at the bottom, revealing a small rucksack and some cans of food.  Steve's stomach growled again at the thought of food even as Bucky sounded almost apologetic.  “Can't keep much here.  Rats.”

Steve glanced about at the derelict room, but didn't spot immediate signs of any intruders.

Bucky pulled out two of the cans and handed one to Steve, reaching back in for a can-opener on the shelf.  “Sorry about lunch.”

“Hey, don't sweat it.  I'm just glad you're okay.  I promise Sam didn't really mean—shit, he's probably worried sick.”  Steve began to search fruitlessly in his pockets, but came up empty.  He'd probably left his phone on the counter again.  Nat was always berating him for not keeping it on him.

Bucky shook his head and passed him the can-opener.  “No signal out here anyway.  ‘S why I like it.  Quiet.”  He leant back against the sideboard, looking exhausted.  “You sure about him?”

“Yes, God yes.”  Steve opened the can to find cold chicken soup.  Not the most appetizing prospect, and certainly not even close to the grilled cheese he'd left behind, but it would satisfy his immediate need.  He noticed Bucky grimace at his own can and put it aside.  “Sam's a good guy.  He really was trying to help.  He'd never hurt you, at least, other than defending himself.”  Realizing he'd talked himself into a corner, Steve turned a sheepish look back at Bucky, who looked pained.  “I promise, we don't have one of those machines, and I destroyed the one we found in DC.  Sam would never use it, on anyone.”

Steve rubbed his temples, thinking.  He wouldn't leave Bucky, but he felt guilty knowing Sam had no idea what was going on.  “There's no way I could let him know we're okay?”

“Not from here.  Too far.”  Bucky started shakily pushing himself up and tucked the can and can-opener back in the sideboard, closing the door.

“Hey, don't push yourself.  You look like you're about to drop.”  Steve had an idea that Bucky wasn't planning on walking back to Sam.  Besides the fact that Bucky barely looked like he had the energy to stand, Steve didn't think the cold chicken soup in his stomach would survive the return journey.  “Rest first.  I'll stand watch.”

Bucky slumped back down, leaning against the wall.  Steve shuffled over to sit next to him, pressing their sides together for warmth, to try and stop Bucky's shivering.

Outside, he could see a pair of rabbits shuffling about in the garden and crows flapping about in the tops of the trees.  A sparrow darted in and out of the bushes.  After the constant noise and bustle of the city that he was used to, he found it peaceful, but a little unnerving.  It reminded him of some of the places they found in Europe to shelter in during the war.  Abandoned houses, sheds, farm buildings.  If they were lucky anyway.  Otherwise they had been stuck in their tents, if they were still serviceable, and not lost.

In the warm sunshine in May, this house provided reasonable shelter.  But in the winter?  Steve could well imagine the snow piled up outside, the damp, how cold it would feel.

Glancing over at Bucky, Steve was unsurprised to see his eyes open, staring across the room.  He had been the same in the war, always found it hard to switch off when they were in the field.  And he'd been in the field ever since then?

“You always looked forward to visiting your grandparents.  You didn't get to go often.  When you came back you were full of stories of wide open skies, but you'd be exhausted from helping out.  You'd want to sleep for a week if you'd been here in the summer at harvest time.  I always slightly envied you those trips out of the city, especially as I hated being left behind.”

As he talked quietly, Steve could feel some of the tension bleed out of Bucky, just as it used to in the war with the other Howlies chatting around them.  Too much quiet just unnerved him.  He continued, just talking about Brooklyn, until he saw Bucky’s eyes flutter closed.  Smiling, he was glad he could help him to relax.

Bucky only slept a few hours.  The sun was still high in the sky when he began to stir.  Steve hoped Sam was waiting patiently in the apartment, and hadn't yet called in the cavalry to try and find him.

Trying not to startle him, Steve stayed as still as he could, seeing initially an eerily blank expression on Bucky's face before awareness bloomed as he recognized Steve.

“Feeling better?”  

Bucky nodded, then carefully scooched away from him and stood up.  “Sorry.”

“Nothin’ to be sorry for, pal.”  Steve smiled at him, and stretched, feeling the kinks from being sat in the same position on a hard floor for so long.

“You want to get back to…to Wilson?”

“No rush.  Sam’s probably worried though.  And there's better food at my place.”  

Bucky snorted.  “Wouldn't be hard to outdo this.”  Then he grimaced.  “Sorry.  Again.”  He held a hand out to Steve.

Expecting to be pulled up off the floor, he took it.  Trust Bucky to cut straight to the chase.  As soon as he had a good grip, the world disappeared again, with Bucky's hand as his only lifeline.

When they burst back into awareness, Steve wobbled, then fell back onto his ass, onto the rooftop of his own building.  He'd recognise that skyline anywhere.  Bucky hauled on his hand to get him up and chuckled.

Brushing himself off and breathing deeply to settle his stomach, he looked accusingly at Bucky.  “Is it always like that?”

“Like what?”

“When you disappear.  Is it always so…uncomfortable?”

Bucky shrugged.  “I don't really know.  I just reach for a place I need to be, and then I'm there.  Never had occasion to ask a passenger how it felt before.”

Steve’s jaw dropped.  “You mean you'd never taken someone with you before?  What if it hadn't worked?!”

“Speedy's still alive, isn't he?  I just didn't stop to ask him how the ride was.”  A small grin lit up Bucky's face and Steve's heart felt like it might burst, both from the shock and seeing his friend act so much like himself.

“Well it beats the Cyclone, but not by much, let me put it that way.”

Bucky's face showed a clear lack of comprehension.

“The Cyclone ride at Coney Island?”  Bucky shook his head slowly.  “Oh you're gonna love it.  It's still there, and it's my turn to take you on it.”

Steve turned to the roof access door and was unsurprised to find it locked.  Damn, his keys were inside.

Bucky gave him an odd look and pulled some tools from one of his pockets.  After a few moments, he heard a click and the door opened.  He gave Bucky an accusing glare, but it was lost as he sheepishly tidied the tools away again.

Starting down, he realized that Bucky wasn't following and looked up.  “Come on, Sam's going to want to see you're okay too.”

At the bottom of the stairs he called behind, “I’ll make you a hot chocolate.  With marshmallows.”  

Steve confidently rounded the corner at the bottom, only to be accosted by Mrs Davis at her front door.  “Oh, Captain Rogers, is that you?”

“Steve, please, Mrs Davis.”

“I am glad you're back.  Mr Adams was talking up some story that you'd been kidnapped by the Winter Soldier, right out of your apartment.  That nice Mr Wilson tried to explain it was a misunderstanding, but Mr Adams wouldn't believe it.  Said it was a cover up.”  Steve tried not to grimace.  He really didn't want to deal with his grumpy downstairs neighbor blowing this up into a news story.

Behind him, Bucky locked the roof door again and silently slunk down the stairs.  “As you can see, Mrs Davis, I'm fine, no kidnapping.  I was just out with a friend, and now I'm back.”

Mrs Davis peered behind Steve, where Bucky had appeared around the corner.  “Well I'm glad it's all sorted.  Nice to see someone using the roof space.  And who is that with you?”

“Oh, um, he's an old friend.”  He was surprised Bucky had let himself be seen.

Mrs Davis beamed at them both.  “I used to keep a small roof garden up there for a while, but with my hips it's such hard work to get up there.  Are there any nests up there this year?  We used to get a pair of nighthawks that would turn up around this time of year, but I haven't seen them for some time.”

“I…don't know, Mrs Davis.  I'll look next time I'm up there if you like.”  Steve wasn’t sure he'd know a nighthawk if he saw one.  He'd have to look it up.

Bucky, who was mostly in Steve's shadow, offered, “There are some starlings on the south side of the roof.  And pigeons on the building across the street.”

Whatever Steve might have expected from this interaction, it was not that.

Mrs Davis, though, looked delighted.  “Maybe I'll force these old bones up those stairs again to see them.  Thank you.”

Shaking off his confusion, Steve replied, “I'd be glad to help you up there whenever you want Mrs Davis, just let me know.”

“I'll let you two get on.  And I hope you can explain whatever happened to Mr Adams, I’d prefer not to get another earful from him about how awful it is living in this building now.”   She nodded at them before retreating into her apartment and closing the door.

“Thanks, Mrs Davis, I will!”  Steve waved Bucky to follow him, and headed down the stairs to his own front door.  He patted his pockets, realizing that of course he didn't have his front door keys with him either, as he hadn't been expecting to leave.  He knocked quietly, hoping Sam was still here.

Bucky raised an eyebrow and produced his tools again, but before Steve could move aside to let him have access to the lock, Sam opened the door and heaved an enormous sigh of relief.  

“Am I glad to see you.”  Opening the door wide, Sam stepped back to usher them in.  “Well that answers the question of whether you can take anybody with you.  I had been wondering about that.”

Bucky hovered at the doorway for a moment, eyes locked on Sam.

“I’m really sorry.  Put my foot in my mouth.”  Sam shrugged casually, but Steve could see a slight tension in his shoulders.  “Let me make us all coffee to make it up to you?”

“Actually, I promised to make hot chocolate.”  Steve waited for Bucky to come inside, then shut the door and made his way to the kitchen.

“Sounds great.  You guys hungry?”  Sam hovered uncharacteristically.  Steve looked at Bucky, thinking that the cold soup hadn't exactly replaced the lunch they'd missed, and Bucky hadn't even had that much.  And it would give Sam something to do, which might make him feel better too.

“Yeah, food would be good.”  Steve pulled the milk and the chocolate out of the cupboard and set about making some hot chocolate.  Sam moved around him, grabbing a box of pasta and setting some water on to boil, although Steve spotted him also surreptitiously slipping his phone out of a pocket briefly, presumably to call off whatever search parties may be out there.

Dropping the marshmallows into the hot chocolate, Steve held one mug out to Bucky over the counter.  He took it in his left hand, then sat down on the cushions still spread on the floor, sniffing it gently.  Setting a mug for Sam next to where he was working with a quick smile, Steve brought his own with him over to where Bucky was sitting.  “Mind if I join you?”

Bucky snorted.  “It's a free country.  I think.”

“So, starlings?  Pigeons?”  Steve took a sip of his hot chocolate, marshmallows bobbing on the surface as they melted.

Bucky shrugged.  “I been spending a lot of time on roofs.  It's nice to get to know my neighbors.”

“Wait, you've been on my roof before?”

Bucky gave him a look that clearly questioned his intelligence and finally took a sip of his own drink.  Surprise showed on his face as he licked away a chocolate mustache.

Steve grinned.  “Good?”  He received a nod in return before Bucky took another slurp.

“I like the hawks better.”

“Hawks?”

“On some of the taller buildings.  Like near Stark’s tower.  They're nesting now too.”

“Any falcons?”  Sam leaned over the counter and winked at Steve.

“Sure, a few.”

“Good to know.”  Sam turned away briefly to stir the bubbling pot, then looked at them again.  “Food’s nearly ready.  Look, I really am sorry about earlier.  Didn't mean to trip any landmines.  Trauma’s like that though.  Can catch you out of the blue.”

Steve slurped his drink, keeping his eye on Bucky and nodding encouragement.  Bucky in turn ate one of the marshmallows while keeping an eye on Sam.

“So, are we good?”

Bucky narrowed his eyes slightly at Sam, but eventually he nodded too.

Steve breathed a quiet sigh of relief just as a beeper sounded in the kitchen, calling Sam back to the food.  A few minutes later, he was putting steaming bowls of pasta on the counter with a grin.  “Grub’s up.”

Steve picked up two of the bowls, and held one out.  He could almost hear Bucky’s stomach growling as the food approached, but he still held back initially.  “Come on, you must be starved.”  He pushed the bowl a bit closer and Bucky took it.

Sam brought his own bowl and plopped down on a cushion on the other side of the coffee table.  “So, how was the magical mystery tour?”  He immediately popped a forkful into his mouth and looked over at Steve expectantly.

“Er…” Steve glanced at Bucky, not wanting to upset him by either revealing his safe space, or criticizing his method of transport.  “Interesting.”

A small snort erupted from Bucky, who was now at least poking through his own pile of pasta.  “Interesting about describes the shade of green you went.”  

Steve felt his cheeks burn.  “Yeah, okay, let's just say it's better that I hadn't finished my lunch.”

It wasn't until after Bucky left, on better terms this time at least, that Steve got to catch up with Sam and find out what had happened on his end.

“Yeah, I was frantic, thinking how I was gonna explain I got Captain America kidnapped or killed maybe, ‘cause who knew if you could survive that crazy jumping of his.  I ran out into the hall, in case he didn't go far like he did at first, and up and down the stairs while I tried to get through to Nat on the phone.  She finally answered as I was coming back up and I didn't exactly filter my summary to her.  Adams was right behind me on the way up and went ballistic.”

“Great.  Like he needs any more excuses to hate me.”

“Nat’s not all that happy with us either.”

Steve ran a hand over his face.  “On a scale of one to ten, how dead are we when she gets back stateside?”

“Oh, I'd go with a six.  I think she wants to see us squirm.  Oh and maybe tag you so we can track you next time you hitch a ride with him.”

Being traced by anyone, even Natasha, didn't sound like an option Steve was happy with.  “He's not an enemy.  She'll agree that much at least I hope.”

“So where did you wind up?”

“Off the beaten track.  Even if I'd had my phone on me, he said there wasn't any signal for miles.”

“You managed to calm him down?”

“Eventually.  He was dead set on protecting me.  Guess he remembers more than we thought; that was Bucky through and through.”

“Well, let's just be thankful for small favors.  He got a good place to go?”

Steve thought unhappily about the dilapidated farmhouse.  “Depends how you think about it.  He considers it safe, probably because it’s so far away from other people.  But it’s not exactly going to keep him warm in winter.”

Sam frowned.  “He also said he spent a lot of time on roofs.  Sounds like he doesn’t really have a home right now.  Guess in that way he’s just like a lot of vets I see.”

“Yeah, I’d like to do something about that.  We used to live here together, though it was a bit of a squeeze.  Maybe we can again.”

Sam raised an eyebrow.  “If he wouldn’t be seen going to a museum with you, do you really think he’d risk living with you?”

“Sounds like he’s been up on the roof plenty.  I have to try something, Sam.”

True to form, he did get rounded on by Mr Adams when he took out the trash that night.  Steve swore he'd been waiting to pounce as soon as he came down the stairs.

“It really is the last straw.  This place has had infiltration, gas leaks, power outages, journalists pushing cameras in my face, you name it.  I’m not going to sit around and wait to get kidnapped or worse if I’m between you and whoever you’ve riled up recently.  I’ve put my place up for sale.  I won’t be sad to see the back of you!”

As Mr Adams stomped back inside his own apartment and slammed the door, Steve breathed a sigh of relief.  Maybe new neighbors would be more understanding.

As he climbed the stairs to his own apartment, a glimmer of an idea came to him.

Chapter Text

Barnes has started dropping round to Steve’s apartment when he has time to spare.  Sometimes they drink coffee.  Sometimes Steve shows him his artwork.  Sometimes it’s more of an awkward silence.

A new item appeared a few weeks back in Steve’s living room, conspicuously placed where Steve often pulls out the couch cushions for them to sit on.  It was blue, with white stars on it.  At first glance, it looked like a big, very squashy cushion.

After Steve invited him to sit there, saying it was a donation from Wilson, Barnes got quite a shock.  The noise it made was like a tiny avalanche inside the bag.  Inside it were lots of tiny balls that moved underneath him and reshaped the bag.  After he got over the initial panic response, he kept his distance.  Then the next week another bag arrived.  This one had red and white stripes and sat next to the original.  Wilson clearly had a theme in mind.

Steve had pulled over some mugs of coffee, and some food (he had taken to feeding Barnes more often than not, as if Barnes weren’t capable of feeding himself) and demonstrated that the new bag was virtually silent.  He’d also replaced the balls in the original bag, so that it also no longer made the terrifying noises every time the occupant so much as twitched.

Now that he can sit on one without feeling exposed by the noise, Barnes can appreciate that the bags are more comfortable than the floor.  They still move underneath him, so the surface is a little unsteady, but the end result is a surface that fits his body almost exactly, with enough give to make it soft.  Since then, they’ve become his preferred place to sit in Steve’s apartment.

Today Steve is sketching and won’t let him see until it’s done.  Barnes has made them both coffee and is idly browsing Steve’s books to take back to his bag-seat when Steve suddenly breaks the mostly comfortable silence.

“So, I’ve been thinking.”  

Barnes looks up from the history book he’d pulled off Steve’s shelves, keeping his finger on the page.  The books here cover a lot of the history he’d already read through at the library, but sometimes it is only the tiniest details that jog his memory and he’d not found much that gave a good account of the Korean War.  Something he’d spotted in this book had seemed almost familiar, but he hasn’t been able to get a good grip on it.

“You said that you stayed at the farmhouse sometimes.  And roofs, sometimes.  It…didn’t sound like you really have a place to call home.”

A home?  Hydra had called first Siberia, and then DC, his home base.  He knows Steve doesn’t mean them.  He has a number of places he calls in to regularly, where he has food and equipment stashed, but nothing like Steve’s apartment here.  Hydra had empty safehouses, but he didn’t want to reuse any of those.  “Not really.”

Steve’s face does something complicated that Barnes can’t track, but feels like he needs to fix.  “You can always come here, okay?  If you don’t have anywhere else to stay?  Or even if you do.”

Barnes glances at the cameras embedded in the living room.  He knows they only go to JARVIS, he said hi earlier, but still, there’s always a possibility someone else might find them.  

Steve obviously sees him looking.  “Yeah, I thought you might feel like that.  But, hear me out.  Mr Adams downstairs is moving out.  I’ve put in an offer to buy the apartment off him.  It’s a bit of a stretch of what I’ve got left, but the government are still paying me, sorta.”

“If you need cash, I can drop you some.  I…don’t really like using what’s left from Hydra’s old accounts, so I mostly leave it where it is.  Plus, I don’t really spend what I earn.”

Steve looks surprised.  “Oh, no, that’s not what I meant.  Wait, you have access to Hydra money?”

“I removed it from Hydra.  Didn’t want them to have those resources.”  Barnes frowns and drops his gaze back down into the book.  “But I can still get to it.”

“Okay, that’s something to think about later.  But what I really meant was, you could have that apartment.  It’d be separate from mine, but you’d be close by.  It’s gotta be better than sitting on the roof to keep an eye on me.”  Steve raises an accusing eyebrow.

“It’s not just seeing you.  If they find me here…”  Barnes shudders at the thought of what the handler might do to Steve if he comes looking for the Soldier.  Of what he might order the Soldier to do.  “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Think about it?  You wouldn’t have to use the front door.  It’d all be in my name.”  The mission–Steve’s face now tears at his resolve.  But he really can’t endanger Steve.  “Please?”

“I…really don’t know Steve.”

“Okay, I guess that’s not a ‘no’.”  Steve smiles hopefully, picking up his pencil again.  “I’ll take that for now.”

Finding the handler, eliminating the threat, has jumped to the top of his to-do list.

The contacts he gathered in South America have grown cold, but Barnes has found traces to indicate movement across the Atlantic, into western Africa.

It is in Sierra Leone that he finds the first whispers of Hydra regrouping.  Allying with gun runners along the coast.  He spends hours staking out marketplaces and shipyards before he finally catches a deal going down that leads him back to a distribution hub for the arms dealers.  Beside a railway line, they have a number of shipping containers lined up, ready to go, and some familiar faces loitering in the back room of the shacks beside them.

Barnes takes a peep inside the containers.  Racks upon racks of machine guns and grenade launchers, and the boxes of ammo to back that up.  Not something he’s happy about seeing in the hands of Hydra, or illegal arms dealers.  Talk on the radios indicates they are selling to Boko Haram today and other insurgent groups in Nigeria later in the week.

Time to spoil their party.

Fortunately, they have provided all the tools he needs.  He cherry picks from the selection they have provided, generally avoiding the individual guns in favor of placing enough explosives to reduce their stockpile to ashes.  Although he does pick up a nice set of sticky grenades that he’ll save for another day, mostly he sets the charges for maximum destruction of property.   The Hydra agents are cooling their heels, and Barnes decides to take the fight to them first.

From the signals he can hear, most of them are playing strange games on their devices, involving fruits, or farms.  He wonders how, if they wanted to get into farming, they ended up as agents of Hydra.

First things first, he squashes the signals.  A shout goes up cursing the infrastructure of Sierra Leone.  Then he drops a smoke grenade into the back of the building through an open window.

In the chaos this causes, the agents stumble their way to the outer door and, as it opens, he triggers the explosives inside the containers.

Some of the arms gang on guard around the containers are instantly downed by the explosion.  Barnes puts himself on the perfect vantage point to take out each Hydra agent that emerges from the shack.  Many are familiar faces.  He has trained some of these people.  He has seen them work in the field.  They do not show mercy.  Today, he does the same.

He counts the bodies, coming up one short just as he hears a new signal flare to life inside the shack.

The handler’s voice.  He is not here, but that signal leads to him.  Barnes makes a beeline for the shack and the man still inside.

Put me on speaker!  A tinny version of the handler's voice rings out from the back of the single room, along with the voice in the whisper.  “Желание.  Ржавый.”

The handler’s voice reverberates oddly, a combination of sounds and whispers, putting Barnes off his stride just as he enters, clattering the doorway.  “Семнадцать.  Рассвет.”

“Sir?!”  The interruption in the sequence breaks the pull of the code words on his mind briefly.  Pulling his thoughts together with difficulty, he decides to cut the problem off at the origin. Barnes squashes the signal, then moves in to find a young Hydra agent cowering under a table, holding out a phone, which he drops on seeing Barnes approach.  He may be cowardly, but his defenses are up, as he proves with an ill-aimed shot towards the doorway, several seconds after Barnes came through it.

Moving silently through the smoke, Barnes is led by the remaining signal to the satellite phone that he now recognises.  The signal bounces curiously upward into the sky, much as Stark’s link to JARVIS in the satellite does.  The agent manages to get one last shot off before the metal fist slams into his skull, still missing completely as the bullet ricochets off the window frame behind Barnes.  In some small way, he is disappointed that these agents did not remember well their training with him.

He picks up the satellite phone.  The signal to the handler is still squashed.  He dare not release it.  But maybe he can follow it.

Outside, the local police and fire crews have arrived and a battle begins between them and the remaining arms dealers in front of the burning containers.  

