Chapter Text
Tony navigated through the corridors and hallways to the lower levels of the castle, meeting up with Thor and the Hulk. He looked around for his other teammates. Not seeing them, he asked:
"Have either of you seen Hank or Jan?"
As if to answer his question, a sound was heard from behind him, coming from an adjacent room. His other two teammates flew back into the area he was in.
"Here!" came the sound of Jan's energetic, cheerful voice. Her bug wings buzzed as she approached them. Hank was close behind. He had transformed to his full size, and was carrying a thumb-drive in his hand.
"I managed to pack all of their files into a drive. Once SHIELD gets here to clear this place out, we should be done."
"Great." Tony said, "I had an interesting encounter with a teenage prisoner in the lower detention blocks. I think he might need some serious psych-eval."
"I'm not surprised." Hank frowned. "I was able to skim through some of the experiments. They have some in here that have come out of suspended animation. I'm not sure how long they've been here."
This hit Tony like a truck. "Suspended animation...?" It suddenly clicked. "Hank, can you send me a copy of the prisoner data files? I need to look at something."
"Of course." Hank responded. "What's up?"
"Just a hunch."
"Alright. I'll have to make a copy for SHIELD too. I already know that they're going to want this info as well."
Tony nodded. He understood that Fury had a job to do, and his organization would be the one clearing out all of the Hydra soldiers. Still, sometimes he wondered why he had to have his hands in everything. But, if this kid was actually Bucky, they had a lot of explaining to do, and Tony wasn't sure he wanted SHIELD to be the ones handling that.
"Speak of the devil..." Hank interjected on Tony's thoughts. They listened and heard the sounds of SHIELD jets making their way onto the site.
"Hank, you might want to go ahead and make those copies." Tony suggested.
"Heard." Hank responded. He shrunk down and fled the scene on a winged ant. He made his way through the wooded area, flitting to and fro between trees toward the jet. Within minutes, he was in a clearing where the jet rested. A gathering of the prisoners had formed around a makeshift campsite outside the ship.
Hank landed, returning to normal size. He walked into the ship to find one of the prisoners still onboard. It was a teenage boy with brown, tousled hair. Hank wondered whether this was the same teenager that Tony was talking about.
The kid had various scars that Hank could see on his exposed lower legs where his pants were rolled up. Hank also took note of a metal hand, or likely a metal arm under his left sleeve, and a ring around his neck. This kid looked like he'd been through it. He was leaning back, resting his head on the seat behind him. His worn face held an expression of confusion and a deep seated dread. He was staring into open air, seeming to be deep in thought.
Hank walked past the kid, toward the jet's computer. It was a mini version of what they had in the assembly room back at HQ. As he passed, the kid looked up, watching him absent-mindedly. Hank found this almost disconcerting.
Plugging the thumb-drive into the computer, he began to copy the files down to a new drive. This one, he intended to give to Fury. He then sorted the files on the computer into prisoners, experiments, and workers/soldiers. He created new folders and rearranged his findings into categories.
He happened to glance behind him, and gasped, double-taking. He faced the teen from the seat, who happened to sneak up on him. He seemed to be looking in on what Hank was doing.
"S-sorry." the boy said, backing up. From the angle that Hank now had, he could see there was a scar running down his face, barely touching his right eyelid. His eyes still had a haunted look in them.
"It's...alright." Hank reassured him. "You just startled me. That's all."
"So, what are you doing?" the kid asked.
Hank straightened up. "Just looking through the files I got from the Hydra base. I have to make some copies to send to SHIELD."
"Files?" His eyes seemed to light up ever so slightly. "You mean all of the information they had in the base?"
"Yes. Well, most of it." Hank wondered where this was going.
"Did...they have anything on me?" he asked hesitantly.
Hank was starting to get the picture. "I can look." He turned back to look at the computer, and clicked the file labelled 'prisoners'. "What's your name, buddy?"
The kid, once again, hesitated. "Bucky." He didn't seem confident in that.
Hank went on that name and found a file with that key word. He opened it, finding a full profile on this kid. It read:
Name: James Buchanon "Bucky" Barnes
Age: 17-19 years
Sex: Male
PN: 0001
Condition: Subject has 11 lacerations on the left leg and 5 on the right, and 16 on the right arm, and 1 on the face. Subject is missing the left arm. There was significant damage to the neck, resulting in it being half severed. Subject was taken out of suspended animation on the third of May 2024. Has made several escape attempts. Subject has affiliations with Geoffery Worthington Vandergill, Percival Aloysius O'Toole (Knuckles), and [REDACTED].
There was more, but both of them had stopped reading.
The kid, 'Bucky', stared at the file, his face as white as a sheet of paper. His hand drifted to his throat, feeling the metal ring around it.
