Chapter Text
Without the rumble of the bike, the world settles into a white noise of crickets and far off highway sounds. Steve's only been back in New York for a few months (two months, three weeks exactly) and already it's strange to leave the city. He eases back against the bike, ankles crossed, listening to it tick as it cools off. After a moment, he hears a scuffle of gravel off to the left, warning him of approach.
"Check out all this nature," Natasha says, her cool voice drifting out of the darkness.
"Yep," Steve says, and tips his head back up to the sky. He tries to remember when he last looked up and saw stars and comes up blank. Probably Nazi Germany, then. "Thought you'd be meeting us in Ukraine."
She lifts herself up onto the seat of the bike, a hand on his shoulder to stay steady. The heels of her boots click against the exhaust pipe. He can smell her perfume, faint over the smell of the trees around them. "What, and fly commercial? Not a chance, Rogers."
"It's good to see you, Natasha," he tells her. Her smile is barely more than a glimmer of teeth in the dark, but he's glad to see it.
"You too," she says. "I'm sorry to drag you back in."
"When Fury says jump," Steve says, dry as a bone.
She shakes her head. "I asked for you," she says. "Got a tip on something that I thought you should be in on."
He takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. "Thought you said I shouldn't pull on that thread."
"Yeah, well," she says, wryly, "then he showed up on Stark's doorstep, didn't he? If you're keeping him, you should know the rest of it."
"I'm not keeping him," Steve says sharply. "Bucky can keep himself."
There's a beat of silence. He can feel Natasha's eyes on him, considering. "You're right," she says, after a moment. "I'm sorry."
He bumps her shoulder with his own, head down and a little embarrassed. The last hour of the ride his whole body had started to ache, shoulders and back pulling tight and tense. It's been a long time since he got his spine straightened out but sometimes he remembers pretty clearly what it used to feel like.
Natasha saves him from himself, as always. Casual, she asks, "How are you, these days? How's Barnes?"
Not always lucid. Barely verbal. Erratic. Angry. Exhausting. Heartbreaking. "He's still in there," Steve settles on. "That's what matters."
She exhales, soft. "How can you tell?" There's a strange tone in her voice as she asks, low and guarded.
"I've known Buck my whole life," Steve says. "I'd know him anywhere."
Overhead, he can see the Milky Way. The only constellations he ever learned came from Jim Morita, who'd grown up in wide open farm country in California, and couldn't cope with snow but could pad out their rations with mushrooms and plants he'd scavenge from the woods. There: Cassiopeia. There: Ursus. There: Orion. Jim's been dead for twenty eight years, which is a year older than he'd been when Steve had met him.
"It must be nice," Natasha says. "To be so certain."
"Must be," Steve says. "Looks like our ride's here."
The plane comes in low and lands vertically like a helicopter, quieter than you'd expect seeing the size of it. He offers Natasha a hand off the bike, and pushes it around to where they're dropping the cargo bay door. There are five silhouettes waiting for them at the top. It takes him a moment to place the center figure, but when recognition hits it brings cold anger with it. He hears Natasha suck in a quick breath. When he looks over her face is schooled, inscrutable.
"Agent Romanoff," Phil Coulson says. "Captain Rogers. Welcome to the Bus."
To his credit, he meets their eyes evenly, holding himself at parade rest. For a long moment everyone just looks at each other, the silence stretching tight as a wire. Vaguely Steve is conscious of Coulson's team staring at him, at Natasha, at Coulson himself, waiting for someone to make a move. Coulson takes a deep breath.
"I apologize if this is - unexpected, but I -"
"Save it," Steve says, cutting him off. "I'm sure you had your reasons." He gives a nod to the woman standing at Coulson's left. "Agent May, good to see you."
Coulson jumps a little, but Steve's already moving past then, pushing the bike forward and around the line of agents towards the rig he sees in the corner. "Let me help, sir," a member of Coulson's team says, detaching from the group to help Steve strap the bike down for the flight. The plane, he assumes, is cutting edge - he can see a gleaming medical bay at the end of the cargo hold - but the tie down is still just straps and buckles, comfortably familiar. He breathes through his nose, tries to calm down a bit. When he's finished the agent offers him a hand up, and a big smile.
"It's an honor to finally meet you, sir," the agent says. Inwardly, Steve sighs, but then the man follows up with, "my name's Antoine Triplett. My grandfather was Jaques Dernier."
"No kidding," Steve says, thrown completely. "Then it's an honor to meet you, Agent Triplett."