Pocketing the satellite phone, he leaves them to it and reaches for an old Hydra safehouse in Italy that he has already cleared out.  Still empty, it is a relatively safe location to examine the signals from the satellite phone, which can almost certainly be tracked, so he works quickly.

He traces the signal up to a satellite.  From there he can see a whole network of signals, connecting to devices all over Europe, Africa and parts of the Middle East.  Untangling these is fiddly work and he gets bursts of people's conversations or just locations as he parses through them.

Finally, he finds the handler’s voice.  No longer reciting the code words, fortunately, but instead cursing violently.  The signal snaps off as he is shouting about changing plans and moving up the timetable, but Barnes has at least managed to get a general location and it's not where he expected.  The trail he had been following had led him to Africa, but the signal ends in Iceland.

After several fruitless stops to try and narrow down the handler's location further, Barnes returns to Steve's building, stopping on the roof to check in.  He stops to watch the starlings in their nest – they are not far off fledging – and remembers the encounter with Steve's upstairs neighbor.  Of course he's been aware of her for a long time, watching the whole building while watching Steve.  He had to make sure none of them were hidden Hydra agents and has developed a soft spot for Mrs Davis, as she tends to her potted plants in her living room, sometimes entertaining her grandchildren.

She had said something about a rooftop garden, hadn't she?  There's nothing up here now.  He scans around for where one might have been and decides that there is a sheltered spot with a good sun exposure that would work well.

He thinks of the overgrown garden at the farmhouse and decides that a garden here would be nice for the birds too.  There is a market he knows that sells plants in pots, so he makes his way there.  Spending a little time browsing through the stalls, he collects a few supplies and ferries them up to the roof, preparing a number of pots and planting flowers and shrubs of a few different sizes, enough to make a little corner where the view is not all concrete and steel.  He doesn’t recognise the names of the plants, but they look pretty.  He makes sure there are plenty of green leaves.

When he’s done, he timidly knocks on Mrs Davis’ door.  He knows she is in; he can hear the radio playing in her kitchen.

“Oh, hello, you’re Captain Rogers’ friend?  Can I help you?”

For a brief second, words fail him.

“I don’t think I caught your name last time?”  Mrs Davis’ friendly, wrinkled face peers up at him from the doorway encouragingly.

“Barnes.  Um.  You said you wanted to see the starlings’ nest?  Well, they’re getting big, and they might not be there much longer…”  He trails off, feeling like he’s probably made a mistake coming here.

Mrs Davis, however, brightens.  “Oh you are kind, Mr Barnes.  I would love to see them.  Let me just get my shoes.”

She shuffled away from the door and he could hear her groan slightly as she sat to put on her shoes, still it only took her a few minutes to reappear.  “Alright then.  Go steady with me, young man.”

She did indeed look unsteady, leaning on a stick as she locked the door behind her.  He offers her his right elbow, uncertainly.  “Thank you dearie.  Don’t get old, it’s so much harder to get around!”

Her weight is insignificant.  He could carry her completely, but has an idea that she would not like that.  As he helps her slow progress up the stairs to the roof, he marvels that she manages to get in and out of her apartment at all, given the lack of an elevator in the building.  As they progress, she chatters quietly to him, about Steve, about her grandchildren, and about the weather.

Stepping out onto the roof, she winks at him.  “Quiet one, aren’t you?  That’s okay, I’ll fill in the gaps.”

As he leads her towards the south side of the roof, guiding her carefully past a number of trip hazards, she gasps as they came in sight of his new garden space.  “Oh, how lovely.  I didn’t know anyone had been up here to do any gardening.”  He feels his cheeks heat slightly as she inspects the few pots he had installed.  “I do like to see some greenery about the place.”

Seeing that she is visibly tiring, Barnes scans around for somewhere to sit.  He normally will sit on the ledge at the edge of the roof, or just on the floor, but that’s not going to work for Mrs Davis.  He should have thought of this before.  Behind his pots, providing shelter, there is a small series of vents, but each on their own is too small for her to sit on.  His eyes light on the wooden board he had been using to work on, now lying underneath some of the filled pots.  

“Mrs Davis, if you can just wait one second…”  He makes sure she is well balanced, leaning on her stick, before quickly retrieving the board and placing it across two of the vents.  He then leads her to it and she gushes quietly about his ingenuity as she sits down and he points out the starling nest in a gap in the bricks of the outer wall.

The sun is warm as Mrs Davis sits, Barnes within reach behind her, and they watch, hearing the chicks squawk as they call to the parents, who flutter in to feed them, their yellow mouths wide open to greedily accept the food.  Eventually Mrs Davis turns to him, pushing herself back up to standing with difficulty.  “That was lovely to see.  But, time waits for no man, and certainly doesn’t wait for old ladies like me.  Help me back down the stairs, won’t you?”

He hurries to help her up, and they slowly make their way back to her front door, Mrs Davis still chattering as they go.  “I hear Mr Adams is leaving.  Oh well, I don’t like to speak ill of anyone, but he’s rather high-strung.  I hope whoever takes up that place is more relaxed.  Still, he has been kind enough to help me on occasion with all these stairs.”

“Mrs Davis, couldn’t you move into Mr Adams’ apartment?  To save yourself all the stairs?”

She looks at him shrewdly.  “Now wouldn’t that be convenient?  But I hear he’s already sold it.  And I don’t really think I’m up to decorating a new apartment at my time of life.”

“Oh.”  Barnes bites his lip, feeling awkward.  “Um.  Maybe you don’t know, but Steve is buying it.  I think he’d be ok to swap, if you wanted to?  And I think he decorated his place, so he…or we…could help out?”

Mrs Davis’ eyes twinkle at him.  “Well now, there’s a thought.  You send that Captain Rogers up to talk to me about it, and I’ll think it over.”  She reaches over and pats his hand.  The left one.  Although it is covered with a glove, he still flushes cold at the idea of her touching it.  “Thank you for today.  And for thinking of me.  You know where I am if you ever want to stop by for a coffee.”

He is left with an oddly unsettled feeling as she closes her door.

Unsure if this bodes well for interactions with Steve to be more or less awkward, he heads on downstairs anyway.  He usually just reaches directly inside, but perhaps that is a bit rude?

Steve answers the door with the same grin on his face he’s had on each of Barnes’ previous visits.  Wilson, sitting at the counter with a bagel in front of him, gives him a cheery wave.

“Um.”  Barnes feels twitchy standing out in the hall, but fortunately Steve doesn’t leave him out there for long, welcoming him in with open arms.

“Good to see you.  Come on in.”  He follows Steve to the kitchen, who is apparently in the middle of making his own bagel, and offers another to Barnes.  “Cream cheese?  Or peanut butter?”

Barnes can’t honestly remember what peanut butter tastes like.  Bagels from street vendors usually have weird combinations like fish or avocado.  It’s probably worth a try.  “Peanut butter?”

Wilson nods at him from the counter.  “Hey man, what’s up?”

He shrugs.  He doesn't really want to discuss his activities outside of this building.  But he can pass on conversations within it.  “Mrs Davis likes the roof garden I put in.”

“You put a garden on my roof?”  Steve stares at him.

Shuffling his feet slightly, Barnes suddenly worries that Steve doesn't want one.  “It's just a few pots.  She said she used to have one up there.”

“That sounds great.  We should take some chairs up, sit out there one day.  You think we could take a grill up?”  Wilson looks eagerly at Steve.  “I miss cook-outs.”

Steve's mouth opens and closes a few times, but no sound comes out.

Barnes studies Steve's face carefully.  “I can take it down.”  Steve's eyes instantly snapped up to his.

“Nuh-uh.  No way are you taking it down.”  Wilson wags a finger at them both.

“No, Buck, of course not!”  Steve's words all came out in a rush, the code word so quick that Barnes hardly even reacts, and he seems to remember the bagel on the worktop in front of him, slathering it with spread.  “You just surprised me.   Did you show her the birds too?”

“Yeah.”  He takes the plated bagel held out to him, still searching Steve's face, which morphs into a soft smile.  “She liked them too.”

“That’s great.  I'd like to see it.”  

Barnes finally relaxes at this confirmation, but is startled when Wilson abruptly stands up, plate in hand.  “Hell yeah, let's go!”

Steve shrugs and picks up a plate for himself.  “Let's have a picnic I guess.”

They troop up to the roof together and out into the sunshine.  Wilson eagerly heads for the patch of color on the otherwise bland roof, then sits down in between the pots.  “Alright.  We get you some chairs, or beanbags,” he winks conspiratorially to Steve, “to bring up here, an icebox for some beers, a grill over there…yeah, this’d do nicely.  Why on earth haven't we been out here before?”

The enthusiasm is clearly infectious as Steve grins back, laughing at Wilson.  They banter about seating and cooking arrangements while Barnes sits down among the pots and is pleased by how much the leaves obscure the industrial grey of the roof as he takes a bite out of his bagel.  The peanut butter sticks to the roof of his mouth, and the sweet salty taste is intense, but in a good way.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“You know that apartment you offered me?”

Steve turns to look at him, a wary look on his face.

“You wanna do it up for Mrs Davis?  Save her goin’ up all those stairs all the time?”

Steve's eyebrows rise.  “You think she'd like that?”

“If you talk to her about it, maybe.”

“And, would you move into her apartment?”  The hope shines out of Steve's face, and Barnes can't help but smile back.

“Maybe.”

Later, Wilson brings a few bottles up to them, and a cushion and the two beanbags to sit on, as they watch the sun set.  He passes one to Barnes and sits down next to him.

“You know, you are just full of surprises.”

Barnes shoots Wilson a questioning look as he pops the top off his beer.

“It is nothing short of amazing, how well you're doing.  We dance around it most of the time, but a lot of shit has happened to you, and that leaves a mark on a person.”

Missions flicker across his mind.  All the victims the Soldier left in his wake.  Barnes shrinks slightly back into his cushion, looking back down at the bottle in his hand.

“Nah, I don't mean it like that.  But the bad stuff?  That stays with you.  Squashing it down won't get rid of it; generally it just bounces back up to hit you in the face.”

“I guess what I'm saying is, you don't have to do it alone.  Not all days will be good days.  But you know you can come by here anyway.  We won't mind.”

“You know, I’ve worked with a lot of people who've had trouble coming home from war.  It ain't easy.  But there's help out there, if you want it.  Other people, who might give you another perspective.  Help you work through it.  Doesn't have to be me.  Or Steve.”

“I’d be happy to walk you in, give you a tour, introduce you to some of your options at the Center.”  Wilson obviously catches the disbelief on his face at this.  “Look, man, nobody gives a shit who I am.  It won't be like being seen with Captain Target-painted-on-my-back over there.  I show new vets round all the time, so you wouldn’t stand out.”

Barnes doesn't say anything, just stares at his own hands.  The flesh one and the metal one, gloved as usual.

“Think it over.  There's no rush.  Whenever you're ready.”

Chapter Text

Tony took a long look at the apartment building in front of him.  He hadn't actually been here before, though he'd heard enough about it.  Apparently one nostalgia-soaked apartment in Brooklyn wasn't enough for Cap, and he was buying up another in the same building.

He grimaced.  No prizes for guessing who it was for.

Pepper took his arm and steered him inside.  “We promised this would be a quiet visit, okay?  That means no glaring in public spaces.”

“I don't remember agreeing to that.”

“No, but I did.”  

Tony trudged up the stairs, following Pepper all the way to the roof.  Seriously, what kind of building didn't have an elevator?  He should have brought the suit.

“Are you sure we don't have any other events we need to be at?  You know it is the fourth of July.”

“No, Tony.  This is more important than buttering up the public.  Anyway, we're going to the mayor’s gala later.  This is an opportunity to mend bridges.”  Pepper didn’t give him a chance to argue before stepping out into the open air.

The small rooftop seems like an unlikely place for a gathering of superheroes, but at least half of the Avengers are here.  Natasha, dressed down in jeans and sneakers for once, and Bruce are chatting together near Sam at the grill.  Steve is sitting in one of the odd collection of mismatched chairs dotted in between some potted shrubs and flowers, with an old lady Tony has never seen before.  Pepper, of course, headed straight over to the birthday boy.  Torn, Tony followed her, seeing it was probably only polite to greet the official host first.

“Happy Birthday Steve!”  Pepper handed Steve a bottle of champagne and gave him a hug as he stood up.

“I see you brought your peer group.”  Tony nodded at Steve’s friend.  “So, at 97, is it time to slow down yet?”

“Thanks Pepper.”  Steve smiled and turned to look at him.  “And no, Tony, I don’t think I’m ready to slow down yet.  This is Mrs Davis, one of my neighbors.  Mrs Davis, this is Pepper Potts and Tony Stark.”

“I know who they are, Captain Rogers.  Those stairs might defeat me, but I still have my eyes.”  The old lady waved her stick at Steve.  “Nice to meet you both.”

“Are we expecting anyone else at this shindig?  Maybe a visit from your evil twin?”  Tony spied a cooler with bottles in it and reached to grab one, avoiding Pepper’s meaningful glance.  “I thought, you know, special day, he might show up.”

Steve didn’t even bat an eyelid, but graciously offered Pepper a drink.  Turned out there were bottles of wine in a second cooler Tony hadn’t spotted.  “I don’t know, he might.  He’s understandably a bit wary of big gatherings.  I’m not actually sure if he knows the significance of the date.”

Pepper moved closer and quietly muttered in his ear, “Behave.”  She then lifted her glass in salute to Cap with a smile.  “I’m sure he will if he can.”

“Is that your friend Mr Barnes?”  Tony turned in astonishment to the old lady, who was looking enquiringly at Steve.  “It would be nice to see him again.  Though he did seem rather shy.”

Tony snorted as Steve nodded.  Shy wouldn’t exactly cover what he’d seen of the Winter Soldier thus far.  More silently murdery.

“Yo, Stark!”  He looked over in the direction of the grill to see Sam making gimme motions.  “Bring a cold one over would ya?”

Shrugging, he snagged a bottle out of the first cooler and walked over to place it in Sam's eager hands.  

Natasha smirked at him.  “Well hello there, stranger.  Looked like you needed a rescue.”

“I’m not the one who's been out of the country for months.  How’s the pirate?”  Tony turned to lean on the outer wall of the roof.

“Little of this, little of that.  Following a few friends around.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow.  “He has friends?”

Natasha held up her bottle in a salute to Bruce.  “Touché.”

“And Katniss?”

“I’ll tell him you said that.”  Natasha relaxed again and took a swig of her drink.  “He's out of town.”

“Birthday boy seems chipper.  You guys been doing alright?”  Tony looked at Sam, who was busily turning meat on the grill.

“We've had some teething issues, but it seems like his friend is here to stay, mostly.  I still have no idea where he goes when he's not here, but I'm pretty sure he's not about to go on a murderous rampage.  No offense.”  This last he addressed at Bruce with a tilt of his head.

“None taken.  It's not quite the same situation.”

“Not completely unlike it though.”  Tony frowned at Bruce as he considered the parallels.  Bruce had no control over what the Hulk did when he was in the driver's seat.  From the data he'd seen, the Soldier had no control when Hydra had programmed him.  Still, at least Bruce was sociable-ish when he wasn't big and green.  “You haven't seen how he manages his tricks?”

Sam shook his head.  “Not me.  Steve got an up close and personal on how he gets about though.  After his description, I think I'm happy to stick to the wings.”

Tony felt his eyebrows rise.  Now that was interesting.

By the time the food ran out and they were all slumped in the crazy assortment of chairs, the sun was getting low in the sky.  Mrs Davis had been helped downstairs earlier, Bruce had bailed early, never liking to be exposed during the fireworks in case Hulk took offense at them, and now Tony was avoiding Pepper’s eye, knowing they probably had to leave soon to go to the mayor's gala.  He was comfortable where he was. Fashionably late would be fine.  He'd done worse.  But he probably ought to be there in time for the fireworks.

As they were chatting, Natasha, probably the most alert of the group, quietly got up and slunk over to the edge of the roof, where the shadows were gathering in the waning light.  A few rough syllables of Russian drifted their way, but nothing Tony could decipher.  Necks were craned trying to see what was going on, until, a few minutes later she returned, a reluctant shadow in tow.

Tony tensed, but Barnes followed Natasha's lead and claimed a perch on an upturned pot on the edge of the group, earning him a careful nod from Sam, and an exuberant grin from Steve.

After the brief discussion earlier of Barnes’ teleportation trick, he found his thoughts circling back round to the hacking job he'd done on JARVIS and various other systems.  Tony hated not knowing how something worked and positively burned with curiosity about the hacking skills of a defrosted nonagenarian.  If he was doing it telepathically (technopathically?) what were his limits?  Was it possible to keep him out in any way?

Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he opened a link to JARVIS.  Your buddy is here.  Gonna say hello?  He tried not to be too obvious about watching Barnes as he did so.

JARVIS’ response appeared on the screen.  I cannot reach out to him unless he connects to me.

No obvious reaction from dark and broody in the corner.  Maybe he needed to be more obvious to get his attention.  Barnes, you listening?

A wary pair of eyes flickered his way, before going back to studying the roof as Pepper went through the motions of thanking their host, preparing to leave.

Not gonna say anything?

If anything, Barnes seemed to shrink slightly into his seat, which puzzled Tony until he saw JARVIS’ next message.  Barnes is asking me if you would prefer him to leave.   Well, that was out of left-field.  Since when is he just ‘Barnes’?  Even Pepper still gets a title from you.  Since he expressed his wish to be known as such.  The interaction indicated potential discomfort with other forms of address.   Tony raised his eyebrows slightly.  JARVIS was showing favoritism.  No, I don’t want him to leave.  I want to see how he does what he’s doing.

This time the eyes lingered slightly longer on him.  Natasha clearly caught the look too.

How I do what?  Barnes’ response was obviously separate from JARVIS’ contributions.

Was he not being clear?  How you do that.  Get into my systems.   Tony pulled up the logs on his phone, looking for how that message had gotten into his link with JARVIS, but as usual, there seemed to be no trail, just the habitual number sequence identifying the additional entries.

You’re the one talking to me?  I just listened.

Tony scoffed, which unfortunately attracted Pepper’s attention and she stood up.  “This was a lovely party, Steve, but we really do have to go.  Happy Birthday!”

Knowing his time was up, he pocketed the phone and addressed Barnes directly, pointing at him.  “We need to talk.  Come by some time.”

A frown crossed Steve’s face, but before he could jump in, Tony held up a hand.  “Mamma bear doesn’t need to protect him.  I just want to understand some things.”

The eyes watching him were utterly unreadable.  It was like having another Natasha.  Was it a Russian training thing maybe?

Pepper, however, gave him no time to think it over, and swept him away towards the stairs.  “We really do need to go, I’m afraid.  Sergeant Barnes you are of course welcome to ignore Tony if you want.”

“Hey!”

On the stairs, Pepper poked him with a pointy finger.  “Don’t.  You go carefully with him.  I don’t want you getting hurt.  Or destroying your team.”

The problem wouldn’t leave him alone though.  He was distracted over the next few days thinking about it.  Barnes hadn’t looked like he was using any tech to interact with his phone up on that roof.  If he could bypass all security measures that way, then what if someone else could do the same?  Or, if Hydra got him under orders, could he be stopped from accessing any digital system and either laying waste, or using it for Hydra?

In search of answers, he looked at the data dump JARVIS had received when Barnes had visited the Tower in the middle of a panic attack Cap had triggered.  Most of it was indecipherable at first glance, but as he picked through it, he found that actually it was just fragmented.  Like an incomplete jigsaw puzzle with no picture to guide.

Picking through it with JARVIS’ help, he managed to pull together a few gruesome images and soundbytes.  Some of it was still gibberish though.  Random sequences of Russian words that made absolutely no sense, yet they repeated more than once.  He remembered seeing these on the screen before Barnes appeared in the tower, but they make no more sense to him now than they did then.  Putting those aside, he sifted carefully through the images he could pull together.  Cross referencing against the data he already had from various raids on Hydra bases and the original data dump during Insight, he managed to identify a few individuals, mostly Hydra employees, but many were unidentified.  The backgrounds suggested these might be older, possibly in Soviet locations.  And, of course, a whole bunch of Steve.  Steve leaning out of a train car, terror written on his face.  Steve in his runty form, in various situations and backgrounds, sometimes looking ill, sometimes with cuts and bruises on his face, sometimes grinning wildly.  Non-runty Steve with his face looking like it had been through a meat grinder.  Good God, he felt jumbled just seeing this selection of images.  Barnes must be completely confused if this was what his memory felt like.

“Sir, Barnes is asking if you still want him to visit.”

Well, speak of the devil.  “Yeah, sure, J.  Tell him to pop in.”

Looking at the displays around him, he suddenly realized this was perhaps not the friendliest atmosphere to invite a confused, previously murderous super soldier into.  Quickly, he swiped away the projections to leave the workshop looking more empty, which was probably a good thing.

Pulling up instead some schematics for a new suit he was working on, he got absorbed in rerouting power from the arc reactor to charge the nanobots he was incorporating into the suit to make it more adaptable.  Some time later he turned around to stretch and was startled by the dark shape standing at the side of the room.

“Shit!  J, you couldn't have said something?”

“Sir, you were informed that he was coming.”

“Right.  So, Obi-Wan Kenobi, how's about we figure out how the force works?”

No response.  Okay, maybe he needed to remember to go for Cap-era pop-culture references.  Although, if his memory was as bad as they thought, they wouldn't work either.  Damnit, how was he supposed to communicate here?

“Okay, let's start simple.”  Tony rummaged around in the back of the workshop for a non-networked laptop.  Sometimes it was useful to test off the network.  Firing it up, he pointed at Barnes.  “Okay, do your thing.”

Barnes stepped forward.  “I…don't understand.”

Tony waved his hands over the laptop, now lit up but not actively doing anything.  “This is not connected to anything.  No WiFi, no cables, not even Bluetooth.  I want to see if you can do anything with it.”

“Do what?”

Tony groaned.  “Anything!  Write a message!  Play a sound.  Draw a picture.  Rifle through the files, though there's not much on there.”

Barnes frowned.  “It's quiet.”

“Well, yeah, it's not really doing anything at the moment, the fan's barely running.”

“No.  Everything around here is loud, always talking.  But this, is quiet.”  He cocked his head as if listening, and the screen flickered very slightly.

Tony took a closer look, but couldn't see any difference in the running of the laptop.  He pulled up the memory and CPU monitors and saw a very tiny wobble in the smooth running just before.  “Okay, do that again.”