"Half...severed...?" He looked like he might faint. He staggered back, and Hank moved to catch him.
"Hey, stay with me kid." he said as he guided Bucky to a seat. He sat down next to the kid, a hand on his back as the boy hunched over, head in his hands and breathing shakily.
"Half severed..." he repeated.
"Bucky?!" Another teenager appeared in the doorway of the jet. He rushed over to his friend.
Bucky lifted his head. "Jeff..."
The blond boy took a seat on Bucky's other side. "Are you alright?" he asked, "What happened?" He directed his question at Hank.
The man explained: "His file." he said, gesturing to the computer, "It says...his neck was..."
"Half severed." Bucky finished for him. He looked into Jeff's eyes. Jeff looked back into his, horror embedded in his expression.
"You were..."
"Dead...'' Hank looked at Bucky with pity in his eyes. "You were dead."
Bucky's head sunk back into his hands, his eyes listlessly gazing into the ground. His breaths came out shaky, and he shivered, maybe from the cold, and maybe from the revelation.
Another boy staggered in. He was a bit on the shorter side. His hair was red, and it looked disheveled. He stumbled in on unsteady legs and sat next to Jeff. Hank wondered if there were any more of them. But the file did only mention the two, not counting the redacted name.
"Bucky?" Jeff had his hand on Bucky's shoulder. Bucky didn't respond. "Bucky, Knucks is here." Still nothing. He seemed to be in a sort of trance-like state, not unlike the one that Knucks had found himself in earlier. His eyes were staring abysmally into the floor.
It was then that Tony arrived. He walked in to see the four of them seated where they were, Bucky with his head in his hands. Immediately, he knew exactly what was going on. He approached Bucky and knelt in front of him, lowering his visor again.
"Kid, you alright?" he said, trying to get his attention.
"I told you..." he suddenly looked up into Tony's unmasked gaze. "I am..." He looked over at the computer.
Tony got up and walked toward the computer. The file was still up. He read the details, skimming over certain things and reading the important parts. Wordless, he looked back at the boy, who was leaning on the blond kid next to him. Judging by the file, his name was either Jefferson, Percival or REDACTED. He had an arm around Bucky's back, his hand resting on the shoulder on the opposite side. A calm, discerning look was in his eyes, which rested behind large round specs.
"What's your name?" Tony said, talking to the blondie.
"Jeff, sir." he responded briskly.
"Can I talk to you for a minute?"
Jeff nodded. He followed Tony out of the jet, and they walked toward a tree on the far edge of the clearing. They stopped just a few feet from the edge, and Tony turned to face Jeff. The boy seemed to be the tallest of the three, and he had perfect posture, suggesting a maybe more posh upbringing.
"How did you three get in that base?"
Jeff's eyes dropped to the ground in thought. "I'm not really sure. The last thing I remember before the cell was arguing with my friends."
"Arguing? What about?"
"Bucky had been missing in action for several weeks, and our friend, Toro, was trying to lead us. It wasn't going very well, and we all seemed to be slowly disbanding from the group. Two of us had already given up, and Toro was having a hard time keeping it together."
"You don't recall what got you there?"
"I remember Hydra soldiers, but it's all too much of a blur. I think it was just Toro, Knucks and myself."
"Just the three of you then?"
"Yes. I have no idea what happened to Toro, though. I haven't seen him since this all happened."
Tony thought for a moment. Was this Toro the redacted name from the file? Where had this mysterious fourth wheel gone?
"That was all months ago, of course. And at this point, there's no telling what's happened to him. Unless you found him...?"
Tony shook his head. His heart ached for this kid. He had no idea that he and his friends had disappeared so long ago as to be wiped from living memory. "Kid...It's been more than months since that happened."
"I was afraid of that." he said, all too calmly.
Tony shook his head. "No. I mean a long time."
Jeff narrowed his eyes. "Just how long?" His voice gave away just a hint of nervousness.
"Jeff...you and your friends have been gone for something like eighty years now."
The kid backed away, staring Tony in the eyes. He balked at the claim the armored man had just made. "That...can't be true..." he mumbled.
"I'm sorry Jeff. I know this can't be easy to hear." He moved to put his hand on the kid's shoulder again, but Jeff backed away again.
"I...I have to speak with my friends again." he said and started to walk back toward the jet. Tony watched him go, soon following him.
Jeff walked into the transport to find that people were already filtering in from the makeshift campsite. Knucks was sitting silently next to Bucky. He looked around and spotted Jeff. He tapped back on Bucky's shoulder, and the half-decapitated kid looked up. The look on his face made Jeff suspicious. He looked like he knew exactly what Jeff was thinking.
They both knew that they had to explain to Knucks everything that was going on, and neither of them wanted to be the one to do it.