"My grandfather said his years with you were some of the best in his life," Triplett says. It takes Steve a second to realize he's said it in French. He looks the man up and down, who lifts his chin and accepts the scrutiny.
"You're a lot better looking than he was," he tells Triplett, answering in kind. Triplett's smile is blinding.
"I get that a lot," he says. "Grandpa was mighty lucky, marrying my grandma. But I hear he knew how to bring the funk."
Steve laughs and offers Triplett his hand. Like a switch has been flipped, the tension in the cargo bay eases. Triplett introduces him to Agents Simmons and Skye, who both look far too young to be there. Simmons is visibly strained around the eyes and disappears quickly back into the medical bay. Everyone else troops upstairs to the command center. Skye slides behind the large display console like she belongs there.
"Are we gonna have Howling Commando story time," she says, grinning, "because that would be uh-mazing."
"Some other time," Coulson says, and Skye frowns, like someone remembering it's unprofessional to pout. Up in the debriefing room Coulson's team has assumed roughly the same positions they had before: Skye and Triplett bunched together, May close to Coulson's side. Natasha's already seated and outwardly paying no attention to them, typing on a tablet.
"Flight time will be a little over eight hours," Coulson says. "We have - some free beds if you'd like to rest."
"Yes, please," Natasha says, not looking up.
Coulson looks at Steve. "Maybe later," Steve mutters. He can hardly look at the man. He'd signed the trading cards, blood and all, and given them to Maria Hill - to put in the casket, or do with as she saw fit. Steve had gone to the funeral too, had sat an awkward shiva with Nick Fury and an aching, raging Clint Barton. And a month ago Tony had given him SHIELD's files on the Winter Soldier, only they hadn't been calling him that at the time.
Coulson squares his shoulders. "Captain, I asked for this detail myself," he says. "I wanted the chance to explain. I know you have no reason to trust me in regards to, well, anything. Or to trust in SHIELD, given the - given everything that's happened in the last few months. I apologize that at the time I believed the secrecy was necessary. And I apologize that you and the other Avengers were misled, regardless of how - sincerely the sacrifice was meant."
"Why was it necessary?" Natasha asks. "Why would Fury do this to us? To you?"
Coulson is quiet, staring down at the ground. "I don't know anymore," he says softly. "I trusted in the system."
"That's not good enough," Steve says.
"Steve," Natasha says softly.
"No, it's all right," Coulson says. A smile lingers on his mouth like he'd forgotten he'd put it on back before they arrived. "It wasn't good enough. The system was corrupt and broken. We were meant to protect people from exactly the kind of evil that almost destroyed all of us."
"From what I understand, HYDRA thought they were protecting people too," Steve says.
Coulson's expression hardens. "Captain Rogers, my team and I swore an oath to SHIELD - to serve and protect those who can't protect themselves. The ideals SHIELD was founded on were pure. And they're still worth believing in. That's something I won't apologize for."
Steve looks up sharply, catching something in Coulson's tone. "You're rebuilding?" Across the room he can see Natasha lean forward in her chair, her eyes fixed on Coulson. May shifts, subtly moving closer.
"Yes," Coulson says. His tone is mild, even as he looks over at May, wordlessly warning her off. "After we drop you off in Kiev, we'll be picking up a few agents who have finally asked to come in, for evaluation and - potentially - recruitment. I'd like to offer you my personal assurance that the vetting process will be - quite thorough."
Steve braces his elbows on his knees, head heavy on his neck. He wishes he could talk to Sam, but they're radio silent until Steve's back in the country. He wishes he could talk to Bucky - the one he used to know, who knew him, who would talk back. "I should've known Fury would do something like this."
"Hey," Skye objects, her hands braced on the display table. "We're here because we want to be."
"I'm sure he wanted you to believe that," Steve says. Even he feels surprised at how bitter it sounds, coming out of his own mouth.
"Steve," Natasha says again, warning. She holds his eyes evenly until he looks away, and then turns her attention towards the others. "We can have this discussion some other time, when we're all a little more - calm. We appreciate the ride, Agent Coulson. We'll be out of your hair as soon as we can."
"Fine," Coulson says, clipped. "Simmons will arrange whatever equipment you need before we land. We'll rendezvous in two days; call if you need an extraction any sooner."
"Thank you, Agent Coulson," Natasha says. "I'm going to sleep, then - if there's noth -"
"One more thing," Steve says, unable to help himself. He can see Natasha's lips thin, but he plunges ahead regardless. "I need to ask Agent Coulson something."
"I'm listening," Coulson says softly, his face unreadable.