Barnes frowned, and the monitors wiggled ever so slightly again.  What was he even doing?

Tony pulled up a simple drawing application and left it blank on the screen, leaving enough space to see the monitors at the same time.  “Okay, I know you can dump in pictures.  I've found pieces of them around my file systems.  Put one here.”

At first nothing happened.  Then the white space seemed to almost dissolve into murky colors, and shapes emerged.  Slowly, Tony realized he was looking at a perspective of the workshop itself, only it kept shifting and moving, updating and changing.  Looking back up at Barnes, he could see the gray eyes flickering as they scanned around the room, and the image on the screen failed to keep up.  Tony started tapping away at the keyboard, trying to preserve the many versions of this file as Barnes kept updating it, and the changes in the monitoring.  Later he would examine the progression to extract any patterns.  Then Barnes closed his eyes for a second, and the screen image froze, leaving a slightly fuzzy image of the workshop floor.

Tony was stunned.  He knew Barnes could move data around, but he hadn't thought that he could create new content like that on the fly.  It gave a chilling perspective on the gruesome images he'd extracted - there was a high likelihood that those weren't Hydra files as Tony had surmised, but actually his memories.  And he wasn't working through network signals either; he couldn't on this machine because it wasn't connected.

Closing the laptop for now, Tony reopened some of his holograms, looking at his media file store.  “Okay, so now take a peep in here.  Don't move stuff around - just look, and let's see if JARVIS can spot you, okay J?”

“I will alert you when I detect an intrusion.”

“Um, anything you want me to look for?”

“Let’s see, what have we got in here?”  Tony had a quick look through the file store for something innocuous.  “How about this?  I’ve got my old music library in there.  Take a snoop and let me know what you find.”

Barnes gave him a dubious look, but then his gaze lost focus.  Tony waited, but JARVIS didn’t pipe up.

“There’s something called AC DC?  Quite a few of those.  Black Sabbath.  It’s a bit…loud.”

“Hey, those are classics!”

Barnes shrinks back a little at Tony’s rebuttal, so he prompts him to keep going.

Looking a little more unsure, his gaze goes soft again.  “Oh, I recognize some of these.  Taylor Swift?  Queen?”

“You’re kidding me, the Winter Soldier is a Swiftie?”

Again, Barnes’ eyes focus back on him.  “I don’t know what a Swiftie is?  They play those a lot on the radio though.”

“Right.  I thought you were hiding under a rock since you escaped Hydra?  You had a radio under there?”

“Radio plays everywhere.”  Barnes gave him a pained look.  He could pick up the radio all the time?  Jesus, no wonder he thought the Tower was loud.

“Wait, J, have you not got anything yet?”

“No intrusions detected.  Shall I update the search parameters?”

Tony dug into the system files to check the artists Barnes had mentioned.  He had to dig quite a way to find any traces of his visit.  Wow, that was subtle.  “JARVIS, you see this?  Put this in your parameters and we’ll go again.”

“Parameters updated.”

“Okay then, how about we introduce you to better music.  You didn’t like Black Sabbath, which I’m not sure can be forgiven, but let’s go for something a bit softer for your delicate Swiftie/40s sensibilities.  Fairly sure I’ve got some golden oldies in there somewhere.  Look up Dire Straits.”

This time he’d barely finished his suggestion before JARVIS chimed in, “Intrusion detected.”

Barnes raised an eyebrow.  “Let me at least hear a song!”

“J, you heard the man.  Roll their best hits.”  As the strains of Walk of Life started playing through the workshop, Tony pointed a finger at Barnes.  “Now let's have one more try.  Take a look in my ebooks, bound to be some in there even you recognize.  J, same parameters, shout out when you see anything.”

“Ebooks?”  The look on Barnes' face was almost comical.

“Yeah, books you can read on a screen, none of this wasteful old-fashioned paper.”

“No, I know what they are.  The libraries have a bunch of them, nice and easy to get hold of.  Just didn't peg you as a book reader.”  

Tony snorted at that.  Barnes wouldn't even need a device to be able to read them.  “Sure I do, but only if they're worth my time.  Go on, have a browse.”

It wasn't quite so quick this time, but still, JARVIS cut in with the intrusion alert before Barnes could start any commentary on what he found.  “Show me.”  On his holographic display JARVIS highlighted the folders Barnes had been detected in.  “Tolkien, huh?  Oh and Lovecraft, Hemingway.  Interesting.”

Barnes just watched him carefully.  “Got any recommendations?”

“Maybe.”  He highlighted a few folders, and the intrusions tracked over to those files.  “So, a little spider tells me you've been upsetting her investigations down south.  Asked if you wouldn't mind sharing any leads you got.”

Glancing up, he could see Barnes thinking about it.

“You know where our intelligence is.  You’ve added to it before.  We have the same goal here, or at least I hope we do.”

Those eyes suddenly turned to intensely study him, before dropping to the floor.  “I guess you have good reasons to hate Hydra.”

“Yeah.  And any help we can get in running these bastards down I hope will mean fewer people hurt in the process.”  Tony could see Barnes wince at that, but the cogs were turning.

Slowly, the intrusion alerts started pinging on the display, showing Barnes accessing the server he kept the Hydra files on.  Certainly looked like he knew his way around pretty easily.  A few new files started appearing and Tony pulled them up.  Fuzzy images of faces, marked as deceased.  Busy boy.  A couple were cross referenced with CIA files that Tony hadn't even seen before (Tony made a note to carefully let Hill and Carter know about those).

He also noted that the alerts had moved into files he had recently been working on, with the more recent data and scrubbed files from Barnes’ previous visit.  Presumably he already knew everything in there anyway, and sharing data went both ways so Tony ignored it.  Other files were more interesting anyway.  Natasha had only mentioned Mexico, Belize and Colombia, but it looked like Barnes had been led much further afield.  All the way to Africa, and then to Europe again too.  That would put the cat among the pigeons as Natasha had believed they had mostly cleared Hydra out on their extensive trips to Europe.

Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see Barnes somehow managing to appear rigid even whilst shrinking backwards into the corner of the room.  Having experienced panic attacks from the inside, he suddenly realized that asking an unstable super soldier to look through the data that included his personal worst nightmares possibly wasn't the cleverest thing he'd ever done.

“Barnes?”

Absolutely no response beyond an increase in the shaking.  Great.

He traced the latest incursion report from JARVIS and found the file of random Russian snippets was the most recently accessed, when Barnes smoothly pulled himself up and muttered an unknown phrase in Russian, although Tony could see Cyrillic letters adding to the file at the same time.  “J, you got a translation on that?”

“An approximate translation would be: ‘I am ready to answer’.”

Answer, answer what?  “Barnes, I'm gonna need you to snap outta this one.”  Again, no response.  Shit, Cap was gonna kill him if he broke his best friend.  Again.

“Well, can we try giving him something to answer?  Obviously he's not listening to me, but try something in his language?”

“Ты знаешь где ты?”  <Do you know where you are?>

A twitch was the only response.  Tony grimaced and scanned through the file, wondering what crazy landmine he'd accidentally stepped on.  From his own experiences he knew that sometimes seemingly unconnected things could trigger an attack.  He got to the end of the file again, and had an idea.  “Hey, JARVIS, wanna try dropping that into this file as well?”

The new words appeared and the response was immediate, if ultimately unhelpful.  “Да.”  The supersoldier still remained rigid in the corner.

“Okay…”  JARVIS had said it was an approximate translation.  Maybe they misunderstood.  “J, what else could his words mean?”

“Alternative translations include ready or willing to respond or comply.”

Comply?  The dawning possibility that he had just awakened the Winter Soldier, obedient to, well not him, clearly, but to JARVIS was terrifying.

Tony dragged a chair over next to him.  “J, ask him to take a seat.”

No hesitation from Barnes once the direction was in the file.  “Yeah, can we maybe call Bruce in on this?  Give him a heads up on the situation in case he might need to bail, but I could really do with another genius on this one.”

He studied the soldier sat docilely on the chair in his workshop.  The difference from his previous demeanor was marked; where he had been hesitant and wary, now he was passive and…blank.  

Or at least that was what it looked like from the outside.  “Sir, Barnes’ vital signs indicate distress.”

Shit, if there was anything of Barnes still aware in there, this was surely one hell of a flashback.  JARVIS displayed the respiratory rate and approximate heart rate he could pull on visuals alone, and, yeah, okay, this guy was not having the best day.  But who would know what to do with a glitching super soldier?

Well, maybe his best friend?  Except he didn't really want to let Steve know yet how badly he'd fucked up.

Bruce knocked on the workshop door, and Tony waved him in.  “JARVIS said you had a situation.”  Diplomatic as ever, our Bruce.

He gestured vaguely at Barnes’ still form.  “We were testing, well I was testing, he was demonstrating his little hacking trick.  Which, I think I have a good lead on at least a way to detect it now, there's the most subtle of traces—”

“Tony?”  Bruce glanced significantly at Barnes.

“Right, well, I just asked him to share any of his recent intel with us, because Natasha said he'd been on a bit of a tear through ex-Hydra personnel in central and south America, and add it to my database – which I know he's been into before!  He's left us data when he's snooped in the past so I didn't think it would be a problem, but…”

“But now he's catatonic and you want me to help fix your mess?  I've told you before, I'm not that kind of doctor.”

“Right, yes, how could I forget.”  Tony rolled his eyes at Bruce.  “But you still have a head-start on me on this sort of thing.  Squishy science.”  He waggled his fingers disdainfully.

Approaching warily, Bruce called out to Barnes, but got no response.  He scanned over JARVIS’ numbers for Barnes’ vitals, then took a closer look, both at Barnes’ eyes, which flickered, just barely, then continued staring straight ahead.  Bruce straightened up.  “Wouldn't Sam be better for this?  He's a counselor, and he's had more experience with him.”

He knew he kept Bruce around for a reason.  Pointing a finger at Bruce, he called to JARVIS, “Great idea, as long as he doesn't tattle on us.  JARVIS?  Call him.”

Barnes still sat without any indication he was aware of their conversation.  His face was paler than it had been and, looking closely, he could just about see the rapid, shallow breaths that JARVIS had noted.

“Tony?  What’s up?”  Sam’s voice was clear, unworried.

“Okay, so let me say first of all, I really didn’t mean for this to happen.  I don’t even know what did happen, really.”

“Tony, what did you do?”

“Nothing, I swear!  But, you know, the Winter Wonder came over, invited, and now he's glitching and we can't snap him out of it.”

“Wait, glitching?  Are you okay?”

“Yeah, he's not violent, at least not so far.”

“Where is he?”

“In my workshop, right here.  But he won't respond to anything unless JARVIS puts it, in Russian, in my files.”

“Shit.  He's just standing there?”

“Sitting.  I'm not trying to be cruel here, I got JARVIS to tell him to take a seat as he seemed strung up enough to keel over if I left him standing waiting.  Except his vitals look like a budding panic attack.”

“On a chair?!  What the hell?  Get him off it.  Sit him on the floor if you don't want him standing.”

“J, do as the man says.”

Like he'd been shocked with a castle prod, Barnes jumped out of the chair and moved to the floor, sitting criss-cross next to the chair.

“I'm coming over.  Just…try and keep him calm.”

“Oh goody, nice and easy then.  Any tips?”

“Not a clue.  But no chairs.  And I would try not to appear hostile.”

“Right.”

What to do to calm an amnesiac super soldier?  Dire Straits was still playing in the background.  On reflection that probably wasn't helpful.  “J, how about we get some nice 40s music going?”  

It only took Sam 30 minutes to get to them, and in that time Bruce had picked through some of the files carefully, trying to find anything useful without success.  Barnes' vitals had dropped slowly the longer he was out of the chair.

The insinuation was terrifying.  Hydra had that much control over him.  He'd been uncomfortable to the point of nearing passing out sitting in the chair, that much was clear, but he'd done it anyway, because he'd had an order.  Tony thought about his time in an Afghan cave, how it had only taken a few days, waterboarding, threats to his cellmate, before he had agreed to do as the Ten Rings had asked.  Yes, he'd managed to work around it, but he'd only been there for an order of weeks.  Barnes had been held by Hydra for decades.  Even after he'd been out for a year, he was clearly right back there with them.

Tony had tried offering a drink, a cushion, food, but he just sat, waiting and staring.  The staring in particular was unnerving.

The door opened and, behind Sam, Steve slipped in carrying a battered red book with a star on the cover in one hand and his shield in the other.  So much for Sam not tattling.  Although, at this point, anything had to be better than their current strategy.

Uncharacteristically, Steve didn't rush straight to Barnes’ side.  Instead, he quietly shuffled around to stand next to Bruce, as Sam stepped up to look at Barnes.

“Hey there.  Don't suppose you remember me?”  Sam took an assessing look as Barnes continued staring.  He half turned back to the group behind, asking, “And he only responds to JARVIS?”

“So far.”

Sam shuffled back to join Steve, who had opened the book and was flicking through the pages.  Sam looked over his shoulder.  “Found anything useful?”

Steve shook his head.  “No.  Sadly they weren't interested in documenting how to break him out of it.  The best I’ve got is that it ought to wear off because he hasn't been wiped in over a year.  In these notes he never went that long without, apart from time in cryo.”

Bruce cramped his neck to look at the notes Steve was reading and blanched.  “Is that…?”

Steve grimaced.  “Yeah.  We found it in the bunker in Siberia.”

“What?  Found what in Siberia?  I mean other than videos of my parents’ murder?!”

Steve sighed quietly.  “It's a sort of…manual?  Handling notes at the least.”

“For what?”

Sam frowned slightly, and nodded at Barnes.  A manual for the Winter Soldier?  Tony knew they had wiped his memory, had seen more than his stomach could take of that and their ‘discipline’ that they seemed to keep plentiful evidence of despite being fantastic material for their conviction under the Geneva convention or the UN Human Rights Council, but a manual?  For what?  Sadism?

Bruce pointed to a section in the book.  “And these?  They look like the list in Tony's data files.”

Sam choked.  “You have the list of code words in your data files? ”

“What code words?!  I have a list of random words in Russian from when he turned up and dumped a load of traumatic memories directly into JARVIS' code as far as I can tell!”  Traumatic memories that could easily include code words that could turn him into a mindless slave.  He remembered Barton’s recollection of mind control under Loki and shuddered.

Steve cut in, his voice wavering slightly.  “Enough!  He's right here.”

Bruce took a deep breath.  “Well, what broke him out of it last time?  Do we know?”

Sam looked at Steve, who shrugged.  “He rescued me out of the river.  I didn't understand any of this at the time.”

JARVIS spoke up.  “If I may, Captain Rogers, after his panic attack in the tower, he referred to you as his mission.”

“Yeah, he said that on the helicarrier too – when he was still fighting me.”

“You misunderstand, Captain Rogers.  He said his mission was to protect the man with the shield.”

“Oh.”  Steve handed the book to Bruce, picking up the shield. “You think…you think the shield might help?”

“I cannot say.”

Sam shrugged.  “It's worth a try.  Better than getting him to pass out again.  And hey, at least if he does try to attack you, you'll already have the shield to defend with.”

Sarcastically, Steve said, “Thanks, Sam.”  But he shuffled slowly towards Barnes, shield at his side unthreateningly.  Barnes twitched as the shield came into his eyeline.  Maybe it was already starting to wear off?

As Steve approached, gently murmuring reassurance along the way, Barnes made no movement but his eyes tracked the shield, occasionally flickering up to Steve's face, then away again.

“Hey, J, maybe try giving him that mission?  I mean, if that's the mission he’s given himself anyway?”

Sam looked unsure, but JARVIS as ever took it as an instruction and added the order to the file.  Just as with the chair, the effect was almost instantaneous.  Steve, who was just in front of Barnes by this point, was suddenly pulled behind a very tense Barnes who stood protectively in front of him, watching everyone else in the room.

The room held still as they all collectively held their breath, however it seemed Barnes was satisfied that his mission was protected, for now.

Bruce squinted at a page in the manual and mouthed something to himself.  “Uh, guys?  I might have an idea.”

“Anything’s worth a try.  Whatcha got?”  Tony sidled carefully over to Bruce, Barnes’ eyes following him the whole way.

“I think it's a reward phrase.  A kind of ‘mission complete’ sort of thing.  But it's only scribbled in.  Kind of informal compared to the activation.”

Tony looked where Bruce's finger was pointing, but handwritten Cyrillic was not his specialty.  “Gonna take your word on that.  Since when do you even speak Russian?”

“I've been hanging with Nat.  Seemed worthwhile brushing up on it.”

Tony raised his eyebrows at Bruce.  “You and me are gonna have a talk about keeping secrets.”

“Can we save the office gossip until later?”  Sam eyed the book.  “JARVIS can you load this up for him?  What exactly does it say?”

“It translates to ‘Excellent, Soldier.’  Or maybe more loosely, ‘Well done, Soldier.’”  Tony winced at the impersonal use of Soldier, with no name.  JARVIS continued, “Adding it to the file now.”

The effect on Barnes was immediate, if less conclusive.  The blank look somehow brightened, without his attention wavering at all.  Steve decided to take advantage of this by reinforcing the sentiment in JARVIS' file.  “Good job, pal, I'm ok, see?  All safe.  Nobody's getting hurt here.  We’re all friends.”

Slowly, the tension in him seemed to recede.  Was it working?

Steve continued his mumbling praise but caught Sam’s eye with a questioning look, who shrugged in response.  Curiouser and curiouser.

“You don't need to protect me any more.  I can do this all day.”

A twitch from Barnes, more pronounced this time.

“Bucky, I’m with you to the end of the line.”

It was like the energy finally drained out of Barnes, and he slumped, taking Steve to the floor with him, still talking in his ear.

Giving them a bit of privacy, Tony turned back to Sam and Bruce.  “Think that did it?”

Watching Barnes and Steve huddled in the corner of the workshop, Tony considered the reality Barnes found himself in.  No wonder he'd hidden himself away if Hydra had the means to control him at the drop of a…well, the drop of about ten Russian words anyway.  Of course that wasn't just a nightmare for Barnes.  If Hydra had the Winter Soldier at their disposal again…there would be a lot more that the currently diminished Hydra could achieve.

“Sir, I am receiving a distress call from the Raft prison.  They are under attack.”

It never rained but it poured.  “Time to suit up.”  He glanced at Steve, who gave him a pleading look.  “Right.  Okay, Cap, you sit this one out.  Falcon, you're with me.  Brucie, I’m gonna put you on backup for now.  Where are Mr and Mrs Smith?”

Sam was all business.  “Nat’s in town, she'll know where Clint’s at.  My wings are in my suite here.”  He pulled his phone out and started dialing.

Tony started moving, calling the armor to the hangar level of the tower, Bruce in tow as Sam disappeared in the direction of his suite.

By the time he had the preflight checks done on the quinjet, Sam reappeared with good news and his wing pack.  “Nat and Clint are in Bed-Stuy.  If we swing by their coordinates we can pick them up.”

“Great, let's go.”

The Raft prison, being situated in the Atlantic ocean, was not pleasant to get to on the best of days, and today was not the best conditions.  Still it could be worse; the waves were only averaging 20 feet high.

The submersible was at the surface when they approached, but the lights were dark.  An ominous sign.  Scanning with night vision cameras and IR showed two choppers on the deck, a pilot and a guard apiece in position.

“Okay, Falcon, we're up first.  Gotta clear that landing area.”  As the suit built itself around him, Tony walked out of the back of the quinjet.

“On it.”  Sam sped past him, wings out, heading for the darkened helicopters.

“You take left, I'll take right?”

“Sure.”

Tony saw the wings curve away from the Raft briefly, before circling back around to approach along the top of the waves.  “Don't get wet!”

“Wasn't planning on it.”

Timing his own attack with Sam’s approach, both guards hit the deck simultaneously.  Shortly after, both pilots were also out for the count.  “Okay, Banner, you're clear.”

Even though he knew it was coming, it was surprising how close the quinjet was before it appeared out of the gloom above them.  Natasha and Barton dropped out of the rear door before it even touched down.

As they headed in, it was clear the invading forces had been none too gentle.  Bodies were strewn along the corridors and in the control rooms.  Tony stopped briefly with Barton to see if they could ID the invaders.  The surveillance footage was patchy, and most of them showed a small group of men in full black ops gear, with a red squid insignia.  Hydra.   “I thought we had a lid on these guys.”

Barton gave him a wry look.  “Cut off one head, two grow back, isn't that how it goes?”

“So it seems.  Natasha, Sam, we got a squid infestation.”

“Copy that.  Looks like there’s a couple in the minimum security levels, I’ve just locked them in.”  Natasha’s voice, call and steady as always.

“Great, so just the really problematic ones to deal with.”  Barton rolled his eyes at Tony.  “Can we get any of the security systems back online?”

“Maybe.”  Tony started rerouting some of the systems to give them a visual of the maximum security area.  “Shit.”

“What?”

“They let the witch out.  No prizes for guessing who she might like to take with her.”  Tony began rapidly rerouting more power.  He'd had a hand in designing the measures against these two.  Seeing as the Veronica cage had done a half decent job at containing them both, that was the best he had to work with.  That and the knowledge that if one escaped, the other’s containment had to be up to deterring the other from busting them out.  “Looks like Roadrunner is still in place.  Nat, Sam, that's where they'll be headed.”

Clint nodded.  “I'm on my way as backup.”

Tony waved him off and continued pouring more power into the defenses on Pietro Maximoff’s cell.  It was electrified on the outside, just like the Veronica cage had been on the inside.  Double walled.  And he had one last countermeasure he could deploy if it came to that…

“Okay guys, try and keep her away from his cell.  If you can get her back into her own cell, I can power it back up from here.”

He managed to reboot most of the power systems, but had to power down most systems in the minimum security area, except the lockdown, in order to preserve the changes he’d made in the lower levels.

Tony itched to get down there and help, but keeping the witch at bay was going to need someone on the controls up here.  Over the comms, he could hear the progress of the fight below, and it didn’t sound good.

“Falcon?  Widow?”

A chilling laugh echoed in Tony’s ears.  Not a voice that he recognised, but Natasha clearly did.  “Rumlow?  Is that you under that ridiculous suit?”  

“Is this all you brought?  What, no Cap?”

“He had a…family emergency.”

“Family?  Ohhh, so the prodigal soldier finally came home, did he?  Good to know.”

Sam obviously knew him too.  “It’s a shame you managed to crawl back out after the Triskelion fell.  Guessing I don’t want to see what a mess it made of your face.”

The whole Raft shuddered.  The witch was hitting out at the structure of the cells.  “Guys, I don’t want to hurry you, but…don’t let him distract you.”

“Gotcha.”  That was Clint.  “You know, you Hydra types really need to learn when to stay down.  And now?  It’s time.”

Faintly, through Clint’s comm, Tony could hear an odd buzzing sound and Wanda’s voice.  “You know, you got me last time.  I won’t fall for the same trick again.”

“No brother to whisk you away to safety this time.  And we kinda blocked in your ride home.  Double parking sucks, doesn’t it?”

The next few calls were mostly incoherent shouting over the comms, and a couple of loud crashes.  “Guys?  I need to know what’s going on.”

Nat panted, out of breath.  “I got her with an electric charge, but it didn’t take her down.  She’s still trying to get into Pietro’s cell.  If she pulls many more relays out of the walls, she’s gonna get through.”

“Okay, you guys get back, I'm gonna flood the surrounding area.  He'll be isolated and she won't be able to get to him.”  Tony flicked the pumps on, rewarded by a shriek from the witch as she presumably got wet.

Nat announced, “Pull back!  We've activated the cell isolation procedure; inmates in their cells are safe, but this area is gonna flood.”  Another shriek of rage from Wanda as Nat and Clint hauled ass to get behind the bulkheads that Tony was rapidly closing.

Those bulkhead motors strained for a few seconds as presumably Elphaba tried to hold them back.  

Rumlow’s voice cut in.  “Wanda!  You'll take the whole thing to the bottom of the ocean if the bulkheads don't close.  Come on!”  More crashing and splashing noises.  Tony cursed that he'd had to ditch the cameras in the lower levels to power first the electrified cell walls, and then the pumps.

“No!  Pietro!”

Water levels were rising on the instruments, but the bulkheads had at least started closing.  Tony closed the suit around himself again.

Nat's voice cut in.  “Everyone's out, but we're cut off from Sam.”

Finally they appeared on the upper level video feed.  Tony winced as Sam flew, without the aid of his wings, across the central space, followed closely by the witch and a cheap imitation of his own suit.  “Wilson?!”

“I can't stop them.  She blocked me, they're headed up your way Tony.”

Tony burst out of the control room and got to the elevator shaft just as the pair emerged.

“You.”  The anger on the witch’s face was palpable.  “I should have known it would be you.”  Pieces of the prison started flying at Tony, surrounded by a red haze.  He managed to repel some of them with his repulsors, but there were too many and he took several hits.

As he defended against the onslaught, the poor man’s Iron Man suit battered its way through the minimum security doors, releasing a group of Hydra agents and inmates.

“JARVIS, tranqs.”  He targeted as many as he could, but ultimately only two reached their targets, adding to the bodies littering the floor.

As they were still inside a vulnerable submersible, he really didn't fancy breaking out the big guns.   Something that clearly didn't worry either Rumlow or Wanda, as he was then hit by pieces of the doors that had been in position barring entrance to the minimum security cells.  The blow knocked him sideways, allowing the group to flow up the stairs to the docking bay.  “Bruce, you got company coming.”

Wanda loomed over Tony as he tried to get himself back upright.  Borrowing from the designs of Pietro’s cells, he sent power through the outer skin of the suit, just a fraction of a second before her red haze surrounded him.  From the frustrated look on her face he could only imagine what was supposed to have happened to the suit and him inside it.

Instead it was Wanda who got a shock, with her allies now fleeing up to the open deck, as an arrow scraped her face, only deflected at the very last second.  Behind Tony, Nat and Clint had emerged from the service tunnels and she snarled, but turned to head up with the other Hydra escapees.

Clint moved to give him a hand up.  “Woah there, lemme just…” After de-electrifying the armor plating, he grabbed the offered hand.  Nat was already halfway through the doorway in chase.

Above them, gunfire rang out.  He exchanged a look with Barton as an answering roar came from the Hulk, then they both upped their pace to get onto the flight deck.

Emerging into the frigid atmosphere of the north Atlantic, the scene in front of them was chaotic.  Hulk was tearing apart one of the helicopters on the deck along with the Hydra goons who had tried to board it, while sadly the remaining Hydra goons looked to be trying to board the quinjet.  “Oh no you don’t!”  Tony fired his repulsors and flew across the deck to pull the goons out of the back doors.  Behind him, he could see Clint firing at the other helicopter.  Belatedly he spotted Natasha as she was flung in his direction by the red haze of Wanda’s powers and he only just managed to catch her as the helicopter rose from the deck, assaulted by a hail of Clint’s arrows that sadly seemed to do minimal damage, despite several explosions lighting up the outer hull.

Carefully setting Nat down outside the quinjet, Tony blasted up to try and disable the fleeing helicopter, but he found that his attacks were thwarted by the familiar red haze.  Suddenly as he got closer, he found himself rebounded by an invisible force and flung down into the ocean, systems screaming alerts at him in the HUD.  Hitting the water felt like hitting a concrete wall, only colder and wetter.  The impact jolted his already sore head against the side of his helmet and for a moment he saw stars.  Not his favorite view, but at least he was still breathing.

It took a few moments to get himself the right way up and out of the water.  By the time he had, the helicopter was gone.

Chapter Text

Barnes looks up inconspicuously at the Veterans’ Center as he passes it on the street.  Surveilling it.  He’s been past it a few times in the last few weeks, mulling over what Wilson had said about dropping in.  Other people to talk to.  He can’t deny that actually talking to Steve, Wilson and Mrs Davis has been…pleasant, notwithstanding the difficult silences after his last disastrous visit to the Tower.

Both Wilson and Steve have been very positive about the center and made a point of letting him know he’s welcome to drop in with or without them.

He has seen a number of people file in and out of the building.  Sometimes one by one, others in groups, chatting as they flow out of the doorway.

He makes another loop around the next block.  Wilson is in the center at the moment, this he knows.  Steve on the other hand, is not.  He makes a quick check of his appearance.  Similar clothing to other patrons of the building, although his hair is longer, but some of the others are also disheveled and dirty.

His feet carry him in through the doors to a small foyer and a desk behind which a middle-aged woman sits, tapping at a computer.  The whispers tell him she is shopping for children’s shoes, but she looks up at him as he stands just inside the door.  “Can I help you?”

Barnes shuffles forwards, disliking being so exposed to someone he doesn’t know.  Scrutinizing her face is not helpful in determining her interest, although he doesn’t remember her from any Hydra files.

“Um.”  His mind isn’t blank, it’s full of exit strategies in case this turns out to be a trap, but he doesn’t really know what he is asking for.

“Do you have an appointment with anyone?”

Not properly, but he had mentioned showing him around.  “Wilson?”

She smiled at him and tapped on her keyboard, looking at an appointment calendar.  “It doesn’t look like he’s got anything booked in for right now.  I’ll just call him down.”  She picks up the phone on her desk and relays to Wilson that he has a walk-in looking for him.  “What was your name?”

“Barnes.”  He can, of course, hear her relaying that information and also Wilson’s plea for her not to let him leave before he gets downstairs.  His stomach clenches at the eagerness, but he reminds himself that Wilson already knows how to find him.  Could have used Steve against him already if he wanted to trap him.

Only a minute later, Wilson appears from the corridor beyond the desk.  “Hey man, I’m so glad you could drop in.  You met Sylvia?”  Barnes’ eyes track to the woman behind the desk who nods and smiles.  “Good.  Well, come on, I’ll show you around.”

He follows Wilson as he makes his way along the corridor, past a large room with chairs stacked at the edge and a small kitchen, and up the stairs to the second floor.  Up here it seems are the offices he's often heard the whispers of Wilson’s phone from.  Not just his, though; there are several other offices up here, and a small waiting area between them where a couple of people sit, quietly chatting or scrolling on their phones.

Wilson ducks into the second room on the right.  “You picked a good day for it.  I'm fairly quiet right now, but there's a group in a bit you might like to sit in on.”

Wilson asks a lot of difficult questions.  Questions Barnes doesn’t have answers to.  He’s not really a person in the eyes of the state; he doesn’t remember a social security number, and even if he did, he would be listed as deceased.  If he wasn’t marked as deceased, the authorities would ask a lot of questions about where he has been for the last 70 years, and what he has been doing.  And Hydra would find him.

Wilson also asks about his income.  If he has enough to live off.  Apparently if he weren’t dead, he would be entitled to benefits.  But Wilson manages to put him on the system with just a name, to allow him to join the groups in the center.  Apparently they have groups for different problems, including amputees (Wilson nods to his left side) and POWs, as well as this afternoon’s group which is more general for returning service members.  They don’t have a specific group for memory loss, but they do have one for what Wilson calls Traumatic Brain Injuries.

The center also offers classes for a range of things, from computing skills (Wilson looks at him questioningly, then discards that suggestion), english and math, interview skills, all the way to less practical subjects like art.  There are even yoga classes, which Wilson says are part of the anger management course, but available to all.

At the back of the building they also have a social area, both as a sort of staff relaxation area, and an informal chill out area for veterans where Wilson says they play cards and foosball.

As well as explanations of what the center has available, Wilson talks to him about counseling.  About PTSD.  Panic attacks.  Flashbacks.  Nightmares.  Having no or little reference for normal memories, he cannot differentiate between intrusive ones, normal ones, or even ones that never even happened.  Wilson says that even if his brain doesn’t remember, his body may remember traumatic events, much the same way that he remembers how to walk, run, throw, fire a gun, even fly a plane without remembering anything about who he is after a wipe.

Wilson leaves him to chill in the back room with a coffee and some leaflets and books to read while he sees some other clients and prepares for the group.  A few other people come and go, most of whom leave Barnes to his quiet contemplation, but a couple try to talk to him.  He doesn’t really know what to say to them, but manages to mumble enough small talk that they lose interest in him.  

One of Wilson's colleagues comes over, clearly prompted by Wilson, and sounds him out.  Joe is one of the counselors.  While distracted by keeping his attention on all of the surroundings, Barnes is intrigued by Joe's stories.  He talks about his own experiences, in war and at home.  He also talks about how counseling helped him, and how he likes to pay that back now by helping others.  Without meaning to, he finds himself responding to Joe, even offering one or two observations of his own, mostly in reference to what he's seen of Hydra agents rather than himself.

Wilson slips in after they've been talking for some time.  “Hey there Joe, I see you've met my friend Barnes.”

A jolt runs through Barnes.  Friend?  Is he Wilson’s friend?  Joe nods at Wilson, not acknowledging the way Barnes has tensed up.  Maybe he hasn't noticed.  Wilson certainly continues as if he hasn't.  “Sorry I'm going to steal him away from you, got to set up for the group session, and Barnes is going to sit in?”  He sounds tentative, as if unsure of Barnes’ intentions.  What would a friend do?  He thinks back to their earlier conversation, when Wilson was talking about the different groups.  He had said there was one this afternoon that Barnes could try.  Taking that as commitment, Barnes nods at Wilson, hoping this is the correct response.  The smile on Wilson's face says it is.

“Oh that's great, I hope you find it useful.  Maybe you'd like to carry on talking with me another day, though?”  The easy changeover between Wilson and Joe suggests they have worked this joint approach before.  

Barnes shrugs his shoulders.  He won't commit to being somewhere at a particular time.  Too easy to set up an ambush.

“Okay, well let me know if you change your mind.”  Joe gives him a wink and Wilson leads Barnes out of the back room with a cheery farewell to Joe.

The group gathers in one of the larger rooms downstairs.  Barnes helps Wilson to arrange the chairs and then lurks at the back of the room as people slowly filter in.  A few glance his way, but mostly they leave him to it.  Wilson leaves him be, but nods to him before he starts talking to the group.

“Glad to see you all.  Now, this group is for exploring what it means to come home after a tour and transition back into being a civilian.  We all were one once, but going back?  It ain’t easy.  Some steps may seem obvious, but they can also be the hardest ones to make.  Getting a job.  Finding a home.  Even reconnecting with old friends, or making new ones.  This week I’d like anyone who feels comfortable to share their first steps when they got back, and what helped, and what didn’t.”

“Now, I’m happy to share mine, but if anyone else would like to go first?”

A man with short-cropped hair holds a hand up.  “First thing I did was go see my folks.  Didn't have a place to stay so they put me up.  They were expecting their son back, like I'd never left after school.  Instead, they got me, jumping at shadows, up at all hours of the night unable to sleep, or waking them up as I woke up yelling.  I felt like a burden.  A disappointment.  But at least I wasn't alone.”

Barnes listens and wonders if the man still lives there.  It sounds like perhaps he doesn't.

A short, stocky man with shaggy hair half-raises a hand.  “Um.  First thing I did was…was go see my squadmate’s wife and kid to offer my commiserations that he wasn't coming home.  I half expected them not to want to see me, but they welcomed me with open arms.  They cried.  I cried.  But ultimately it was a weight lifted from my heart knowing they didn't blame me, even if some days I do.”  A tear runs down the man’s cheek and he sniffs.  “Sorry.”

“No, don't be sorry, that's what we're all here for after all.”  Wilson is looking sorrowfully at the veteran who had been speaking.  “It took me a month to get up the courage to visit my wingman's family.  I wish I'd done it sooner.”

Watching them, Barnes thinks about the people he had fought alongside.  Mostly he remembers Hydra, and they weren't exactly comrades.  He'd spoken with Steve about the commandos from the ‘40s, almost feels like he remembers some of them now, but they are all dead.  Long dead in most cases.  Only Steve remains.  And before Barnes escaped Hydra, he would have been all alone.

A dark woman with curly hair raised a hand next.  “First thing I wanted when I got home was a decent meal.  No more MREs.  So I went straight round to my favorite diner, only to find it had closed.  Been turned into a Starbucks months before.  I hardly recognized a single store on the block.  I honest to God thought I'd gotten lost and forgotten my way.”

A middle-aged man with a stick chuckled.  “Don't I know it.  My wife had redecorated the whole house when I got sent home from my third tour.  I didn't know where anything was.  Felt like I needed a map just to get myself a glass of water.”

He's read Steve's story in the museum.  Frozen in the Arctic, revived 65 years later.  Had that felt like cryofreeze, he wonders?  Had Steve felt the same disorientation with different faces surrounding him, sometimes entirely different bases as he was transported frozen from one location to another?  Different technology, different vehicles, different weapons to get used to.  He only fleetingly remembers the Brooklyn he'd grown up in, and it is strange enough to him how things had changed.  How much more so must it be for Steve, who remembers the past so much more clearly?

More group members share stories.  Not everyone, but most say something at some point.  Barnes notices Wilson’s eyes lingering on the quiet ones, including himself.  The feeling of being watched makes him antsy, and he has to fight the urge to slink away.  Wilson isn’t the only one either.  Other group members glance at him from time to time, but seem to be happy to give him his space.  One gaze lingers longer though and Barnes finds himself watching the other figure in return in his peripheral vision.  A powerfully-built man wearing shabby clothes, much like his own.  Practical clothing, dark, plenty of pockets and hard-wearing.

At the end of the session, Wilson dismisses the group and everyone helps to stack away the chairs.  The watcher drifts in Barnes’ direction and he tenses all over.  It’s not impossible that a vet could also be Hydra.

“New here, huh?  It’s intimidating at first, but it’s a good group.  Wilson up front there is a good guy.”  The man pauses, but Barnes can’t relax enough to respond.  “I’m Kev.  I wondered…were you Special Forces?  You have that look.”

Barnes looks up to see gentle curiosity on the man’s face.  He doesn’t know the answer.

“It’s ok, you don’t have to say.  I was.  Hypervigilance is a bitch, isn’t it?  Can’t switch it off even though you’re home.”

Wilson, having clearly spotted Barnes’ discomfort, slides casually over to them.  “Hey there Kev, not scaring off the new faces are you?”

Kev laughs.  “I hope not!  How are you, man?”  He exchanged a hearty handshake with Wilson.

“Keeping everything ticking over, as usual.  You didn’t say much today, everything okay?”

Kev smiles broadly.  “Actually I’m pretty good.  Guess those interview skills did the world of good, ‘cos I finally got a job.  Nothin’ special, but it puts food on the table.”

“Congratulations!  You gotta tell me more about it later.”  Wilson casts an eye at Barnes, still frozen in place.  “You think you could give us a minute?”

“Sure.”  Kev turns to Barnes as he moves away.  “You’ll be okay with this guy in your corner.  He’s gold.”

Barnes keeps his eyes trained on Kev as he leaves.  Kev seems like he is also Wilson’s friend.  Is that what Wilson expects of him?

“You ok?”

Barnes itches to get out from under the scrutiny.  He shuffles his feet ever so slightly, shifting weight from one foot to the other; a lapse that would have garnered severe disapproval from any handler watching him as closely as Wilson is.

“First time is a lot, I know.  It's okay if you want to take off.  Just promise me you'll think about coming back?  Even if this group doesn't suit you, another might.”

Barnes nods, then takes the out that Wilson has given him, slipping out of the room now that most of the crowd has either dispersed, or is occupied in small knots of conversation.  Some have gravitated to the small kitchen to make coffees.

Once out in the open air it's like he can breathe more easily.  No eyes on him now.  Still, he walks a couple of blocks before cutting up an alleyway into the shadows and reaching for a high rooftop where he can survey the area.  He watches as each of the group members leaves the center, keeping a close eye on Kev in particular.

He follows for a few blocks, but sees nothing suspicious.   Frustrated, he turns his attention to a more tangible threat.  The handler.  Rumlow.

He has discovered, through listening to JARVIS, that Rumlow has broken the Witch out of prison.  Steve told him he didn't need to worry, clearly more worried about Bucky's reaction to the code words than the handler, but he does.  Speedy was left behind, and they have moved him to a new, secret location.  The rest of the Avengers have been on high alert, trying to trace the handler and the Witch.

Bucky has now picked up a trail of Hydra whispers again in northern Africa, moving steadily eastward. He is sure the handler is with them.  

He reaches for a location in Egypt just outside an old Hydra safehouse.  Listening in, he quickly ascertains that they have been here, but are not here any longer.  Traces in the data suggests they were looking at locations south of here.

Following the trail, he gets gradually closer, occasionally taking out Hydra agents along the way.  Through Sudan, and the Central African Republic into the northern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Here he finally catches up with his targets, but lingers at a distance to observe their behavior before getting too close.  He has brought some earplugs which he has tested around the city, he had to test a number of different sets before he found some that blocked sufficient sound that he could risk being near the Handler, but he wants to know what they are here for.

They wander away from the market he found them in, into a busy side street, even at this early hour.  The handler is not wearing his armor that he had in Belize, but is wearing a hood to hide his face.  Still, Barnes knows it is him.  The Witch with him is not hiding her own face.

The pair duck into a building off the street, nodded in by a single guard on the doorway after a quick blast of red smoke from the Witch.  Barnes narrows his eyes at that.  Inside the building, Barnes can hear a chorus of whispers, more so than many of the neighboring buildings.  They tell of shipping orders, manifests, money transfers, and arms stocks.  Warily, he creeps closer and slips into the back of the building.

Inside, he can hear raised voices, but slowly they peter out, accompanied by thuds and crashes, leaving only one.  Something about…cuttlefish?  The building is small, crammed full of crates and piles of weapons making makeshift walls between areas.  Barnes stays hidden in the shadows behind these but tries to get closer.  What are they doing here?  Surely Hydra still has enough weapons they do not need to come to an arms dealer, unless it is for protection as in Sierra Leone. Then the last voice breaks off mid-shout.  

Peering through gaps in a crate of machine guns, Barnes can just see the Handler walking out of the back room, followed by a man with a graying beard and a crude prosthetic left forearm.  The prosthetic appears to have a shotgun barrel incorporated into it.  Red smoke lingers in front of the man's eyes, and the Witch follows after, hands still raised, poised to send more red smoke out.  Barnes dare not strike in these close quarters, and he’d rather know who he is dealing with.

The handler pulls a radio out of his pocket, connected to a small team not far away.  “Ready for pickup.”

Within a minute, a truck pulls up outside the doorway and all three pile into it.  The truck immediately pulls away and Barnes reaches to follow at a distance.  Fortunately, with the radio signal, he can follow without being able to see it as it heads east out of town.

It drives through the day and then through the night, with only brief stops to refuel.  Clearly they have a destination, but Barnes doesn't know of any Hydra activity in these areas.  As the journey gets longer, he wonders how much sleep they are getting inside the small vehicle, as he is feeling the fatigue of so many short jumps to keep up with them, unseen.  In the dark, he spends some time just running parallel to the road, as the action is almost less tiring.

It is not until the sky starts to brighten out of the deepest dark of the night that they finally seem to reach a destination.  The truck has been driving through jungle for some time, moving much more slowly as it pushes along an overgrown track, and now it also moves uphill, climbing the side of a mountain, outlined against the dim sky.

As they move onward, Barnes starts to hear strangely melodic whispers ahead of them.  They sound different to any whispers he has heard before, each one more in tune with the others than the usual maelstrom of signals he is used to.  Even those in the Tower belonging to JARVIS.

He can hear the change in tone when the truck ahead of him crosses an invisible line.  The whispers no longer sound welcoming.  Barnes holds himself back from crossing the line to follow them, but finds that he can follow the truck by listening to the signals.  They are being watched.

By the time the truck enters a tunnel in the hillside, Barnes can hear the approach of more signals, as locals clearly gather to repel the invasion.  What the invaders do once inside the tunnel is unclear.  The alarm tone of the whispers has increased and they are much louder to him from this distance than the progress of the truck.

For a few minutes he wonders if he has lost them.

Then he sees flashes higher up the mountain and the sounds of distant gunfire start sounding in the same direction.  The defenders have some sort of energy weapons, reminiscent to Barnes of the weapons Hydra had used in Sokovia.  These flashes emerge from behind shields seemingly made of the same shade of blue light.

On the quiet side of the line, new signals are approaching.

As they near the border, Barnes digs in under a tree to make sure he can't be seen.  Two helicopters from the north and south, respectively.

Before they reach his position a rumble begins underfoot.  After only a few seconds a large explosion blows out of the side of the mountain.  Just below it he can spot the Handler's truck emerging from the tunnel, with a cloud of red smoke holding back a curtain of rubble from above, only releasing it to crush the repelling forces chasing them.  As the truck careens down the mountainside, the rubble threatens to overtake them, gathering speed.  With a start, Barnes realizes that it is heading straight for his position.

More flashes, closer now, fly overhead as some of the locals clearly manage to chase the truck despite the rock slide.  The helicopters return fire.