Steve pulls the tablet from his jacket pocket. He already has the image up, from God only knows when. He flicks his fingers across the screen, and the Winter Soldier appears on the big display, large as life in the center of the room. It's a grainy still from the only video anyone managed to get of him, caught in the act of stepping off the hood of a car, crushed and crumpled under his boots.
"Do you know this man?" Steve asks, and tries not to make it sound like a threat. Coulson frowns, steps closer to the image. His eyes catch on the metal arm and widen.
"Steve, maybe this is something that should be done in private," Natasha says evenly.
After a moment Coulson nods, not looking away from the Winter Soldier. "Give us a moment."
Skye and Triplett nod, a little reluctantly. "Man, no one ever told me Captain America was such a dick," Skye whispers to Triplett, as they leave.
May stays where she is. "I do know him," Coulson says. He looks over at Steve. "I've met him twice. Once in 1990 and again in '94."
Steve knows this. He's read the files. Pre-mission briefings. Field reports, the after actions. Autopsies. But it's good to hear Coulson admit it. "Did you know who he was?" Steve asks.
Coulson shakes his head, crossing his arms over his chest. "His identity was classified. Level 9 and higher only. I never even saw his face, only - ". He gestures, one hand in the air over his eyes. "Just once while we were staging, in '94. They were - unsettling."
"That's one word for it," Natasha says. "You didn't think anything was strange about him?"
He looks over at her, offers one of his wincing smiles. "Other than the arm? He didn't talk much. He sounded American, when he did - which surprised me. You saw a big red star like that in the early nineties, America wasn't the first thing that came to mind. It's strange - I hadn't thought of him in years, until quite recently. We - became involved in action against a group using enhanced soldiers. I'd never seen anything like it before, except for him. Is he HYDRA? Is that why you're going to Ukraine, to take him out?"
Steve feels the question like someone's punched him in the chest, dull and aching. "We already have him in custody," Natasha replies, before he can say anything. "We're looking into his history."
"I wish I had more information for you," Coulson says, "but we didn't exactly make friends. He kept to himself until it was time to move, and in the field he worked independently. He brought his own guys, but they didn't interact with him much either. We never spoke directly."
"You remember a lot, considering it was twenty years ago," Steve says, rough.
"Yeah," Coulson says slowly, looking back over at the display. "He left an impression. I'm a hard man to spook, but the look in his eyes ..." He shakes his head.
He might have had more to say, but Steve's already on his feet and clattering back down the staircase towards the cargo bay. His heart feels like it's about to collapse in on itself and he stands gripping the railing for a long time, trying to get back under control.
He knows the look that Coulson means. Bucky is - strange to be around even on good days and downright scary on bad. He doesn't often seem to - go away in his own head. For the most part he's just still and quiet, absorbing everything around him, even if he doesn't talk much. But his face doesn't seem to work right anymore.
Steve tries not to think about how Bucky was before, because it hurts too much and it isn't useful to either one of them, but back in Brooklyn Buck had been all smiles as long as Steve had known him, all easy affection and laughter, always with his heart on his sleeve. He'd closed up a lot by the time Steve got to him in Italy, but he'd been through Hell and back and that was just to be expected. He didn't smile near as much, but Steve had still known what was going through his head just watching him squint down at a town in the distance, or work his jaw over a logistical flaw in Steve's plans.
Now he looks scared to death half the time, even when Steve's positive he's not. It's like Bucky's wearing a fright mask of his own face, the muscles slack, skin baggy and aged, jaw loose unless he's angry about something - eyes blown wide and wild. Steve can't blame Coulson for having been spooked, even if most of him wants to tear the whole plane apart.
He's so Goddamn disappointed in this man, this man everyone at SHIELD spoke about in such reverent tones, this man who asked Steve to sign his Goddamn trading cards and who ran operations with Bucky Barnes twice and didn't know it, even if Steve himself hadn't known until the mask came off. Even if Steve could have killed the Winter Soldier and never known.
He counts breaths. Now he is breathing in. Now he is breathing out.
He feels his muscles unlock, one at a time. Now he is breathing in. Now he is breathing out.
He hears a quiet, careful step on the grating behind him.
"Agent Romanoff was coming to check on you," May says. "I asked if she wouldn't mind if I did it, instead."
Steve shifts back a little, unwinding his hands from the railing. He winces; there are ten dents where his fingers had been. He looks back to see a little smile quirked on May's face. "Don't worry about it," she says. "We've seen a lot worse."
"I'm sorry about that, back there," he says, sighing. His whole body aches, even though the strain from the ride has already gone away. He feels tired to death.