One of the helicopters hovers dangerously close to the ground ahead of the path of the truck.  It is only when it rotates to reveal the open back door that he understands their plan.  The red smoke holds the tumbling rocks back long enough for the truck to drive into the rear of the helicopter and lift above the tide of deadly rubble.  The other helicopter exchanges fire with the bright flashes as the first lifts and adopts stealth mode, skimming just above the tops of the trees, as the rubble covers the area.  Even Barnes has difficulty telling where it is in the still half-light of dawn.

As the rockslide threatens his hiding place, Barnes is forced to reach for a position away from the fight, further into the jungle, reminding him of just how many ports he has made today.  He arrives just in time to see a fireball erupt from the remaining helicopter as it collides with the defending force, his body swaying with the effort.

The stealthed helicopter is out of earshot now.  Straining, he gets a faint echo of it to the west, back in the direction they had come from.  He desperately wishes to follow, but knows he doesn't have the energy.  Instead, he reaches for a quiet place to sleep.

Shreds of memories of the handler linger in his mind and disturb his dreams.

Sleeping has become difficult.  The uncertainty of the movement of the Handler gnaws at him constantly.  More often than not he awakens out of the silent darkness into somewhere he didn't go to sleep.  Fortunately, in his dreams he is mostly trying to escape, run, hide, and so he wakes in some of his more extreme hidey holes, far from civilization, or rooftops near the places that make him feel safe, and once or twice into Steve's apartment, nearly setting off the alarms in the middle of the night.

Other times, though, he dreams that the Handler has commanded him to return to the base.  It is empty, apart from the surveillance, but he has made numerous visits there and to other rendezvous points frequented by this Handler.

Between fitful bursts of sleep he has tried to track the Handler and the Witch as they move south through Africa, but with limited success, when he is not working, or visiting Steve.  He has tried to do this more often.  Both because it helps him to recover and reorder more memories, and because listening to the veterans talk opened his eyes to how much his visits mean to Steve.  Lately, though, he has frequently been seeing a little crease of worry creep back onto Steve's face.  Like when he first made contact and was apt to disappear again without warning.

Today he is working.  First at a building site, and then again at the music venue.  In the summer heat, the building site is ferocious.  He wears long sleeves, and gloves, not wanting to expose the metal arm, which causes a few odd looks in his direction, but he keeps himself to himself, getting on with the job.  The bright sunlight and the heat at least make it difficult for him to feel sleepy.  And the work keeps his mind mostly busy.

In the evening, the music venue is hot and sweaty also.  The press of so many moving, dancing, writhing bodies in the enclosed space.

The heat saps his strength as much as the cold ever did, perhaps more.  The flashing, swirling lights stab right into his brain, even with his eyes closed.  He knows better, now, than to watch them, but today his defenses are low.  He cannot stop them permeating his mind, causing it to stutter.

He feels like the world is in slow motion, but moving in jerks, like a movie where the film speed isn’t set right.

The sinking nauseous feeling in his stomach and the rapid beating of his heart send him reeling, looking for an exit.  It is too far, and the lights are too bright.  Shrinking into the darkest corner he can find, he reaches out for a safer place.

The silent dark is blissful, and then the loudness of the world crashes in on him again and he tries to squash it, stumbling into furniture he doesn’t see.

“Woah, you ok there?”  

Steve?  His eyes refuse to cooperate to open and check as the shakes take over.

“What…Bucky?  Sam!  Help!”

Voices around him blur and make no sense.  Shudders run through him, uncontrollably.  Is he back in the Chair?  His thoughts get lost in the dark.

When the world fades back in, he is lying on the floor in Steve’s living room.  A man looms over him, and he startles, immediately reaching for the far side of the room.  Where is Steve?

His legs won’t hold him up, and he slumps to the floor.  Two men in front of him turn, hands aloft in surrender, speaking garbled noises.  Who are they?  Where is Steve?

The usual whispers in the apartment are missing.  Everything is dark.  It takes him a few minutes to realize he is squashing them down tight.  Releasing them, he reaches out to JARVIS who still monitors the apartment as the lights come on.

JARVIS?  Where is Steve?

Connectivity is restored.

More garbled sounds come from the apartment, but neither man has opened their mouth.  Who is speaking?

Captain Rogers is in his apartment.

He’s here?  The strangers must be here to attack him.  Pushing himself up, against the wishes of his legs, he becomes aware of wetness in his pants.  Is he injured?  He pushes off the wall and staggers into the hallway, calling for Steve.  He’s not in the bedroom.  Not in the bathroom.  Not in the study.

Movement behind him; he whirls, to find Steve in the doorway from the living room looking worried.  “Steve!”

“I’m here, right here, Buck.”

He is so relieved, he launches himself unsteadily at Steve, desperate to feel that this is real, not an insubstantial concoction of his mind.  Steve catches him, steers him back into the living room and lowers him gently to the floor when his legs refuse to hold him up any longer.

There were strangers in the living room.  He shouts a warning, but looking around, he can only see Wilson.  JARVIS who else is here?

“Barnes, only yourself, Captain Rogers and Sergeant Wilson are present in the apartment.”

Why is JARVIS speaking aloud?

“Barnes?  Do you know where you are?  You had a seizure.”

Of course he knows where he is.  He can’t not know where he is, anymore than he can not know which way is up.  He stares at Wilson.

“It’s okay if you don’t.  Just take it easy.”  Wilson looks up at Steve who is clutching onto Barnes more gently than he is holding onto Steve.  He relaxes the grip of the metal hand, which will probably leave a bruise.  He feels again the wet state of his pants and pats himself down.  No injuries.  He feels a flood of shame bloom warm on his face as he realizes what the dampness is.

His mind seems to come back into focus and he remembers the warehouse, the music show which will have ended by now.  He needs to get back to work.

“I…gotta go.”

Steve rushes in to reassure him.  “It’s okay, you have nothing to be ashamed of, you don’t have to leave.”

“I do.  I’ll…be back later.”  He reaches for his own apartment upstairs; Steve has stocked it with plenty of clothes for him.  It’s about the only thing they’ve done, as Steve has been busy getting the downstairs apartment ready for Mrs Davis.  She moved only last week, and he doesn’t know what he wants for this place.  For now, he grabs fresh pants and changes, before reaching for a quiet corner backstage and getting to work.

He gets a few curious looks from coworkers; he is more clumsy than usual, his limbs feeling at least twice as heavy as normal.  He is relieved that they mostly leave him alone.  The few that do stop to talk to him ask if he’s feeling okay and he finds that speaking drains his reserves of energy more than shifting heavy staging.  Despite the heat and the hard work, he finds himself shivering.

When Ben gives him his pay, he stops Barnes immediately leaving.  “Hey, you know we do actually have health insurance benefits for workers on the books and a few paid sick days.  I’d be happy to take you on formally; you’re a great worker and we have some openings right now.”

Barnes just shakes his head and Ben looks at him sadly.  “I’m guessing there’s a reason you can’t.  Just know the offer’s there, okay?”

He takes the money as usual and quietly slips out of the building.  Stopping to lean against the wall behind him, he contemplates where to go.  His mind keeps coming back to the look on Steve’s face before he left.  The significant worry crease on his face.  He put that there.  And until he goes back, it’s probably going to still be there.  He remembers feeling safe, with Steve watching over him at the farmhouse.  Safe enough to sleep.

Making up his mind, he reaches for Steve’s apartment.  It is quiet.  Barnes reminds himself that it is the middle of the night still, for normal people, verging on early morning.  The living room is empty.  Quietly, he slips from room to room, finding Steve in bed, like a normal person.  But not asleep.  Clearly supersoldier senses are a match for his stealth skills, as Steve sits up and turns a light on.  “You came back.”

“Said I would, didn’t I?”  He feels about ready to drop, and leans against the wall.  “Could…could you stand watch?”  His voice breaks slightly at the end.

Steve’s face does something complicated, and he pats the bed next to him.  “Of course I will.  Come here?”

He slides carefully onto the bed, fully dressed and on top of the covers, and leans on Steve who snugs a tentative arm around him.  He leans into it, gratefully.  Steve is warm.  It feels like that warmth permeates his entire body, and he can finally relax.  As he drifts off, he hears Steve murmur, “Goodnight Bucky.”

Chapter Text

Steve pottered around the kitchen, making breakfast.  Bucky had slept in, unsurprising after the ordeal last night and then getting in at 4am.  His own metabolism wasn’t used to it, and his stomach was growling that it was long past breakfast time.

He was now in the shower having woken up visibly feeling grotty.  Steve had seen the grime smeared over his skin from who knew what as he watched over him, feeling grateful that Bucky was even there and glowing that he had chosen Steve, trusted him enough to stand watch when he needed it.

Fortunately he had had his book by his bed to while away the time.  Not that he would tire of having Bucky close again any time soon, but sitting awake in bed went against the grain and he certainly wasn't going to let Bucky down by snoozing on watch.

On the counter, his phone chirped a text notification.  Sam, getting back to him.  It hadn't been within reach overnight, but once Bucky was in the shower, he had rapidly sent a message asking Sam for advice.

They had, of course, discussed the situation after Bucky had so abruptly left.  Steve was in shock after witnessing the horrifying scene of Bucky appearing, looking confused, and immediately collapsing into a tangle of jerking, twitching limbs.

Sam, of course, had come to the rescue, helping to move furniture away from him so that he wouldn't hurt himself while Steve felt utterly useless.

The confusion he displayed after was apparently not uncommon.  JARVIS said he had been asked where Steve was - knew that he should be there - but looked at him as if he were a stranger.  Just for that moment Steve had been terrified that all the progress they had made, all the memories regained, had been erased again.

The speed with which he recovered seemed nothing short of miraculous.  Something that could be a bonus of the serum, or conversely could just be luck.  Apparently some seizures were like that, and sufferers could be up and normal shortly after.  Although by the exhaustion written all over his face when he came back, Steve would bet his shield that it had taken a toll.

The fact that he came to Steve when he was hurting, when he needed help…that felt like an enormous step forward.

Checking his phone he saw that Sam was coming over.  They really hadn't expected Bucky to show up again so soon, so Sam had gone back to his suite at the Tower as he'd been planning.

Steve stacked plates full of eggs, bacon, pancakes, but also some less rich offerings of plain toast and fruit.  He was starved, and he could only imagine how much energy an episode like that would have taken out of Bucky, but his reading last night suggested there was equal likelihood he might be nauseous and not want much.

The shower switched off and shortly after Bucky appeared with wet, tousled hair wearing one of Steve’s shirts and the pants he'd come back in this morning–fortunately not the soiled ones he'd been wearing yesterday.  Steve fought to contain the heat in his cheeks as he remembered Bucky’s embarrassment.  Possibly that was why he had disappeared again and Steve didn't want to remind him of it, especially when it was nothing to be ashamed of in the first place.

“Hungry?”  Steve gestured hopefully at the plates on the counter, taking some for himself.

Bucky grimaced.  Steve paused on his second mouthful, unsure if he should continue, but Bucky just rolled his eyes at him.  “Just ‘cause I feel like crap doesn't mean you should go hungry.”

Sheepishly, Steve smiled and continued eating.  Bucky helped himself to a coffee and curled up on a bean bag, warming his hands around the mug.

“Not feeling great, huh?”

Bucky shrugged.

“That ever happen before?”  Steve kept a subtle eye on Bucky as he scooped up another forkful of eggs.  Or not so subtle, if the dirty look he got back was anything to go by.

“A few times.”  He wasn't even drinking the coffee, just holding it for comfort.

Steve didn't know if that was a good sign that he'd survived similar seizures before, or if it was worse that it wasn't a one-off.  “Anything I can do to help?”

Bucky gave him a long stare before replying, “You already did.”

A knock on the door fortunately interrupted the awkward moment between them.  Right now he regretted all the times he'd groused at Bucky not to coddle him when he'd been unwell back before the war.

Sam nodded at him as he passed through the door, his eyes clearly searching for and finding Bucky.

“You want some breakfast?”

“I could eat a second one for sure.”  Sam grabbed a plate and piled a few things on it, then turned to the huddled figure in the corner.  “How are you doing?”

Bucky raised his metal hand from the mug and gave a so-so gesture.

“That good, huh?”  Sam fairly drowned a couple of pancakes in syrup, then added a couple of pieces of bacon.  “You know, seizures can happen for all sorts of reasons.  Some are fairly benign, others not so much.  It's not exactly my area of expertise, but there are VA doctors I could get you in with for a checkup.”

At the word ‘doctors’, Bucky visibly tensed.

“Yeah, I had a feeling that might be your feelings on that.  Guess you've had enough of the white coat parade for a lifetime or two.”  Sam took a mouthful of pancake and gave Steve a thumbs up.  “Thanks for these, man, they're great.”  Turning back to Bucky, he continued, “There is one more option.  Tony told me to pass on an offer to help with any recovery you might need.  I think your little episode with JARVIS last month really got to him.  Fairly sure that would cover any medical expenses.  Or Bruce might be able to offer some advice.”

Bucky just stared at his mug.

Taking a slightly different tack, Sam gently asked, “Do you have any idea when they started?”  

Steve cleaned the last morsels from his plate and watched as Sam gave Bucky plenty of space to answer.  After a minute or two of their quiet munching, Bucky finally took a sip of his probably now cold coffee before answering.  “I’m…not sure.  When it…it's a bit like being back there, you know?  In the Chair.  I think…I think…maybe it happened sometimes, after.  Those memories are particularly…disordered.  It's hard to tell.”

Steve held his breath.  That was probably the most he'd heard Bucky talk about his treatment under Hydra.

Sam swallowed his food, then prompted, “And since you've been on your own?”

Bucky nodded.  “A few times.  More in the beginning.  Right after I got out, I was sick…a lot, and the shakes kept coming.”  He shrugged.  “Haven't had one for a while.”

Steve felt hope creeping back in.  “So, it's getting better?”

Sam shrugged.  “I'm no MD.  I don't think it's always as simple as that though.  Do you get a warning?  An aura?”

Bucky looked first confused, then thoughtful.  “Maybe.  Enough to get out of sight.”

That thought tugged at Steve's heart.  Bucky's first instinct was to hide when he was vulnerable, not get help, or make himself more comfortable.  He fixed a stern look on his face.  “You feel another one coming, you call me.  Or come here like this time.  No matter what, okay?”

Sam was a bit softer about it.  “Getting yourself someplace safe is the priority.  And I don't mean out of sight.  I mean lying down somewhere you're not gonna fall off – no rooftops! – with nothing nearby you could hurt yourself on.  Serum or no, a head injury is better avoided.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“So, what was so urgent you had to get off to last night?  If you're still feeling it now, you can't have been that recovered.”  Steve wanted to know that too, but hadn't wanted to risk being rebuffed by Bucky refusing to answer.

“Work.”

Steve stared incredulously at Bucky.  “Work?!  What work were you doing that was worth turning up for after that?!”

Angry gray eyes glared back at him over the cold coffee mug.  “Said I would be there.  So I was.”

Steve glared back.  “Bucky, it's not the Depression anymore.  You don't have to work when you're sick.”  He'd always hated when Bucky went off to work when he couldn't, even more so when Bucky was full of flu but went in anyway or else he'd lose his job.

Sam just shook his head and munched some more pancakes.  “What's done is done.  Not that I'm not mighty curious what you've been up to.”  He squinted out of the window.  “Well, while you’re here, you can take it easy.  What do you fancy?  A cozy movie, or maybe taking in the sun on the roof?”

Bucky grimaced at the TV.  “Too loud.  But…”

“What, Buck?”  Steve grasped at the tiny morsel of hope Bucky was offering.

“Could you…read me a story?”

Steve generally didn't try to talk about Hydra with Bucky.  Wary of bringing up bad memories, setting him back in his progress.  He knew, of course, that he wouldn't stop chasing them down, any more than Steve himself would.  Still it was a shock to hear about it from Tony, of all people.

“...tracking them way better than we could.  Of course the spies are sore about it, but what can you do?”  Tony grinned unapologetically.  “He passed JARVIS a shitton of data on their movements.  Rumlow's really gone down in the world; associating with drug cartels and gun runners.  Even gotten himself in trouble with some tenacious locals in Africa.  Seems he was maybe looking for some vibranium, same as Ultron, so you'd better watch that shield.”

“You know where Rumlow is?”  Of course Bucky would recognise him.  He'd been right there in the vault in DC; if he remembered anything, he would surely remember Rumlow’s ratty face.  Enough to hunt him down with the rest of Hydra anyway.

“Not yet.  But we will.  Either the spies will, or Barnes will, or maybe even the Wakandans will.  He's gonna show up sometime.  He's not the type to disappear.”

“And in the meantime I'm just supposed to…what?  Wait patiently for something awful to happen?”

“Maybe.  ‘Cause, you know, Hydra aren't the only ones painting targets on our backs.”  Tony brings up a few headshots on his holograms.  “These guys.  The World Security Council.  The UN.  Not exactly happy right now.  They've got their sights set on anyone enhanced after the raid on the Raft.  If we don't pony up and play nice?  They'll put us in it next.  All they need is an excuse.”

Steve stared at the faces in front of him.  “How exactly do they want us to ‘play nice’?”

“Not making a mess tearing through countries to find Rumlow would be a start.”  Now Tony changed the display to a number of Hydra bases they'd raided in the last year or so, and a few he didn't recognize.  “Between us, the mess left behind when we take on Hydra is starting to make waves.  Countries don't feel like we ought to have jurisdiction in their territory, not unless we're invited in.”

“Surely they wouldn't rather have Hydra working under their noses?”

“They want us to ask permission first.  Or at least that's what these papers say they're gonna try and do if we make any more messes.”

Steve shot him an exasperated look.  “I've always been more of an ‘ask forgiveness’ kinda guy.”

“No kidding?  I don't think we ever noticed.”  Without even looking Steve could hear Tony's eyes rolling.  “All I'm saying is we gotta watch our step.  If you want your buddy to come in out of the cold and get his life back, he's gonna have to face the courts to do it.  Work with the system.  Someone's gonna bring up what he did for Hydra and they’re gonna fight dirty, but I'll do everything I can to make sure he gets a fair go.  These new laws get passed?  He'll be a sitting duck.  No due process, no trial, just go to jail, directly to jail, without passing GO.”

Steve's guts went cold.  Not that it's a huge shock that Bucky could be held accountable for the actions of the Winter Soldier given there were warrants issued, but he figured they'd cross that bridge when they came to it.  At least get a chance to argue his case when it finally came to it.  “I can't just do nothing.”

“Not my style either.”  This time the holograms changed to some complicated looking graphs.  “Those code words are a problem.  Right now he’s a ready-made soldier-for-kidnap, and we gotta fix that.”

“Agreed.”  Steve flicked his gaze between the incomprehensible holograms and Tony's face.  “Any ideas how?”

“A few.  Well, at least one.  BARF.”  Tony waved a hand at the holograms as if they explained everything.

After Bucky's recent explanation of his time shortly after escaping Hydra, Steve was pretty sure barfing had already happened and hadn’t fixed the problem, so he was none the wiser.  “Er, barf?”

“Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing.  It's like therapy on steroids.  I mean, there are no guarantees, it's not like I have another test subject, but as a first approximation to a solution, it's gotta be worth a try, right?”

Still baffled, Steve asked, “What does it…do?”

Tony grinned and picked up a pair of glasses from the table, and a small button that he stuck behind his ear while waving away the complicated hologram.  Confused as ever, Steve just watched as, after putting the glasses on, Tony stared into the far side of the room, and a new hologram came to life.

In front of him was a space whale, like the ones they fought in New York, only it was dead and hanging suspended from a ceiling like some sort of grotesque hunting prize.  Below tables filled with bizarre looking contraptions surround a holographic Tony.  Then the whale came to life and the room dissolved into the dark of space.  “Tony, I don't…”

“This is a sample nightmare I acquired, courtesy of Miss Maximoff.”  Tony gestured around them as the floor resolved into a rocky surface, littered with the bodies of their teammates.  “But, with BARF, I can change it.  Play it out differently.”  The space whale reappeared above them, but as he looked down the bodies were no longer there, instead a ring of iron man suits defended and fought alongside the Avengers.  After a few seconds, Tony waved a hand through the hologram and it faded.

“You can change a memory?”

“Not change; replay, rework, reframe to change its impact.  I can't actually change the past, this isn't a time machine.”  Tony scoffed.  “Physics doesn't actually work like that.  This is just a way to look at it differently.”

Steve took a deep breath.  This could be huge, if he could get Bucky to cooperate.  After his reluctance to see a doctor about the seizures, he couldn't see him allowing anything to mess with his mind.  “This is amazing Tony.  And I agree that we have to try something for the codewords.  But I can't make him do this if he doesn't want to.  After everything Hydra put him through?  He won't even hear the word doctor.  I don't think he'll go for some experiment on his memory.”

“You can at least give him the option.  Maybe he needs this enough to make it worth it.”

“Sure thing, Tony.”  Steve gazed with a sense of wonder at Tony's creation.  “And thanks.  Even if he won't do it.  Thank you.”

Poking through JARVIS’ files on Rumlow and Maximoff, Steve was shocked by just how much work Bucky had clearly been putting in on this trail.  Alone.

He could see the annotations on Nat’s notes that had to have been added later, and around these, completely separate notes for parts of Bucky’s travels that Nat hadn’t even found.  She was going to be kicking herself for that.

Adding up all the locations over the last couple of months, Bucky must have been putting in a lot of hours on this.  Plus whatever job he was holding down.  No wonder he’d looked so exhausted, he must be wearing himself thin.  Well, it wasn’t like he was a stranger to overworking himself.

In Africa it looked like Bucky had noticed the delegations from Wakanda that were making some noise about an attack on their sovereign territory, with loss of life and also theft of state property listed in the damages.  No wonder they were pissed.  They clearly knew who they were hunting; multiple warrants for arrest had been issued, and Bucky had noted their presence on the trail left behind, but the trail was fragmented.  Nat hadn’t spotted them or Bucky.  But then she was only one person and couldn’t get about as quickly as Bucky could.

Steve sent a message to Nat, asking her to keep him in the loop - he’d fly out and help her if she needed more boots on the ground.  

Of course Bucky needed him here too.  Steve'd had him back for such a short time, and each visit is so precious.  Some days there were flashes of the old Bucky, moments of joy when Steve had hope that he can and will be healed.  On others it feels like the trust he'd regained is only paper-thin and Bucky could disappear on him again with a moment’s notice.