She studies his face, silently. After a moment she lowers herself to the ground, letting her legs dangle down over the cargo bay. It's an oddly casual gesture for her, hands tucked under her knees, waiting patiently for him to follow. He does, slowly.
"You seem different," he offers. She smiles, looking out into the hangar space.
"I am," she says. "Those were dark days, though. For both of us."
Steve shrugs, lacing his hands through the grating. "They weren't so bad."
She slants a look over at him that says she knows exactly how much bullshit is in that statement, which is a lot even for him. They had been dark days, right after the Chitauri invasion - when he was still counting his time here in weeks instead of months, when every day was an angry, throbbing ache from the time he woke up til the time he spent not really sleeping, staring up at the ceiling of whatever military base they'd sent him to that week to learn modern warfare: melee combat or modern strategy or weapons training from whoever was the expert around. Melinda May had been an expert in a lot of things.
"Well, I was pretty happy to have you to whale on for a few months. It was ... therapeutic," she says, musingly.
"Yeah, good times," Steve says, grinning.
"Don't be so rough on Phil," May tells him, and Steve's shoulders tighten back up. "He looks up to you. They all do. They could use something to hold on to, right now."
"They don't know me," Steve mutters, looking away.
May purses her lips. "Did you know that Phil was vetted by Peggy Carter personally?" she asks, after a moment. "So was Maria Hill - although that was a few years after Carter retired - and Fury himself. Phil's told me about how it went for him - he couldn't handle meeting one of his childhood heroes and embarrassed the hell out of himself."
"He told me he'd watched me sleeping," Steve says, and May grimaces.
"So I'm sure you can imagine how bad it was, with Carter," she says. "He blabbed on and on to her about losing his father when he was young, and choosing you as a symbol of what to live up to - an ideal to aspire to."
"Let me guess," he says, "she threw him out of her office."
She nods. "He thought he'd blown it, and he'd be exiled to the Baltic desk forever. But a week later his new clearance and paperwork came through, with a handwritten note from Carter - that SHIELD had been founded by people who were trying to live up to your example, and if he was serious about that, he'd better be ready to prove it."
Steve looks down at his hands. He's always had big hands, too big for his frame before he'd met Dr. Erskine. The skin on his knuckles looks weathered and chapped, but by morning that'll be gone too. His heart aches, the way it always does when Peggy is mentioned. He likes thinking of Peggy kicking some punk kid out of her office for the nerve of linking his story to hers, but he's not sure what to do with the rest of it. Peggy's made similar comments to him, before - telling him how and why she made the choices she did, after the war - and it's always - he's never known how to -
"Melinda, I," he says, and doesn't know how to continue.
"It's okay," May tells him. "Just keep it in mind."
He nods, and she smiles. It's sweeter than he remembers. "Get some sleep, Captain," she says, and squeezes his hand before she goes.
He listens to her quiet footsteps fade, and then heads back upstairs himself. The crew quarters are back up beyond the command center, near the front of the plane. He passes a wet bar on the way that he gives a wistful glance to. They've got a nice setup here. Hell of a lot nicer than what the SSR had had to give to the Commandos.
The door to one of the rooms is cracked, and a light still on inside, so Steve goes in and quietly closes the door behind himself. Natasha gives him a brief smile and pats the bed next to her. She's propped up on a comfy looking pile of pillows, a blanket tucked up under her arms, her knees up and tablet balanced on one thigh. He sits down obediently and leans back, relaxing a little into her.
"Oof," she says, and they take a second to adjust. Settled again, she asks,"You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay. Just -" He sighs.
She quirks a smile at him and pats his knee. Sometimes she seems so much like Bucky's sister Becca that it takes his breath away: her rare, sidelong smiles, the deep timbre of her voice. For a while he'd wondered if it had been planned like that - the way that SHIELD had made his neighbor a nurse and given him a team of rough and tumble commandos for field work - to get close to him. He had been grateful to learn otherwise.
"You never told me you were trained by the Cavalry," she comments.
"She hates being called that," Steve says. Natasha's thigh is warm against his back, underneath the blanket. It's so nice to touch someone. For a moment he misses being small; no one ever really touches him these days.
"It's a very accurate nickname, though." She looks up, eyes sharp. "Hey, you ever give Sharon a call?"
He shakes his head. "Been kinda busy."
She snorts. "Story of your life."
"Suppose so," he says, closing his eyes and letting his head tilt back. Tony Stark touches, casually - the back of a hand slapping into Steve's chest, a thump on his shoulder, seeing if it will sting. Before that - Dum Dum, maybe, a playful fist like he was gonna throw a punch into Steve's stomach, a warm shoulder next to a fire. Before that - Bucky, always Bucky. Bucky was an arm around Steve's shoulders, a broad chest and long limbs curled tight around Steve's whole body, a hand in Steve's hair. But Bucky doesn't touch him now either.
"You gonna sleep, while we're in the air?" she asks.
"Maybe," he says, although he feels better now than he has in days. Maybe he could use some sleep.
"Well, I plan on it, so don't wear out your welcome," she says, and he laughs.
"Good night, Natasha," he says, and clicks her light off on the way out.
The plane is almost silent now. He can hear May and Coulson talking quietly in the cockpit, discussing the next day's flight plan. He can hear who he assumes is Triplett in the galley, turning pages and shifting his weight on a stool, periodically. The door to the available room was helpfully left open, although it smells a little stale when he closes the door behind himself. There's evidence of another person - engineering manuals, some socks stuffed hastily back into the drawers, toes peeping out. He wonders where they are, the person who lives here.
He strips down to his shorts and pulls the covers over himself. He's got probably six hours or so before he'll need to get up and get ready. He lets his eyes adjust to the darkness, takes slow, deep breaths.
In the end, he doesn't end up sleeping.
-
Kiev, strangely, reminds him of Brooklyn. The air is cool and it smells like most cities do. The house they've come to is in a residential neighborhood full of narrow rowhouses, quiet and lined with stunted trees. Some of the trees have hand lettered signs that Steve assumes say something like Please Curb Your Dog. He and Natasha are on the roof of the building opposite, watching.
Three stories, at least one level underground. Oddities in the building plans that could mean a panic room on the second floor. Single occupancy, a leftover relic from the days they used to build them like that. Building title traced to a shell company in Belarus. Minimal signs of activity, no unusual use of gas or electric.
Bucky's family had a house a lot like this one, old and weathered and damn cold in the winter.
"I'll come from above, you go from below," he says, adjusting the helmet strap under his chin. He's dressed in the blues today, the closest thing he's ever had to a stealthy uniform. Natasha is in black, a scarf wrapped around her neck against the wind, her hair tied back in a loose bun. "You've got five minutes to get into position. Then I'll start making noise."
She nods. They scoot back from the edge and he hands over the duffle, pulls the shield off his back, most of his attention still on their target. He feels her hand on his arm, and looks down to find her staring up at him with troubled eyes.
"Steve," she says, "if my source is correct, if we find what I'm expecting us to find - I'm sorry. You don't have to look at any of it. If you want to burn everything, sight unseen, I'll hold the matches."
"Thank you," he tells her, and means it. His whole body is braced for the blow. If it had to be anyone, he's glad that it's her here with him today.
She gives him a nod and disappears down the stairwell. Steve moves back to the edge, crouching to stay hidden behind the low wall facing the street. Movement on the top floor. A man with a dog comes out the front door and heads west. Three minutes. A gray sedan rolls down the street slowly, goes straight through the intersection at the end of the block. Two minutes. He's not going to burn - whatever it is they find. Someday Bucky will want it. One minute.
He draws back far enough to get a running start, and leaps. The building they'd watched from is barely ten feet taller than the target, so it's close. He pulls his legs up to avoid clipping an ankle, tucks and rolls twice, comes out of it onto his knees so he has enough leverage to smash through the skylight with the shield.
He breaks a table on his way down, where four men are sitting. One is knocked out by the shrapnel. One by the shield. The walls are thin plaster - if he threw the shield it'd probably go right through - no good. The third is pulling a gun, hands unsteady, eyes widening with recognition - take the gun from him and break his face with it. The fourth is a blur of motion at the edge of his vision, diving for something, bringing it up to chest level to -
Steve flips the gun around in his hand and fires before the man can pull the pin of the grenade. It's only when the body slumps down against the windowsill that he sees it wasn't a man at all. It's a child, no more than fourteen. Pimply skin and patchy, wispy fuzz on his chin, arms sticking out like chicken wings from a baggy tank top. The grenade is still in one hand. It's quick, at least.
He doesn't want to leave. The others in the room are older but not by much. The one that went down with the table is already starting to stir. He can't hear anything below but that doesn't mean much.
He throws himself from the third floor landing to the second, shield up. Second and first floor are clear. Natasha's waiting for him down in what used to be the basement, sitting in a leather office chair, ankle crossed over one knee. There's another teenager on the ground. This one's alive.
"Captain America!" the teenager gasps out. His nose is bleeding and his hand are cuffed behind his back. He sounds American, and he stares up at Steve with a lot more awe than fear.