Steve sighed, shut it down, and went to find Bruce.

Bruce was making tea in a saucepan in a little kitchen on the lab level when Steve caught up with him.  “Oh, hey, want some?”

Steve sniffed, not recognizing the smell.  “What is that?”

“I'm making some masala chai.”  Bruce pulled another mug from the cupboard.  “It's good.  Spicy, but sweet and milky.  Good for most occasions.”  Deftly pouring a second cup and handing it to Steve, Bruce looked up at him.  “So, what do you need?”

Feeling guilty, Steve took the mug and sat down.  On the side of the mug there was a drawing of a cat sitting primly in a box and some equations he definitely didn't understand.  “I can't just want to say hi?”

“Not that it's not nice to see you, Steve, but you don't make a habit of casually dropping in.”

“Um.  Sorry.  I was…hoping to pick your brains.”

“It's okay, we're both busy people.  How can I help?”

Steve took a small sip of the chai, pleasantly surprised to find he liked it.  Looking up sheepishly at Bruce, he decided to cut straight to the chase.  “Bucky’s…not well.  Or at least, not always.  He won't see a doctor, though.”

Bruce grimaced.  “You know I'm not actually that kind of doctor?”

“Well in this case that might actually be a bonus.”  Steve sipped his chai again.  Wow that really was good.  “And you've already seen some of the files we have on what they did to him.  You have knowledge of the super soldier serum effects.  And I trust you.”

Bruce put his mug down carefully and looked Steve deliberately in the eye.  “But does he?  This is his medical information, shouldn't it be up to him who gets to see it?”

Steve frowned.  “He doesn't really know you, but he seems to trust the team.  And I'm not going to ask you to run any tests on him, not least because he'd run a mile, I only want to see if you can give any insight if the problem is likely something caused by Hydra's treatment of him, and if the serum might heal it.  Or if I need to work on convincing him to see an actual doctor.”

Bruce picked up his mug again and sipped his chai with a thoughtful frown.  His mug, Steve noticed, had writing on it, saying, ‘If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.’  “Anything I could give you would be guesswork.  The serum I worked on was not quite the same as yours and certainly not quite the same as whatever Hydra cooked up.”

“It's all guesswork.”  Steve sighed.  “He's fragile, clearly doesn't remember everything from before, probably not much better on his time with Hydra.  The notes aren't all that helpful either.”

Bruce closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose.  “I'll give you a hypothetical answer to a hypothetical question.  I can't promise more than that.”

Steve considered his question carefully.  “Okay.  Hypothetically, could the Winter Soldier regime of drugs, electroshock treatment and occasional brain surgery cause seizures more than a year afterwards?”

Bruce opened his eyes and stared at the wall behind Steve, who waited patiently for him to formulate a response.  “Is this a new symptom?”

Steve shook his head.  “Infrequent, we think, but yeah, it's happened before.”

“Drugs can cause seizures.  Brain surgery can cause seizures.  Brain injury can cause seizures, like hitting your head pretty hard.  ECT does cause seizures in situ, and can sometimes cause further seizures later in life.  So, pick your culprit.  Could the serum heal the cause of the seizures?  Probably, although how quickly it would is an impossible question.  Depends on what did the damage, what damage it did and how well the serum he got heals.  Of course there's also the fact that severe trauma and stress can cause seizures too, so, honestly, it's not all that surprising that they haven't gone away.”  Bruce took a long sip of his chai and fiddled with the handle of his mug.  

In the quiet that followed Bruce’s list of Bucky’s problems, Steve wondered if they could ever surmount them.

Bruce took pity on him and broke the silence first.  “Look, Steve, if he won’t come in to be looked at, there’s no way of knowing.  Even then, a lot of people with seizures never know what causes them.”  Looking at Steve he counted off on his fingers.  “Best things are to avoid alcohol and drugs, get plenty of sleep, eat healthily and avoid stress.  Medication can help but would be difficult in his case with the serum even if he was likely to be willing to take any.  If he can figure out what triggers them, like flashing lights, overstimulation, even particular foods can sometimes be a factor, then avoiding those triggers is his best course of action.”

Hadn’t Steve just been thinking earlier that Bucky had been working hard chasing after Hydra?  Working too hard?  He nodded at Bruce.  “Thanks.  That actually does help.”  Finishing his chai, he took the mug over to the sink to wash it up.  “Have you heard from Nat lately?  Tony seemed to think you might have been in touch.”

A small blush rose on Bruce’s cheeks, which he tried to hide behind his mug as he drained the last of his chai, and Steve lifted an eyebrow at him.  “Oh.  Um, yeah.  She’s in Africa still, but I think she’ll be back in another week or so, unless she finds anything useful soon.”  

Steve held out a hand for Bruce’s mug and washed that one up too.  “I’ll look forward to it.  I’ll let you get back to your work.”

“Thanks.  And, Steve?”  Bruce waited for Steve to turn to him as he stood up.  “Ask him about it.  If he thinks it’s getting better, that’s the best sign you can look for.  If it’s not, he can come and talk to me if he wants, but stress is only going to make it worse, so don’t pressure him.”

Steve squinted at the pile of dirty dishes sat on the kitchen counter.  Again, he had to squash down the urge to just go and wash them up.  He didn't think that self-restraint was actually the purpose of this exercise, but right now that was what it boiled down to.

Sighing, he tried again to capture the pile of dishes in his sketchbook.  The pattern of shadows from the light coming in through the kitchen window was proving more difficult than he expected.  None of his attempts so far really gave the right perspective.

Sam had persuaded him to take one of the drawing classes at the local college, to try and broaden (read: modernize) his repertoire.  Granted, he tended to stick to what he knew; old Brooklyn streets and people, both old friends and new.  Clearly that had been the right choice if a pile of dirty dishes was proving this troublesome.

Of course dirty dishes were hardly inspiring.  But that possibly was part of the point, given the title of the course: Drawing for mindfulness.

Looking at the result he groaned and reached for an eraser, the distraction in his mind evident in the drawing on the page.

“Need a hand with the dishes?”

Steve whipped round to find Bucky studying him from the back of the room.  He couldn't get used to how silently Bucky moved around these days.  It wasn't just the teleportation; even when he just snuck in Steve didn't always hear him.

“Ugh, I’m supposed to be drawing them.  Maybe they'd be easier to get right if I didn't have the feeling of my ma’s ladle on my knuckles just looking at a pile of dirty dishes that need washing.”

“She would’ve made you clean the stove as well if she caught you slouching off dish-duty.”

Steve held his breath for a moment, waiting to hear if there was more.  “You…you remember her?”

Bucky's face looked as surprised as Steve felt that those words had come out of his mouth.  “I guess so?  She…she had fair hair, like yours?  Wore it in curls, all pinned up at the back.  An apron with daffodils on it.”

Steve felt tears prick at his eyes.  “Yeah, that was her.”

Bucky shook his head.  “I don’t…there’s no context.  I don’t know where that came from, where it fits.”  

He looked so lost that Steve wanted to just wrap him up in a hug.  Abandoning the drawing of the dishes, Steve stood up and opened his arms, praying that Bucky would accept it.  He could count the number of embraces they’d shared in this century on one hand.  Two if you counted when they were grappling on the helicarrier and before on the highway, which Steve didn’t really.  “C’mere.”

It was a bit like allowing a wild animal to approach, waiting with his arms wide for Bucky to slot himself into them.  He felt warm, except for the metal arm.  Steve gently placed his arms around Bucky and just held him as he relaxed.

“Hey, can I ask you something?”

The response rumbled through his chest as Bucky didn't even raise his head.  “Mmm?”

“It's okay that I still call you Bucky, right?  I mean JARVIS calls you Barnes…and Sam noticed a while ago that it maybe upset you?”

Bucky pushed himself a little away from Steve.  Not like he was trying to escape, just giving himself some space, although he didn't look up as he spoke.  “It's…hard.  Loud and sharp in my head.  Overpowering.”

Steve felt guilt gnaw at him.  Had Bucky been hurting every time he used his name?  He had tried to avoid it, but sometimes it just slipped out.  Why would it have such an impact on him?  “I can stop, if you'd prefer.  I can't promise I won't forget sometimes, but I'd do it if it would make it easier on you.”

At this, Bucky did finally look up, with a small smile.  “I can't imagine you calling me anything else.”

Steve grinned and pulled away to go and tidy the dishes in the kitchen.  As he washed up and stacked them away, Bucky flicked through the pages of his sketchpad.  He heard a snort as Bucky paged backwards.

“Why is there a drawing of one of your combat boots in here?  And the inside of a fridge?”

Steve groaned.  “More assignments.  The teacher wants us to concentrate on mundane objects.  Things we overlook in day to day life.”  Boring things.

“Like dirty dishes?  And boots?”

“I think it's supposed to be almost meditative, concentrating on something inconsequential, except I just keep thinking how stupid it is.  Meaningless.  Art should have meaning.”

“Like all your stuff in there?”  Bucky nodded to the back room.

“Yeah.”

“So, draw what you want to draw.  Since when did you do what anyone told you to?”

Steve chuckled, and handed Bucky a full mug of coffee.  “Well, there’s that.”

They sat, comfortably sipping their steaming coffee, on the beanbag collection that was slowly growing in the corner between the couch and the window.  Sam had gifted him the first one after Bucky had repeatedly sat on the floor, but accepted the couch cushions as an alternative.  The first one had been a surprise, both to Steve and then clearly to Bucky with how noisy it was to sit on.  Sam had then found some alternative filling for it and another, made from shredded memory foam, that made sitting quieter, and Bucky had gravitated to them ever since.  Steve had found a couple more at flea markets so that Sam could sit with them down there and restuffed them with the foam.  And then Tony, having spotted the pile, had sent him an Iron Man-themed one to counter the stars and stripes that Sam had started off with.  Of course Nat also got in on the game and had dropped one into the pile with a red spider design all over it.  At least now they had plenty of comfy places to sit.

Of course thinking of Nat reminded Steve of the other thing he wanted to talk to Bucky about.

“So, Tony showed me some of the intel you gave him on Rumlow and Maximoff.”  Bucky quirked an eyebrow at him, but didn’t reply.  “You were chasing Rumlow even before he broke Maximoff out of the Raft.  Been putting a lot of work into finding him.  I’m guessing you knew him…before?”

Bucky looked away, studying the window.  Or possibly the sightlines out of the window.

Steve shifted, worried he might have strayed into uncomfortable territory.  “It’s okay, I don’t need details—”

“Handler.”  Handler?  Handler of wha—oh.  Oh.  Understanding dawned, and Steve’s blood boiled.  He had worked directly with one of the monsters that tormented Bucky.  Many times.  Awkward shuffling from Bucky on the beanbag brought Steve’s attention back from self-recrimination.  “Dangerous.”

“Yeah, they both are.”  Steve watched Bucky’s hunched shoulders carefully.  “And I want to help.  Doing all of this alone is gonna put you in danger.”

Steve was shocked as a fierce glare was turned his way.  “Supposed to be keeping you safe!”

Keeping him safe?  “What about keeping you safe?!”  Steve stared back into Bucky’s angry eyes.  “There is no way I’m losing you again.”

Bucky continued to glare at him for several minutes, before looking away and muttering, “Stupid.”

“Maybe.  You can’t take it all with you.  I’d prefer we keep our stupid together.”  Steve tried to catch Bucky’s eye, but he resolutely stared at the floor.  “Please, just, if you’re heading out to take them on, or even just tracking them, don’t go without me?  Let me help?”

Bucky closed his eyes and took a pained breath, letting it out slowly.  “You’d have to hitch a ride with me.  I won’t wait for your jet.  Usually have to hop about a bit to find a trail.”

Steve swallowed, remembering the queasy state of his stomach the previous time he traveled with Bucky.  “Fair warning.  I’ll cope.”

“I can’t talk you out of this, can I.”  Bucky’s shoulders slumped slightly and he drained the last of his mug before holding out a hand to ask for Steve’s.

He grinned back and handed Bucky his own empty mug.  “Nope.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Bucky stood up and took the mugs to the sink.  As he put them on the side and started running the water, an idea struck Steve and he jumped up.  “Wait!”

Bucky pulled his hands away from the sink as if stung, a frightened look on his face.

“Put them over here.”  Steve pointed to the counter in front of his sketchbook as he picked it up and turned to a fresh page.  “I still have my assignment to do.”  Two dirty mugs.  As boring and mundane as possible.  Except it had meaning.  Two mugs, because Bucky was here to share coffee with him.  That was something he could feel inspired to draw.

Chapter Text

Barnes grips tightly to Steve as he reaches for his apartment in Brooklyn.  On arrival, he stumbles, energy levels flagging but he refuses to let go of Steve, accidentally pulling him to the ground too.  

“Woah.”  Steve plants both hands on the floor, panting, as if trying to hold it still.

Closing his eyes, Barnes listens carefully to the whispers around them and is satisfied that there are no new or out of the ordinary signals nearby.  He does also push a message through to JARVIS, with the sum total of their intelligence from today’s exploration, on top of two trips last week, which is that Rumlow is no longer in Africa.  Or the Middle East.  Or Europe.

He lost count of the number of journeys they made today.  Steve lost his breakfast.  And his lunch.   And whatever might have been left in him after that is definitely gone too.  Barnes certainly underestimated the additional strain that taking a passenger would cause.  

They have found a lot of places that Rumlow or Maximoff had been in the last week. Clearly they had split up, Maximoff dragging the arms dealer, Klaue, around with her.  Maximoff has been leaving the more clumsy trail heading east out of Africa.  Unsurprising, as she isn’t exactly trained as a spy the way Rumlow is.  Still, she is moving fast and moving often, never staying anywhere for long.  That might have something to do with the musical whispers he has heard once or twice on her trail.  The whispers are looking for them too.

Rumlow has been more elusive, though it seems he headed north.  The trail led through Tunisia and Italy, then vanished.  Barnes has been taking them to other Hydra hotspots in nearby countries, widening the search until they got a hit in Denmark of all places.  Rumlow had already left by the time he caught it, but it looked like he was headed west, across the ocean, to Canada.

This trip has been especially gruelling, as he gets more desperate to know what the Handler is up to.

Slowly Steve sits up while Barnes stays limp on the floor.  “We should…”

Without even opening his eyes, Barnes cuts in, “Never move again?”

“I was thinking more that we ought to refuel, actually.”

Cracking open one eye he looks at the pale skin that is Steve’s face.  “You sure?  Not been that long since the last lot came back up.”  

“Ugh, don’t remind me.”  Steve bends forward to put his head back down on the floor, and Barnes’ stomach betrays him with a loud growl.  He looks sheepishly at Steve who rolls his head sideways to raise an eyebrow at him.  “You did do all the heavy lifting.”

Pulling on the whispers threaded through Steve’s apartment, Barnes puts an order in for pad thai, with all the sides the restaurant will deliver.  He watches lazily as Steve pushes himself up again and this time makes it to the kitchen to get some water, sipping it carefully.

By the time the food arrives, Steve is looking a more normal color, and Barnes has managed to sit up.  Wilson appears as Barnes drags himself to the coffee table where Steve has deposited the boxes.  

“How about I give you a hand?”  Wilson grabs bowls and cutlery from the kitchen and brings them over.  Barnes is almost tempted to growl at Wilson as he approaches the food.  “Woah, pal, I’m not gonna get between you and your chow.”

Barnes practically snatches a bowl and fills it quickly, retreating to the beanbags with a spoon.

Steve gathers his own bowl and plops down on another beanbag.   “Thanks Sam.  Don’t mind him.  We’ve been about a hundred different places today.  Seems like hungry work.”

“A hangry super soldier, huh.”  Barnes glares at Wilson, but keeps eating.

Wilson fills his own bowl and watches Steve picking slowly at his food.  “Travel-sickness not getting any better?”

“I think it is actually.  But, today was brutal.  Think we finally got a trail though.”

“So I hear.  And so did Nat - she’s in that neighborhood so JARVIS let her know.  Sounds like she’s going to do a little poking around.”

Barnes swallows his mouthful quickly.  “She better not scare him into going dark again.”

Steve sent him a withering look.  “Give her some credit.”

“You can’t do everything alone.”  Wilson cuts him off before he can object further.  “You took this dumbass with you on your trip, let someone else take the load for a bit.  You wear yourself out, that’s when mistakes are gonna get made.”

He certainly doesn’t have the energy to do anything about it right now.  Instead, he eats until he can’t stuff in any more.  Contemplates heading off to find a quiet hole to sleep in, but the thought of actually reaching for anywhere drains him.  Instead, he makes himself comfy on the beanbag.  Before he relaxes, he sends a look to Wilson.  “You’re on watch then.”  In return he gets a cocky two-finger salute before he closes his eyes.

He takes a day to keep his hand in with his various jobs.  It also has the benefit of giving Steve’s stomach a break.

Shifting crates uses vastly different muscles to yesterday’s strain.  This is mindless movement.  None of the crates are even that heavy, not for him anyway.  As he works, he lightly listens in to the whispers, keeping in touch with JARVIS in case there is any news of the Widow and the Handler.

He knows the red-head is competent.  She spotted him on Steve’s roof on his birthday, although granted he wasn’t actually trying too hard to stay hidden then.  That had been the point.  Still, he has seen her working, and she’s good.  He remembers her now.  He didn’t before.  A mission he had to work hard at, to keep up with her as she tried to protect his target.  Her efforts had cost him time and ammunition, but no more.  The Handler is good too.  Not on the level of the Soldier.  He shakes his head, trying not to fall into that way of thinking of himself.  It is hard when thinking of those memories.

He is nearing the end of the pile of crates when he hears it.  A distant melodic line in the whispers.

Hoping he is mistaken, he narrows his focus, listening in to the whispers more closely.  There.  Between the police radio calls, the relentless time-and-date from satellites above, the chatter of people going about their daily movements, is a set of whispers all singing together in harmony.  The hunters.  If they are here…

He wastes no time contacting JARVIS, to put the Avengers on alert.  Hydra, in a population center, could be a recipe for disaster.  Steve is still at home, with Wilson.  Stark is in the Tower, along with Banner.  Nat is already nearly back from tracing the Handler.  The trail she followed went cold once it crossed the border into the US.

Hurriedly, he moves the last two crates and takes his leave.  As soon as he’s out of sight, he reaches across the city, trying to get a better read on where the signals are coming from.  Brooklyn.  Making a quick stop to gather supplies, he listens carefully to the whispers, looking for evidence of the Handler or the Witch, but they must be fresh into the city, and hiding.  Slipping a pair of earplugs in helps slightly, dulling the ambient noise, while his head feels slightly dizzy from the effort of letting in such a volume of signals.  Cameras across the city, on businesses, traffic signals, personal cell phones, he scans them all as much as he can.  The melody of the foreign signals dances in his mind, fuzzy and difficult to pin down.

Strapping on armor, and adding a number of firearms to the weapons already attached to his body, he tries to think of any Hydra safehouses or sympathisers in the city he hasn’t already crossed off.  He reaches to several older ones in turn that he knows the Avengers are still watching, but finds nothing amiss.

There.  A fuzzy image of the Witch.  Only a few streets away from Steve.  The melodic whispers are nearby too.

JARVIS!  Tell Steve to get his gear on!   For good measure, he also pushes messages into both of the phones in the apartment with the location of the sighting.

He needs a good vantage point.  Fortunately he is intimately familiar with the rooftops in that part of town.  He reaches for a mid-level roof within sight of the apartment and the location of the Witch.  Instantly he is stunned by a symphony of whispers he can hear from above the street, clashing slightly with the noise of Wilson’s drone up above.  He can’t see anything and the drone can’t see anything, but there must be something there.

A signal flares to life behind him.  Barnes spins.  The Handler.  His words are indistinct to his ears through the earplugs, but he still recognizes the voice.  He is wearing his crude armor, except for the helmet, although it looks like he has upgraded it since Barnes has last seen him.  Clearly it had been powered down, waiting, quiet, and now it comes to life, screaming to him in a way he hasn’t heard since the fight at Strucker’s castle.  Barnes eyes the gauntlets and sees a blue glow gleaming between the seams.

The Handler’s voice rings through the whispers, loud and clear.  He’s here.  You take him, and I’ll get Cap.

Barnes winces and viciously squashes the signal, so he won’t hear that voice again.  JARVIS, keep Steve away from here!   He has little hope that Steve will actually be sensible, but he has to try.  Quickly, he raises a weapon and fires at the Handler, who raises an arm to deflect it, the other hand reaching to put on the helmet.  As it slips on, he sees the Handler’s mouth is moving, but he cannot hear the words.

There is no option for failure.

He advances, discarding the gun, and throws the metal fist at the Handler while his vision is impaired by the helmet.  The blow knocks him backwards but not off his feet.  Barnes follows it up with a kick which does.

Red smoke curls in at the edge of his vision as he moves to take advantage of his opponent, and he hears the code words sliding into his mind, in the Witch’s voice.  Желание.  Ржавый.  He flinches and stumbles, barely getting his feet underneath him.  Семнадцать.   Рассвет.  Печь.  He cannot shut this out.  The earplugs make no difference.  Девять.  Доброкачественный.   Возвращение на родину.  He cannot squash it.   Один.  Грузовой вагон.  

Fog descends on the mind.  “Я готов отвечать.”  The words are curiously muffled as he speaks them.  The fog inside his mind is red, and swirls in odd patterns.  The Asset waits for orders.

Fingers touch his ears and he holds perfectly still as they pull earplugs away, returning sound to the Asset. 

In front of him the armored figure of the ex-handler gets to its feet, talking as the Asset waits for orders from the red smoke, but his words are meaningless.  The Witch moves into his line of sight, hands raised, controlling the red smoke.  Beside her, the arms dealer appears.  She speaks, and the red smoke speaks with her voice.  “Where is Pietro?  Where is Stark keeping him?”

Pietro Maximoff.  The Witch’s twin brother.  He feels the smoke swirl inside his mind, watching.  Pietro was a Hydra volunteer, experimented on by Strucker.  A flicker of memory of surgical tables, scientists in white coats flashes through his mind, then is gone.  Pietro had been held in the Raft until the breakout, then was moved to a secure location.  “Unknown.”

The red smoke twists inside the mind, demanding answers.  Memories flash through his mind, of Stark, or JARVIS, of the Tower.  “Your mind is so…fractured.  The Colonel never said…”

The ex-handler laughs.  “Frankly it’s a surprise there’s much left of it.”