"What have we got?" Steve asks, ignoring him.
Natasha gestures. On the other side of the room, there are stacks of boxes nearly up to the ceiling. They're all labeled with the same neat hand: a designation, and a span of dates.
Steve takes a deep breath. "Okay."
-
Rather than wait for the man with the dog to come back, potentially with older, better trained soldiers, they borrow a car from the street and spend a tense twenty minutes bringing all of the boxes up. Steve takes eight boxes each trip, limited only by the height of the hallway. They work in silence. It feels a little anticlimactic as they pull away from the curb without incident, Bucky's files loaded all the way up to the top of the car.
He tells Natasha about the kid with the grenade. "They're recruiting young," Natasha says thoughtfully. "Guess that explains how they have so many people willing to die for them."
She gets on the phone to Coulson's team. They're directed to a rundown warehouse in an industrial part of town, to hunker and wait for extraction at 0600. When they get their they unload the car and divvy up the boxes according to language. Steve takes German, which gives him 1945 through 1949, and 1953 through 1959. Natasha takes the Russian boxes: 1950 through 1952, 1960 through 1964, which seems to be the extent of the cache. They set up some of Tony's robots to begin scanning documents, putting aside microfilm, video tapes, cassette tapes, crumbling scraps of clothing, an entire box of vials of blood from 1947, anything that can't be immediately scanned or categorized.
Natasha's face is impassive as she sorts through her boxes, her breathing steady. If he couldn't hear the flutter of her heartbeat, he'd think she was unmoved.
At first, Steve tries not to read anything. He can't remember the last time he spoke German (it was at least 70 years ago) and he tells himself it would be too much of an effort to start translating. He needs to focus on organizing the information, not breaking down over it.
He finds a photo tucked inside the first folder of 1945. It's a closely cropped image of Bucky kneeling on the ground, taken at three quarters view. There are hands all over him, pinning him in place so the photo can be taken. One set of hands is fisted in his hair, forcing his head back. Another is gripping Bucky's left arm just above his armpit, holding it still so that every detail of the uncovered wound is clear. Bucky is naked. His mouth is open. He's looking straight into the camera.
Steve sets the folder down and goes to walk it off.
Natasha says nothing when he comes back. If she heard him put a fist through the concrete slab he found around back, it doesn't show on her face. He sits back down at the little table, takes out the second folder from 1945.
Now he is breathing in.
Now he is breathing out.
He knew this was what it was gonna be like. He knew Buck must have been tortured, for literal decades, to force him to become the machine Steve met in DC.
If you can't handle a single photograph - how are you ever going to be able to help him?
He opens the folder.
The pages are yellowed with age, ringed with coffee circles and creased at the edges, the evidence of decades of casual handling. As he flips through they send up puffs of good smelling dust. The German is all written in the same neat handled that labeled most of the boxes, which is identified on each folder as a Dr Renke.
It's good, to be able to give a name to evil. In the first week at Stark's tower they'd made several attempts to debrief Bucky, which had been an exercise in frustration and heartache. Bucky understood what was going on around him and seemed to understand what had been done to him; he just didn't care. He went where Bruce told him to go, ignored Sam and Tony equally, and watched Steve with close attention. When questioned about HYDRA or the arm or his missions, his answers had been brief and profoundly incurious. But Bucky had spoke about the doctor, never with a name attached, a thread of affection winding through his flat recitations.
The doctor repaired any injuries. If surgery was required, it was performed by the doctor.
The doctor coordinated my training and any upgrades to my arm. He didn't work on the hardware itself. That was someone else. I wasn't told their name.
The doctor gave me cigarettes and candy when I returned to base, if I had done well. He helped me to improve fine motor control in my hand by teaching me to roll the cigarettes myself.
Natasha's voice drifts over him, cutting through the haze across his eyes. "The good doctor's dead."
Steve looks up. "Yeah? When?"
"1958," she says. "Barnes killed him."
"Good," Steve says, and goes back to reading.
-
He wakes Natasha up at 0500. The robots finished scanning an hour ago. Steve hasn't slept. He spent the hours organizing, condensing and relabeling the leftovers. The 1940s have nine cartons. The 1950s have six. The 1960s have two. The entire cache had been nineteen years of Bucky's medical history, what had made him the way he is now. There hadn't been a scrap of information about any of his missions as the Winter Soldier - just the injuries he'd come back with. Steve wonders how many treasure troves are out there like this - if there's another gang of HYDRA children guarding the mission reports, if they had other people frozen like Bucky, rebuilt to serve.
He looks over at Natasha, who is silently repacking her gear. He's never gone looking for her story; it had felt like a violation. But he does wonder sometimes, what made her the way she is.
At 0530 she comes to stand with him, looking at the massed pile of paperwork. Towards the end he hadn't really bothered restacking after the robots were finished with each tower, so it looks a mess. She offers him a lighter.
Everything is recorded, safe on the same servers that Tony uses to protect his own data. The leftovers will be catalogued and filed away as well, by one of Tony's AIs or by Steve himself. When Bucky wants his files, they'll be there.
The fire's still going as Triplett and Skye help them carry the boxes onto the plane. They don't ask. Coulson's in the lab, in deep discussion with Simmons, who vanishes as soon as she seems to realize they're back on the plane. Beyond introductions, Steve hasn't heard her speak once. As they tie the cartons down, he's aware of Coulson standing alone in the lab, looking at nothing.
Coulson seems to have collected himself by the time they're all finished, and he comes out to join the knot of people in the cargo bay. There's a beautiful bruise blooming under his left eye. Natasha takes one look at him and bursts out laughing, bright and joyful.
Coulson rolls his eyes. "He's upstairs," he tells her, and she abandons her bag on the floor of the hangar and takes the stairs two at a time.
He sees Steve looking at him. "Looks painful," Steve says.
Coulson shrugs. "I earned it," he says. Steve can't argue with that.
Coulson's team had followed Natasha, and they're standing alone. Coulson clears his throat. "If you need access to any equipment, you have free rein of anything in the lab or on the plane itself. If you need a private space to make any calls or review your findings," he gestures at the pile of boxes, "you may use my office, although I feel obligated to warn you that there may be Howling Commando memorabilia around."
Steve shifts, folding his hands in front of him. The engines start up, and they drift a few steps into the lab, away from the noise. The door slides shut and it's quiet again, the air cool and recycled-smelling. Steve sends a brief glance over the table in front of him, cluttered with half completed weapons and MRI scans. He still has the helmet and the uniform on. The last trace of smoke is still lingering in his nose. It had helped, to see it burn. "What's next for you and your team?" he asks.
Coulson's eyes widen, briefly. "After this, we'll go dark for a bit," he says. "Barton and Hartley were the last people on the rather unfortunately short list of agents I'm fairly sure we can trust. Once we're able to clear Hartley's people, we'll start planning our next steps. I think the Bus will need to go into storage for a while, I'm sad to say - she's a bit too known, at the moment."
"Have you thought about scraping off all the SHIELD logos?" Steve says.
Coulson sighs. "That'd be a good first step, I suppose. Actually, I was thinking of looking into stealth technology for her. I don't know if you've heard, but we're fugitives now."
Steve frowns. "I hadn't heard, no."
"It probably wasn't the best idea to take her on this run," Coulson admits. "We've got some heat on us domestically and my contacts in the EU have let me know of - some very unfavorable action starting to happen there, in regards to SHIELD and any known agents still on the continent."
"Are they in danger?" Steve asks.
Coulson smiles, as if he's said something funny. "I suppose that depends on where they're standing. Not everyone who wasn't HYDRA will stay loyal to SHIELD. Maybe not everyone should." He reaches one hand out and delicately straightens the stack of MRI readouts on the table in front of him. For a long moment he only stands there, two fingers at the corner of one image, looking old and tired.
"When SHIELD was taken," Coulson says, "it was - a precision strike, by HYDRA. What happened at the Triskelion was dramatic, to say the least, but it was only one piece of the overall attack. Every key location, every top agent, every vulnerability was struck at the same time. My team was, up until quite recently, almost strictly mobile ... and it was as though the whole world went dark at once."
Underneath them the plane is moving, taxiing down the wide road they'd used as a landing strip. Steve barely feels the wheels go up - just the sudden lack of motion.
Coulson sighs, apparently too used to the transition to comment on it. "We don't even have a way to count the immediate casualties that were taken at any of our facilities. We're sifting through the data dump, of course, but the way that HYDRA managed to hide their infrastructure inside of our own was so skillful that we're still having trouble even determining who was a part of HYDRA."
He glances up, offers Steve a sad, lopsided smile. "It's really almost - awe inspiring, what they managed to accomplish, even apart from Project Insight."
"I didn't know about all that," Steve says, numbly.
Coulson shrugs, unaffected. "Why would you? SHIELD excelled at compartmentalization. With all due respect, you wouldn't have seen the whole picture any more than any other specialized agent."