That voice prompts other memories to surface.  The cold.  The Chair.  The words.  The ex-handler.  Siberia.  The red smoke recoils in horror.  The Witch’s face pales as she stares at the ex-handler.  “What did you do?  I thought he was supposed to be—”

“Nothing it didn’t deserve.”  The ex-handler snarls at the Witch.  “What does it matter?  Didn’t you want something from it?  Stark has his claws in it now.”

Stark.  More memories flicker in the red smoke, of the Tower.  Of JARVIS.  The fog in his mind thickens with anger, squeezing his thoughts with desperation.  “You can access Stark’s database?  Find Pietro for me!”

Immediately he pulls on the whispers around him, noting the increased proximity of the strange signals above the street.  Familiarity allows him to find his way into Stark’s systems quickly, ignoring the queries from JARVIS as he searches for the required information.  Stark’s files come up empty.  There are references to the World Security Council facilities, but no specifics.  The red smoke vibrates with a frustrated shriek inside his mind.  He pulls on other threads to try and find a path to the World Security Council.

“Bucky!”  Steve.  The mind stutters, flashing confused images of Steve in different times and places through the red smoke.  Where is Pietro?  Where is Steve?  Who is he looking for?

The red smoke darts out suddenly, catching a disc-like object before it can strike the Witch.  The shield.  The arms dealer looks past him and raises his prosthetic, cocking the built-in shotgun.

The ex-handler swears.  Above him, he can hear the whispers of Wilson’s wing pack; to the side a grating familiar whine.  A blue flash streaks out from the ex-handler’s gauntlets, narrowly missing Wilson as he barrel-rolls away from it, dispersing on an invisible wall above.

The Asset dismisses the battle in the air, concentrating on the threat to the Witch.  He plucks the shield from the red smoke and flings it back at the assailant behind him who threw it.  Steve.  The shield feels familiar in his hand.

The red smoke in his head flares, the shield looming large in his memories.  The flight pattern as it ricochets between targets.  The colors blending as it spins in flight.

Movement to his side alerts him to Steve’s next attack on the Witch and he automatically plants his feet, twisting to meet it with the metal arm.  The arms dealer fires at Steve, who manages to raise the shield high enough to deflect, despite the metal fist in his gut.

The chorus of whispers above them changes key, as an aircraft shimmers and becomes visible, several figures dropping out from underneath it, holding spears.  Wilson banks to avoid them with a curse, still sending return fire toward the ex-handler, forcing him duck closer to the Asset.

It feels like a glitch, as Steve straightens, looking at him with pleading eyes.  “Bucky, come on, you have to remember!”  The red fog spins, disorientating him, as memories fight their way through it.  Steve, in a hundred different memories, speaking that word.  His name?  A memory of that name on his own lips, followed by excruciating pain bursts free, memories of punishments by handlers over the years following it, but they are strangled by the red fog.  The Witch gasps, staring at him.  The Asset shakes his head to try to clear it, and puts himself directly between Steve and the Witch.  He cannot lose focus.

A metallic sound comes from behind him.  Glancing over his shoulder, he sees the spears advancing on the arms dealer.  On the other side, the ex-handler is firing at Wilson above, and a black, masked figure, whose suit is absorbing the blue light.

“Wait!”  Red smoke explodes in all directions as the Witch throws up her hands, and the battle stills momentarily, even Wilson in the air above, the Asset freezes in place.  She turns to the ex-handler.  “You are despicable.”  The red smoke in his mind twists again, this time with a tinge of disgust, and the Asset follows her gaze and the red fog prompts him to move, pulling the helmet off the ex-handler, revealing his disfigured face and putting him into a choke hold.

The Witch holds her head up and speaks directly to Steve, who is grimacing, straining against the red smoke.  “I did not know.  The damage Hydra had done.  Still does.  I only want my brother.”

Around them, the stillness is no longer complete.  Voices clamor, the spears and the black suited figure shouting to be heard, but the red smoke tries to hold back the weapons as the arms dealer cringes back away from them, and Wilson manages to hurriedly land behind Steve as the red smoke releases his wings.

Steve steps closer to the Witch, and the Asset twitches.  With a glance at the Asset, Steve speaks to the Witch.  “You’re not doing your case any favors.  Let him go, and we can negotiate.”  He looks meaningfully at the spears.  “You’ve caused a lot of trouble.”

As the Witch glances uncertainly to either side of her, the spears shouting their objection to negotiating with a terrorist, escalating the noise and attracting Steve's attention, the Asset feels breath on his face.  The ex-handler has turned to face him within the choke hold.  “Желание.”  

The red smoke restrains him; he can only listen to the quiet words, audible to him even through the din around them.  “Ржавый.  Семнадцать.   Рассвет.  Печь.”  

Steve has raised placating hands, but one of the spears has managed to level the point of their weapon at the arms dealer. It is clear they cannot hear the words of the ex-handler.  “Девять.  Доброкачественный.  Возвращение на родину.”   

From the corner of his eye, the Asset spots the red-head approaching from the edge of the roof.  “Один.  Грузовой вагон.”  

The voices of the spears, the Witch and Steve all fade and blur into the background, and the red disappears from the fog inside his head.  The Asset releases the handler, heart racing in anticipation of punishment.  “Я готов отвечать.”

His words are louder than the handler’s.  Steve’s head whips round to look in horror at the Asset, but his focus is entirely on the handler.

The handler grasps his arm.  The Asset shivers at the unusual contact.  “Солдат.  Take me to Stark’s Tower.”

He reaches.

In the silent dark the handler clutches tightly to the Asset.  They arrive in Wilson’s suite.

It is dark.  Wilson is not here, but JARVIS is.  He hums beneath the fog in the Asset’s mind.

The handler coughs before looking around and making a beeline for the window.  He laughs, turning to the Asset with an unusual expression of glee on his burnt face.  “Always wondered what that felt like.  Probably better to do it now my nervous system's been rewired.”

The Asset waits as the handler inspects the suite.  “Get me into Stark's database.  Let's find where they've put all the gear they took from us.  Pierce's armory.  Open it all up.”

Tuning into the whispers, the Asset pulls on the links to the Department of Damage Control inventory and also the CIA and FBI evidence lockers, pushing it into the limited hologram capability of the suite.  Equipment lists and locations, as well as maps and security schematics all flash up slowly, the handler paging through them one by one, pulling out a communication device.

Barnes.  

The handler taps on a particular map, then activates the communication device.  “Open this one up, the team are nearby.”  The Asset pushes on the signals to deactivate the local security at the site, just as JARVIS pushes back.   Mr Stark has been alerted to your location.

The Asset tenses, recalibrating the metal arm and considering his options of armaments.  The handler looks up at the noise.  “Iron man incoming.”

“Figures he'd get in the way.”  The handler puts his helmet on.  “Go wake up the Hulk, that should distract him.  Then come back to me.”

The Hulk.  Dr Banner’s suite is only one floor up.  Checking the building personnel tracking though, he determines that his target is on the laboratory level, three floors down.

A quick reach puts the Asset in striking distance of Dr Banner.  Not too close, he’s only supposed to wake him up, after all.

The doctor is inside a glass-walled laboratory, racks of tiny containers of liquid in front of him, apparently prepped to go into the machine to the side.  Leaving no time for JARVIS to alert the target to his presence, he pulls a pistol from a holster on his thigh and shoots, accurately destroying the samples in front of the doctor’s face, sending shards of broken vial flying into his face.  The second bullet splinters the glass of the wall behind Banner as green streaks appear on his skin.  The Asset nods to himself.  Bulletproof glass.  He had suspected as much, and corroborates his decision to reach directly into the lab.

The Asset reaches for the spot just outside the splintered window.  Through the cracks, he can see the green spreading as Dr Banner’s form grows, tearing the white coat on his back.  He smashes the metal fist into the glass, propagating the cracks further across the wall and creating a small hole in the center of the spiderweb of broken lines.  Hulk roars in response and launches himself at the wall.

He runs.  The Asset is halfway to the stairs when the crash behind him signifies the Hulk tearing through the glass.

Three steps up, he reaches for the next flight up, far enough to be out of reach when Hulk smashes through the doorway from the hall, but not so far as to be out of sight.  He can hear the angry huffing as Hulk chases behind, crashing into walls, roaring a challenge ahead.  Still, he needs direction, so the Asset leaves a trail up through the Tower, towards Iron Man.

He is not hard to find, the armor singing in a slightly discordant trill, swooping in towards the handler.  The Asset feels a twinge, knowing the handler could be in danger, and makes sure that Hulk observes as he bursts into Wilson’s suite, taking position between the handler and the windows.  Just in time, as the Iron Man suit comes barreling in through them.  Glass shards fly through the room.  The Asset manages to protect his face with the metal arm, but the rest of him is pelted with the sharp, jagged pieces.   Hulk also suffers in the onslaught, emerging from the hallway into a face full of glass.  He roars and launches himself at the suit, dragging them both toward the now open window.

The handler chuckles, pocketing the communications device.  “Well at least your timing is good.”  Some of the glass shards can be seen penetrating between the edges of the handler’s armor, and the Asset fears a reprisal, but the handler barely seems to notice them.  “Oтлична Cолдат.  Hydra has what it needs to recover its property.  Take us home.”

A shiver runs down his spine, the words causing a twitch in his eye and the fog inside his mind stretches thinner.  The Asset grasps the handler as a blast from Iron Man knocks them both to the floor.  Hulk, however, isn’t done with the suit and flings it back into the wall of the suite.  Before any further damage can come to the handler, the Asset doesn’t stop to think and reaches.

Chapter Text

Between several of the spear-wielding women demanding to take Rumlow’s little group into custody, Wanda Maximoff protesting that she needs to see her brother and his own attempts to calm the whole situation, Steve couldn’t hear what Bucky said.  The blank look on his face, and the way his body turned toward Rumlow spoke volumes though. 

Again he was too late to save Bucky from Hydra’s clutches, and as they both disappeared in the now-familiar blue shadow he felt like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach.  Like he was back in the Alps, looking into the depths of a ravine from a moving train.

Clearly the spear-wielders were surprised by it, from the way the few spears that had been lowered suddenly were pointed in everybody’s faces again, including Steve and Sam’s.

“Woah, we want to find them at least as badly as you do, I promise.”  Steve looked pleadingly at Sam, who had a wing up between him and the spear pointed at him.

“Cap, I think he said the Tower.”  Steve’s mind raced.  They had gotten their warning through JARVIS, so hopefully Tony already had a head’s up that something was going down.  Sam was tapping on his gauntlet that controlled Redwing, but was also connected to JARVIS.

“We need to secure the prisoners, so no more escape.”  One of the women produced a pair of bracelets, clearly intending to cuff one or both of Maximoff and the man next to her surrounded by spears.  Come to think of it, Steve recognized that man from his and Bucky’s reconnaissance searches.  The South African arms dealer, Klaue.

“I think you’re a little out of your jurisdiction.”  Steve breathed a tiny sigh of relief at the sound of Nat’s voice.  “CIA are on their way, and I think their noses would be put a little out of joint if you stole away with Captain America’s prisoners.”

The guy in the black cat suit stepped forward, menacingly.  “These prisoners are wanted for crimes on Wakandan soil, against Wakandan people.”

“That’s as may be, but they are also terrorists on US soil, and part of an active investigation.”  Nat produced her own handcuffs, and proceeded to muscle into the circle of spears to disarm Klaue – literally – who didn’t put up much of a fight while he had a spear in his face and the Black Widow pulling apart his prosthetic.  Steve winced internally at the thought of someone doing that to Bucky, whose arm was arguably just as much a weapon.  Nat looked up at the black cat suit as she snapped the handcuffs on Klaue’s remaining arm to attach him to his own belt.  “If we work together, I’m sure negotiations can be made with the UN.”

The look on the woman’s face who was snapping her own bracelets onto Maximoff’s wrists said that negotiations were not what she really wanted.  But fortunately it seemed like the cat suit guy was in charge, as he took off his mask and the others relaxed.  Nat’s eyes widened ever so slightly when she saw his face.

Holding a hand up to the woman with the bracelets, cat suit guy said, “Maybe if we work together, we can also find the two that got away.”  

Steve bristled at the implication that Bucky was also on the run, but couldn’t deny that he wanted to get on with finding them.  “Sam, did you have anything from JARVIS?”

“Yeah, but it’s not good.”  Sam had lowered the wing along with the spears, but was still poking at his gauntlet display.  “There’s a code green at the Tower.”

“Rumlow’s not staying quiet then.  Are they still there?”

“My prince.”  One of the women tapped her beaded bracelet, and a hologram appeared above her hand, which she held up in front of the cat suit guy.  “Reports of a disturbance at Stark Tower.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at the title.  This guy was royalty?

Clearly Nat already knew the lay of the land.  “Your Highness, if the Hulk is out, there’s bound to be a disturbance.  And Stark will want backup.”  She looked at Steve meaningfully.  “They’re gonna need a lullaby.”

Right.  Bruce wouldn’t want the Hulk to make a mess in Midtown the way he did in Harlem before, and Nat’s lullaby was their best bet for preventing that.  “Go.  Let us know what’s going on as soon as you can.”

Nat nodded, passed custody of her prisoner to Sam and dashed back down off the roof, passing Sharon on her way up with a crowd of CIA agents, who immediately set off the spears into another standoff.

Steve chafed at having to deal with this mess when Bucky was out there, being manipulated cruelly by Rumlow.  Still, at least he knew Sharon and could vouch for her, and eventually the process of getting Maximoff and Klaue somewhere more secure got started, several of the spears insisting on accompanying the prisoners.  He looked over at the cat suit guy.  “Your…Highness?”

“I am Prince T’Challa of Wakanda.  I am also the Black Panther, protector of our country.”  He glanced at the departing convoy of prisoners and guards.  “And my task here is not yet complete.”

“You should know, one of the two we’re still looking for is actually a hostage.  It’s complicated, but—”

“Cap!”  Steve looked over at Sam who was clearly hearing something.  He really regretted now barreling out of his apartment without stopping to grab an earpiece.  He only had his shield, but at least Sam’s gear came with built-in communications.  “They’re not at the Tower anymore.  Stark’s a little busy to get much more than that right now.”

T’Challa held his hand up, much as one of the spear-wielding women had done earlier.  “Sister?  Did you have any success in tracking that signal?”

A new voice sounded, as a hologram of a young woman appeared above his hand, clearly busy looking at something out of view.  “Of course, Brother, what do you take me for?  The vibranium signal is still in New York.  Let me use the Talon’s sensors to triangulate.”

“Belay that, we got ‘em.”  Sam looked directly at Steve.  “JARVIS says they just arrived in your apartment.”

“Who is that?”  The young woman actually looked up.  “The signal is very close to you Brother, just across the street, the third floor.”

Steve straightened, looking across to his own apartment, but couldn’t see anything from here.   Of course, Tony had installed one-way glass in all of his windows back when they had thought someone was stalking him, along with JARVIS.  “Sam, can you get us straight in through the window?”  He started striding to the closest edge of the rooftop to the apartment.

“I can get your heavy ass across, but I ain’t gonna be able to take another passenger.”  Sam glanced back at T’Challa who was following.

“Don’t worry about me.”  He was affixing his helmet, and waved over two of the spears.  “We will cover the front exit.”

Sam immediately boosted his wing pack and grabbed Steve off the roof, accelerating towards the apartment.  Bringing the shield up, he braced for the impact, before they crashed into the window and rolled through the broken glass on the living room floor.  At that moment Steve was glad Mr Adams had already moved out of the building, as he would be sure to complain again about this intrusion.  And speaking of his other neighbors… “JARVIS sound the fire alarm, get everybody out of the building!”

Across the room, he could see Rumlow leaning heavily on the wall, Bucky stood blankly beside him.  Looking down, he could see a wet patch on the floor.  Was Rumlow injured?  It was difficult to see under that armor.  Then Steve took a deep breath in and recognized the acrid smell.  Smiling grimly, he remembered the sour feeling in his own stomach after he’d first traveled with Bucky.  Nice to know he wasn’t alone in his suffering.  Still, Rumlow clearly recovered quickly, jamming his helmet on over his scarred face, and an unpleasant whine started up, reminding Steve of various fights against Hydra over the years.  Rumlow’s gauntlets.  Steve gritted his teeth.  He didn’t know how Rumlow had managed to integrate Hydra weapons into his suit, where he’d even managed to recover the technology for them from.  It didn’t really matter right now.  Fortunately the shield was still up in front of him, as a blast hit him before he could do more than duck behind it.

Sam managed to keep his feet, being out of the direct line of fire, and attacked only for Bucky to step in front of Rumlow and deflect shots with his metal arm.  Looking closer, it looked like Bucky had already taken some damage in whatever battle had occurred in Stark Tower.  Blood dripped from him and Steve could see a few pieces of glass embedded in his clothes.

“No!  Bucky!”  Steve got his feet underneath him and charged, trying to get Bucky out of the way so that Sam could get a clear shot.

The metal hand gripped the edge of the shield as it impacted, pulling Steve off his line so that they tumbled together, rather than Steve pinning Bucky to the floor.

Rumlow fired again, but Sam managed to dodge it, his wing pack giving him just enough of a boost to get out of the way in time.

“Cолдат!”  Rumlow’s voice rang out clearly and Steve could feel Bucky flinch in response.  Bucky hooked a leg through Steve’s and flipped himself upright, on top of Steve, face turned to Rumlow in anticipation of an order.  “If I die, you are to terminate the Asset.”

Steve stared in horror as Bucky nodded, no emotion on his face.  He was barely able to deflect the next blow from the metal arm that came his way.

“Cap?”  Sam had a weapon trained on Rumlow, but was hesitating, questioning what to do next.  Steve couldn’t answer.

Seizing the moment, Rumlow spun and headed for the hallway, Bucky guarding his retreat and following.

“Bucky!”  Steve called desperately after him.  “Listen to me!  You know me.  You don't want to do this!”

Sam kept his weapon up and followed Steve to the doorway as soon as Bucky was out of sight.  “Any strategy for this?”

“Let me deal with Bucky, just don't kill Rumlow til he's either out or I can snap him out of it.”  Steve tore through the hallway, just catching a glance of Bucky before having to duck back behind the door jamb to avoid a bullet.

He could hear Sam mutter behind him, “If you can get near him.”

Shield first, Steve burst out into the stairs, hearing the clatter from below as Rumlow and Bucky clearly reached the lower floors.  He swung over the handrail to drop down faster and threw the shield down the well towards the lobby.  Without waiting to see if it landed, he bounded down the stairs, hearing a clang as the shield was deflected, probably by Bucky’s metal arm.  A blast of blue light blew out the next flight of stairs in front of him, and Steve had to hurriedly leap and reach for the next section.  Steve was slightly surprised that the return fire only came from Rumlow and not from Bucky, before hearing them crash out through the front door.

At the bottom, Steve didn't wait for Sam before running out into the street.

Outside, he immediately spotted Rumlow firing towards one of the spears on the other side of the street over a car stopped in the middle of the road.  The spear wielder appeared to have some kind of holographic shield?  Or at least that was what it looked like, but it was doing an effective job at stopping Rumlow's blasts.  In return her spear was emitting similar blue blasts back at him, which caused Steve to panic and look around for Bucky.  A second spear was getting up from the wreck of a parked car that she had apparently crashed into.

A thud against the wall of his apartment building drew his attention to where Bucky was wrestling with Prince T’Challa in his panther suit.  Wincing at the potential for a diplomatic incident, Steve threw himself between them, planting a foot against Bucky’s torso to kick him away from the Prince, while putting the shield directly in his line of sight.

Bucky rolled away and back up to his feet keeping himself between Rumlow and Steve and the Prince as Sam finally emerged from the building.

Steve stepped forward, holding the shield up in one hand and the other hand up in surrender, causing the Prince to look at him oddly.  “That's our hostage.”

T’Challa seemed unimpressed.  “He seems more hostile than hostage.”

“Just, please try not to kill him.  He's…not himself.”

Looking at Bucky, he could see his eyes casting around for threats.  He briefly followed his gaze to the roof behind him, noting a red and blue figure up there.  Trying to pull Bucky's attention back to him, he waved his shield.  “Remember this?  I know you do.  It's your mission.”

In front of him Bucky shook his head, but a look of confusion crossed his face.

Just then the second spear dodged past Bucky to put herself between him and the Prince.  This startled the confusion off his face and he pulled something from his belt, throwing it towards the pair of them.

Another holographic-looking shield appeared in front of them, but before it could hit, something from above, some kind of string, snagged the projectile and pulled it higher, up above the roof, where it exploded.  Looking up, the blue and red figure was leaning out from the roof, hanging over the street.  “Really hope nobody wanted that!”

Watching Sam fly up to the roof, he decided he could worry about whatever that was later.  Steve tried again to get Bucky's attention, even as behind him, Rumlow abandoned the now-burning car, kicking it in the direction of the spear on the far side, who had to dodge to avoid being squashed.  “Bucky.”  A twitch of the head was enough to show Steve that he was being heard.  What was it he'd said about that name?  That it was loud?  Well, now he needed it to be.  “Come on, pal, fight it.  Your mission is to protect the man with the shield, right?”

He held the shield up on his arm, watching as Bucky’s eyes skittered over the shield and up to Steve's face.

Rumlow marched back over to Bucky and growled out an order, “We're surrounded.  Get us out!”  But Bucky just shook his head again, like he was trying to clear his thoughts.

The spear shielding the Prince sent a shot at Rumlow and Bucky reflexively seemed to pull Rumlow behind himself, protecting him even in his confusion.  Steve shouted, “No!”, fearing that Rumlow's previous order might also still stand.

Rumlow sent a volley of shots in both directions, catching the far spear under her shield even as the Prince launched himself out from under the protection of the shield in front of him, and forcing Steve to dodge away from their position.

The attack on Rumlow never made it that far, as Bucky intercepted the Prince, the cat suit claws scratching at the metal arm, leaving deep scars on the shiny surface.

Steve took the opportunity to run at Rumlow himself while Bucky was occupied, shield up to catch the blasts aimed his way.  He got one good punch in before Rumlow started laughing, pulling Steve up short.  “You know, Cap, I always knew you had to be selfish under that do-gooder exterior.  The fact that you’d choose that over real people—”

Steve couldn’t help it, he automatically clocked Rumlow again, causing him to snap round, but the armor was stable enough that he didn’t fall.  He watched as Rumlow removed the helmet with difficulty owing to the dent on one side.  Through gritted teeth, Steve growled, “Don’t.”

“You know, I kind of hoped I’d run into you on this mission.  A chance to show you what we can really do with it.”

“I think I’ve seen enough, thanks.”  From the corner of his eye, he could see one of the spears approaching and Steve silently willed them not to get closer.  On the other side he heard a crash as Bucky and T’Challa separated and Bucky pulled himself to his feet, eyes tracking Rumlow.

“Cолдат!  You know what to do.”  Steve watched aghast as Rumlow winked at him, and clicked a button on his armor.

The spears threw themselves in front of Steve, holographic shield in front of them both, holding back the inferno caused by the explosives in Rumlow’s suit.  The half of the street in front of them was devastated, but Steve only had eyes for Bucky.  He whipped round and screamed as he saw Bucky’s flesh hand pull a pistol from a holster.  “Bucky!  No!”

His feet must have moved, but the street was a blur around him until he was right next to Bucky, wrestling the pistol away from him.  “You don’t…wanna…do this.”  They strained against each other, reminiscent of the battle for the chip in the helicarrier all the way back in DC.  The pistol slipped closer to Bucky’s face, and Steve could see his finger on the trigger.  “Please Bucky.”

Steve swung himself around behind Bucky, trying to hold his right arm down, but Bucky just managed to throw the pistol across to his left which swung up towards his face once more.  Before Steve could get there, a pair of black-armored hands appeared on the metal plates, preventing the pistol from reaching its destination.  T’Challa.

Now with backup, Steve could relax just enough to speak more fully.  “Buck, it’s not the end of the line yet.  You got that?  I’m with you to the end of the line, but we’re not there yet.”

He felt rather than saw Bucky freeze.  Steve didn’t want to take any chances, so took the opportunity to deliver a blow to the head to knock him out.  Nat said cognitive recalibration had worked on Clint.  He could only hope it would work here.

It was only once he felt Bucky go limp that Steve managed to look up at the scene around them.  One of the Wakandan spears was attending to the other who had clearly been hurt in the blast.  Sam and a masked red-and-blue figure were separately moving around the disaster area, checking for casualties, and a flood of CIA agents had appeared, along with sirens in the distance.

“He is your friend?”  Steve found T’Challa studying him and nodded.  He felt tears on his cheeks and wiped them away under the Prince’s careful scrutiny.  “I do not understand.”

“Honestly, neither do I.”  Steve shook his head, keeping hold of Bucky, in case he woke up.  “Hydra brainwashed him.  Implanted code words, which can put him under again any time they want.”

Just then Sam came over.  “He out?”  Steve confirmed this.  “Can’t believe they could do that to him.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t have anything on me that would hold him, but if you want him restrained in case he’s not back to himself when he wakes up, this guy has something that ought to do the trick.”

“Hi.”  The red-and-blue mask dropped in next to them, but Steve was too emotionally drained to even flinch.  “Friendly neighborhood Spiderman at your—well, not really your neighborhood, I guess, I’m a little off my usual beat today but it seemed like you could use a hand.  I hope you don’t mind?”

Steve just stared at Sam, dumbfounded.  There were almost too many words to parse.  “How old is this kid?”

“Not old enough to be in a fight like this.”  Sam shot a look at the masked figure.  Clearly they’d had some sort of conversation about this up on the roof.  “But he can be useful for the cleanup.”

“Yes!  I can totally be useful!  I already helped move some of the car wrecks so that the emergency services can get in, but I can help more.  Although the cops don't usually like me helping, so I might have to scoot if they try to arrest me again—”

“Again?”  Sam’s tone managed to get even more disapproving.

“Oh, er, well, they don't always take kindly to the mask, you know, but, well, I don't want my actual face out there either, so I usually try not to be there when they are.”

“Kid, just do us a favor and tie this super soldier up so he can't kill himself if he wakes up.”

“Is that likely?!”  Fortunately, the kid in the mask did at least seem to get the idea and started moving.  Steve watched curiously as he held an arm out and sprayed a strange white substance onto Bucky's arms, raising an eyebrow at Sam.

“Don't ask me, I just know I saw him use that stuff to keep a car from plowing into your little standoff here.  It should hold the bionic supersoldier.”

The kid did as asked, spraying some kind of white webbing onto Bucky’s hands to hold them together.  Steve tested the material once it was in place and, even giving it his all, it didn’t want to budge.  He gave a grudging nod to the kid, who saluted in return.  “Um, is there anything else you need me for?  Only, I don’t think those guys in suits are gonna be happy with me, and I kinda need to get back…”

Sam patted him on the shoulder.  “I think you’ve done enough.  But a name would be good, just so we can check in on you.”

At this, the kid shrugged off Sam’s hand and stepped back.  “Um, I’d rather not.  I know you guys are the good guys, but, well, I have a mask for a reason.”  He let out another strand of the webbing, high up to the edge of the next building, pulling back on it once it attached.

“You ever need a hand, give us a call, okay?  You’re a bit young to be doing this on your own.  Hell, I don't want to do this sort of thing on my own.”  Sam called after him as he swung up onto the roof.

“Sure thing, Mr Falcon!”

Steve was glad to see Sharon among the CIA agents organising the chaos.  He couldn't find the energy to do more than sit, guarding Bucky, watching the busy work around him until finally someone might tell him to move.

The Wakandans had retreated to their aircraft, which the CIA had stared at enviously, but also with trepidation as they considered what diplomatic lines their reports were going to cross.  T’Challa had stopped by before leaving, suggesting that they would be in touch soon.

Several CIA agents had fluttered around Steve, making noises about taking Bucky into custody.  After all, he had been in the fight, on the side of Hydra, oh and there was the small matter of him also being wanted for the mess in DC.  Steve had practically growled at the guy that mentioned that, preventing him from continuing as he clearly wanted to.  The name Winter Soldier was not so quietly muttered in their little huddles around the hazard tape they had strung up around the damaged street.

After a while Steve realised that Tony had turned up.  He was touched that, given the probable destruction at the Tower, he had found time to come over here.  Steve watched him confer with Sam, both of them trying to subtly look at him whilst also looking anywhere but at him.

Finally Tony came over and stood over him, hands in his pockets.  “Well, old man, this is some pickle you've got yourself in.”

“I can't let them take him in.  What if the programming isn't broken?  He already tried to kill himself on Rumlow's order and it took me and T’Challa working together to stop him.”  The undercurrent of fear still hadn't left him.

“Yeah, Pinnochio made quite an impression there.  I get the feeling Thundercat's on your side and that, Jiminy Cricket, is handing you a lot of leverage.”

Steve raised a questioning eyebrow at Tony.

“Everybody agrees that we need him off the street before he comes round.  Your place is covered in glass.  So is Wilson’s.  And Banner's lab.  Do Hydra own shares in glazing companies by any chance?”

“I have no idea.  Probably.”

“Anyway, despite many floors taking a bashing from the Green Meanie, I still have enough space to take you in.  Maybe not as homey as staying here, but backup would be on hand if you need it.”

“Thanks Tony.”  Steve looked up and saw a quinjet hovering above them.  He must be more out of it than he thought if he didn't notice that.  Still, it answered the question of how to move Bucky.  He nodded at Tony.  “Let's go.”

Chapter Text

The first thing he is aware of, is the whispers.  He can hear JARVIS.

The background mixture of signals is not unlike the chatter of technicians and equipment, so much so that he has the feeling something is missing.  He is not cold.

As he starts to move, he becomes aware of something restraining his movements.  The metal arm is strapped to the flesh one.  Instantly his eyes fly open and he tries to get his feet under him, the world spinning slightly.

“Woah.  Easy there.”  Steve.

Panic floods him.  Steve is also captive.  They will wipe him.  They will freeze him.  They will cut him open—

“Hey, hey!  It's okay, you're okay.”

No.  No it isn't.  He shakes his head, looking around at an unfamiliar room.  It is like Wilson's suite, but not.  

How did he get here?  There is a familiar blurry fog in his memories.  The melodic whispers were in Brooklyn…he had been looking for the Witch…the Handler was there.

The codewords.

His eyes land on Steve, whose face is set in a frown of worry.  They have to get out.  Before they can be used again.

He launches himself unsteadily at Steve, twisting at the last moment to get a hand on him, and finds a wrist to grab onto.  Only briefly stopping to think of a destination, he reaches for one of his stashes that he knows has some ear plugs in it.

Whatever is holding his arms together is strong.  He strains against it but can't make any headway.  Fortunately he is wearing his combat clothes and he can feel that he still has a knife in an inner sheath.  Twisting the metal arm to a degree that would not be possible with the flesh one, he can get his fingers on the hilt.  Within seconds he pulls it out and starts sawing at the surprisingly stubborn material, only to pull up short when he feels a hand on his wrist.

Belatedly he realises Steve is talking to him, his other hand worriedly reaching for the knife he is holding.

“…to me, pal, come on.  Please, Bucky.”

He stops sawing long enough to glare at Steve, but can't find any words to say.  Steve gives him an assessing look, releases his wrist and nods at the blade with his hand out.

He supposes it would be easier to saw through this stuff if your hands weren't tied together by it.  Grudgingly he hands over the knife and Steve slowly takes over cutting through the bindings.

As he does, he looks more at Bucky than at his task.  “I know you're scared.  Do you remember who I am?”

He snorts.  That is one thing he's still sure of.  Probably.

“Okay.  Do you remember what happened?”

“I…the Witch was there.  And the Handler.”  The fog is slippery in his mind, but some details are starting to get clearer.  The shield.  Broken glass.  The Hulk.  A man in black armor.  Steve’s face.  “How bad was it?”  He scans over Steve's body, but can't see any significant injuries.

Steve studies him for another moment before answering.  Bad, then.  “You're properly back to yourself?  No more orders lingering?”

The tiniest flicker of anger emerges, but he stomps it down into resignation.  “How am I to tell?  There's always orders lingering, Steve.  They're always there, in my head.”

He feels bad for his pity party when he sees the look on Steve's face.  Pieces of memory swim to him through the fog.  The Handler, stealing him away from the Witch.  Digging up Stark's files and laying them out on a platter for him.  Leading the Hulk into conflict with Stark.  The anger of the Handler at the Soldier’s interpretation of ‘home’.  Oh.  That order.

Part of him recoils in disgust at how easily he fell under their spell again.  Even without the Chair, all the Handler needed was the words and nothing had changed.  And now the Witch knows the words too.  They don't even need the book anymore.  How many other Hydra agents know them?

He has no defense.  He cannot stop them.

The flicker of anger roars to a flame inside him.  He refuses to be used again, the instrument of pain and suffering against so many.  His anger turns on Steve.  “Why didn't you just let the Soldier do it?  Let it be the end?  It would've been better.”

“No, Buck.  I can't believe that.”  Steve pulls the blade through the last section of the bindings and pulls Barnes round to look him in the face.  He tries his best to avoid those searching eyes.  “Letting you die would be letting Hydra win.  They've taken so much from you.  Don't let them take this too.”

His voice is small as the flame flickers out inside him.  “I…don't know if I can do that, Steve.  I can't get this stuff out.  It won't just go away.”

“No. I don't think it will.  But I know some pretty smart people who might be able to help.  If you let them.”   Steve may as well be a puppy dog from the look on his face.  Unfortunately Barnes is no more immune to it now than Bucky was in 1943.  Clearly Steve can see on his face when he gives in.  “Come back to the tower.  Stark has some ideas.”

He makes Steve wait another minute before slumping his shoulders in defeat.  One thing is non-negotiable though.  Before he can take them back, he rummages through his stash and pulls out the earplugs, jamming them deeply in his ears.  Steve’s mouth moves, but he can't hear the words that accompany the worried expression.  Satisfied, he nods at Steve, grabs his hand, and reaches.

The Tower is busy.  Below, he can hear the traffic of builders repairing the damage to the levels destroyed by the Hulk.  Barnes knows that the Soldier's actions were the cause and guilt squirms in his belly.

JARVIS is, of course, ever present in the Tower.  It is impossible for Barnes not to hear and know nearly everything that is going on.  As well as the builders, there are the usual comings and goings of Stark Industries.   But now an additional tension permeates the atmosphere.  UN officials come and speak with Stark, or Banner, or even Steve, at frequent intervals.  Colonel Rhodes has been in and out, along with the new Secretary of State (Barnes shivers every time the title reaches him).  Even the Wakandans, with their harmonious whispers, have appeared more than once.  The prince came as far as the suite where Barnes prowls in frustration, but mostly spoke to Steve.

Steve hovers.  He does disappear for some meetings elsewhere in the building, but mostly he hovers, barely letting Barnes out of his sight.  This behavior just contributes to Barnes’ feelings of being trapped.

Of course technically he isn't.  He can still reach anywhere he would like to go.  A few times he has succumbed to the overwhelming need to escape the crushing atmosphere, either to the roof if it's not too bad, or to the farmhouse or similarly deserted spots.  Every time he has returned to find Steve frantic with worry.

His face has been all over the news.  The Soldier was not wearing the Asset’s mask in the battle in Brooklyn and the media managed to get pictures in the aftermath.  While he could go, start afresh in a different country, his face is on watchlists now.  The metal arm was enough to identify him from DC and even a few older cases still on the files with MI6 and the CIA, or even the KGB or SVR.  Calls for his arrest have been colorful, although nobody has actually yet come to try and take him away.

Still, he sees a lot of Steve.  Wilson, too.

This morning there is a musical feel to the whispers of the Tower.  The Wakandans are back.  Barnes likes listening to them and their signals take his attention away from the stifling suite where Steve is intent on a laptop screen, signals grating in Barnes’ mind with the constant back and forth of messages.  Steve persuaded him to forgo having the earplugs in his ears all the time, but they are in his pocket.  Just in case.

A bright ping heralds Wilson’s arrival, interrupting his contemplation of the melodies.  Steve bounces up out of his seat with a glance at the clock, grabbing a handful of papers off the table next to him.  “Great timing, Sam.  I have to head out to the—”

“Yeah, I gotcha.”  Wilson nods at him as he heads over to the kitchen, depositing a small case on the counter on the way past.  “You go.  Tony thought it would be worth demonstrating this, but he’s gotta be there too, so I volunteered to give it a go.”

Steve nods and hustles past, giving Wilson a grateful look before disappearing into the elevator.

Barnes narrows his eyes at them.  For all their attempts to be subtle, they’re not very good at it.  He waits until Steve has left, watching Wilson make himself a coffee, before commenting, “I don’t need a babysitter you know.”

Wilson doesn’t turn around for a minute, stirring the coffee that today he has added two sugars to, before finally answering.  “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you do either.  But look at it from his point of view for a second.  Only a couple of days ago you nearly killed yourself, on the orders of Hydra, then suggested that you thought it was a good idea.  It might be news to you, but he really doesn’t want to lose you again.”

He knows that.  He does.  But any way he looks at it, Steve’s life would have been simpler if Barnes had just stayed dead.  If he’d been properly dead in the first place, instead of the imitation of life Hydra had brought him back to.  A reanimated corpse that didn’t know its time was already up.  Barnes shakes his head to clear the morbid thoughts.  Too long stuck in this suite, not doing anything, is really getting to him.  It has only been a few days, but it’s already given him too much time to think.

“You know, it's not exactly unheard of for veterans to take their own lives.  There are some really depressing statistics.  I know your situation is a bit different—” Barnes side-eyes him, suppressing a snort, “but in the fundamentals it's actually not that different.  We gotta find you some hope.  A way forward.  A light at the end of a very long tunnel.”

He takes a sip of his coffee and moves out of the kitchen, picking up the case and bringing it to where Barnes is lounging on the beanbags.  The case is whispering strangely, quietly.  Whatever is in it, must be mostly powered down, but still it is in contact with JARVIS, mostly sending a lot of nothing in its signals.  “Is that what that is supposed to be?  Hope?”

“Maybe.”  Wilson doesn't open the case yet, just sipping his coffee and looking out of the window.  “Tony thinks it could be.  But this is only part of the puzzle.”

Unwillingly, he is curious.  “So, what is it?”

Wilson slurps his coffee again, before placing a hand on the case.  “For today, this is only for me.  You need to see it, before you can make a decision if you want to use it.”

He opens the case, revealing a pair of glasses with a small button attached to the arm.  Barnes squints at it, thinking it looks a lot like a surveillance mic.  He's planted enough of them to be familiar, but it doesn't sound like a mic.  Alongside these, are several small devices that Wilson deposits at the edges of the room.

“Tony calls it BARF.  Don't ask me how it works.  That's some genius-level shit I can't get into.  The dumbed down version I got was that it hooks up to signals in your brain and lets you view memories as holograms, but also allows you to change them, play them out differently.”

Barnes felt his throat go dry.  This thing would connect to his brain?  A prickle crept round the back of his head, where the electrodes for the Chair would sit, making him itch.  Running his hand through his hair helps to chase away their ghosts a little, but he still feels uncomfortable.

“I thought you might feel like that.”  Wilson is watching him closely, still sipping his coffee.  “This is why I wanted to talk you through it first.  And it will be me putting it on, not you, unless you want to try it.”

“You would do that?”

“Tony’s already tested it himself plenty of times.  I’m not worried.  But I can see why you might be.”  

Barnes frowns at that, not liking that Wilson thinks he’s vulnerable.  Despite the crawling sensation on the back of his neck, he gestures at the case and its contents.  “Show me then.”

Wilson takes a last slow slurp of his coffee, his eyes on Barnes, before putting his mug down and picking up the glasses out of the case.  As he touches them, the whispers get busier, although they still mostly contain a lot of nothing, and along the arms of the glasses lights start blinking.  Pausing with the glasses part way to his face, Wilson stares into the distance before looking back at Barnes and nodding.

As soon as the glasses slip into place, the whispers that were full of nothing are suddenly full of strange signals.  They seem less…coherent than most, almost dizzying in the way they flicker, changing all the time.  Barnes winces and then an answering stream of signals from JARVIS to the devices around the room adds to the noise.  They light up, and holograms start to appear around them.

Amid the noise, it takes Barnes a minute to truly recognise what he is seeing.  “Are these…?”

Wilson grins at him.  “From the Smithsonian Butterfly Pavilion, yup.”  Fluttering shapes of many different colours drift around the room, as the walls disappear behind images of blooming flowers.  “I made a special trip after you said you liked it.”

Barnes watches the butterflies on their chaotic journeys around the room.  The motion feels just as peaceful as the real thing, except for the underlying back and forth of whispers.  Jarring notes seem to catch him off guard all the time and he tries desperately not to listen.  “So, impressive as this is, how is it supposed to help?”

“It’s not just about replaying the memory.  It’s about looking at it from the outside and even changing it to play out different scenarios.  Tony made it to be a therapy tool, but in your case we're hoping to be able to find the root of those triggers.  And then maybe we can stop them working.”  The butterflies around them start to move in a less chaotic fashion, moving together in patterns.  Patterns that he can hear in the whispers.  Looking more closely, despite the bone-jarring feeling when he does, Barnes can see patterns within the patterns.  Like the way when you look closer at a snowflake, more detailed patterns emerge.

After some time, the patterns seem to coalesce, until he can see what the butterflies are going to do before the holograms change.  He stares in mounting horror, feeling like he is peeling away the layers of Wilson’s brain, laying it bare and open, trembling in front of him.  It must show on his face because he can feel the change in the patterns as Wilson's face creases in worry.  The notes of concern in the patterns before Wilson opens his mouth to speak, “It’s okay, it's not real.”

“Stop.”  He isn't even sure if the sound makes it out of his mouth, the whispers are so much louder than his own voice.

He cannot even squash the connection, because that is Wilson's mind, what damage could be done if he squashed it?

Without conscious thought, his arms move over his face, trying futilely to block out the signals, hands over his ears for all the good that will do him.  He can still see the patterns.

All of a sudden, they cut off.

He remains in his protective huddle until his mind stops spinning.  However long that takes.  When he finally lowers his arms and raises his head, Wilson has put away the glasses and is crouching carefully, worriedly in front of him.

“Breathe.  Come on, breathe.”  Oh.  He hasn't realized that he isn't.

“Barnes you have to breathe.”  He tries.  A pitiful amount of air gets into his lungs, but Wilson's shoulders drop at least an inch.

“That's it.  Another one, longer this time.”  Barnes tries to focus only on the words, and his own breathing, finding his lungs slowly loosen as he refuses to think about what might be going on behind those words.

To distract himself, he listens more to the whispers outside of this room than inside it.  There is a rhythm to the whispers high above, where the Wakandans are.  Following it, he gets his lungs to cooperate and breathe more easily.

“You okay there?”  Wilson's voice drags his attention back to the suite, but he can still hear the rhythm.

“Peachy.”  He can't look Wilson in the eye, not after nearly squashing the man’s thoughts.  “Sorry.”

“You don't have to be sorry.  I have to admit I was hoping it'd be easier, but for your sake, not mine.”

“No, not that.”  Barnes doesn't really want to explain it and shakes his head.  Fortunately Wilson seems happy to let it go.

“Okay.  You want anything?”  Wilson picks up his own cold half-empty mug suggestively.

A warm drink might be soothing.  “Yeah.  One of Steve's chai teas?”

A nod and Wilson disappears over to the kitchen.  Barnes stares out of the window at the autumn sunshine.  Somehow the bright colors seem to contrast the gloom of his mood, almost oppressively unobtainable.  He lets his mind drift again into the rhythms of the whispers.

The red-head shows up in the suite as they are getting some lunch.  Barnes isn't actually very hungry, but going through the motions of three meals at least gives the day some structure.

As he picks at food he can see the glances shared between her and Wilson.  A whole near-silent conversation that they presumably believe he can't see.

It isn't until Wilson takes the dishes back to the kitchen that she makes her move.

“You know, a group of Hydra grunts tried to raid the DoDC storage yesterday.  They went exactly where you said they might.”

He looks up at her, fearing the conclusion to her story.

“They weren't anything special.  Clint and I tagged along, but Sharon had it covered.  Said thanks for the tip though.”

Barnes nods slowly.  It seemed too good to be true to think that Hydra might actually be on its last legs.  All the work he, Steve, Stark, and even the red-head and the spies had been doing might have finally cut off the last heads.

“Doesn't feel real, does it?”  She's looking at him, even though she's facing away.  He knows she is.  “Being free of them.”

He huffs.  “I'm not.”

“You're a lot freer than the soldier I met on the streets of DC.”

“Not hard to be.”  He thinks back to that fight.  Nothing but the mission existed for him and then Steve rolled in.