Steve remembers walking into the Triskelion for the first time and being amazed at the scope of it, how many people were rushing around, like busy little ants. After a while it had faded to background noise, the way even Times Square does if you're around it every day, and although he'd known that SHIELD's resources were enormous he'd never had the clearance or the curiosity to map out the web. Would it have made any difference if he had wanted to know more, even just a little?
Coulson smiles, squaring his shoulders. "Anyway, it's not your problem. Please feel free to make use of any of our resources, while we still have them. Although I'm sorry to say it seems we disagree on several fundamental issues, it's been a pleasure to have you on board."
"Thank you," Steve says, automatically. "But what -"
The lab doors behind him open, letting in a whoosh of diesel smelling air and the hum of the engines. Coulson looks over Steve's shoulder and frowns. It's Skye, looking caught out, holding a tablet out in front of herself like a shield. "Hey there," she says, drawling the words out. She steps fully into the lab next to Steve, the doors sliding closed behind her.
"Hey, Skye," Coulson returns. "Everything okay? Please say yes, I can't handle any more crises today."
"Yeah, uh," Skye says, and stops. She grins sidelong at Steve, looking apologetic. "Sorry, it's just, you know -"
She makes a gesture at his chest with both hands, the tablet clutched awkwardly in one, but doesn't elaborate. "Anyway, I came down here for a reason, I guess. I was thinking about the guy with the metal arm, the one you and Agent Romanoff are looking for information on. He's the Winter Soldier, isn't he?"
The answer must show on Steve's face, because she lights up and lets go of the tablet long enough to make a victory fist. "I mean," she continues, hurriedly, "I know everyone thinks that the Winter Soldier's just a ghost story but my uh, this hacktivist group I used to know called the Rising Tide, there was a member who was super into the whole Cold War conspiracy thing. She compiled a pretty decent dossier on assassinations attributed to the Winter Soldier. I could get in touch with her and see if she'll send over all of her info. You know, if you wanted. If you could be nice about it."
"Of course," Steve says, and then catches himself. "Wait, this wouldn't be someone called grassyfuckingknoll, would it?"
An eyebrow goes up. "How'd you know that?" she asks. "And - wow, did you just say 'fucking'?"
"I have an alert set up, for anything about - anything the Winter Soldier was involved with in DC," he answers. "Someone named grassyfuckingknoll's created two subreddits about him in the last few days alone." There hasn't been much activity on the threads, just people talking ghost stories at each other, but Tony's right about one thing - sooner or later, Bucky will become a problem.
The other eyebrow lifts. "Captain America's on Reddit," Skye breathes.
Steve sighs, inwardly. "I need to ask a favor," he says. He puts on the Captain America face as he says it, looking each of them in the eyes in turn. They both straighten, unconsciously. "I can't have information about the Winter Soldier getting out into the general media. I want the dossier on his missions, but I can't have this person or anyone else believing that their theories are valid. Is this something you can help me with?"
"Of course," Coulson says quickly.
"Definitely," Skye says, but she looks a little doubtful when she says it. "But why not? Shouldn't people know that he's out there? I mean, I don't know how much you've found out already, but everything I've ever heard says he's super bad. Like, the baddest of the bad. He makes serial killers look cute and cuddly. If he manages to escape or if HYDRA breaks him out from wherever you've got him locked up, do you really want him to be able to hide because no one thinks he's real?"
Yes, Steve thinks. What he says out loud is, "he's not a bad guy."
"He's got a funny way of showing it," Skye says, "what with all the murdering."
Steve shakes his head. "HYDRA made him into that," he says, looking away. "He's not a monster."
Skye looks to Coulson, an uncertain smile on her face. Coulson's looking at Steve, frowning. "What, is this dude a friend of yours or something?" Skye asks.
Steve looks up at them, chin still lowered. His hands are folded in front of him and it's an effort not to clench them into fists. He's looking right at Coulson when the penny drops for the other man.
"Oh my God," Coulson says, and abruptly staggers backwards a step, eyes wide. "He seemed so familiar - oh my God, is that really possible? How?"
He answers his own question before Steve can decide what to say. "His unit was captured in '43," Coulson says slowly, almost to himself. His face has gone pale and shocky looking. "He was experimented on by Arnim Zola. He survived the fall?"
Skye's head whips back and forth between the two of them. "Wait, I'm sorry," she says. "Are you saying what I think you're saying? Because what you're saying sounds crazy."
"Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier," Coulson says, and gropes for the chair behind himself, almost collapsing into it. He looks like the world's been brought down around his ears and for a hot, vicious moment Steve is glad to see it.
-