Chapter Text
September 2014 – The Playground
For a secret intelligence organization, gossip went through SHIELD with the speed of a forest fire. Its public downfall and massive downsizing changed nothing about it.
Which, of course, meant it only took days for the rumors that Sergeant James Barnes, the Winter Soldier himself, had agreed to join SHIELD as an agent and an asset to reach just about everyone on base – including that of the Sergeant’s protective best friend.
The first thing Steve Rogers wanted to do when he heard that rumor was to punch someone in the face. Preferably whoever had convinced him that this was a good idea, because Steve knew on some molecular level that it was not a rumor. And he suspected that it was more likely than not the new Director of SHIELD, the one who had in fact told him that Bucky would not be able to stay unless he agreed to be an asset.
Steve stormed to Coulson’s office, ignoring every attempt to stop him. No one dared to get in his way, not even Sam or Sharon. Steve noticed out of the corner of his eye that Sam tried to follow; Sharon grabbed the airman’s arm to stop him.
That was probably for the better. Right now, he was livid, and he was not going to let anyone get in his way. He was just glad that Natasha didn’t find him before he reached the Director’s office.
Steve didn’t bother knocking when he reached Coulson’s office, instead pushing the door open hard enough that one of the hinges cracked. “What the hell are you thinking?” Steve demanded, stepping in and glaring at the Director. “What did you do, Coulson?”
Coulson did not look surprised that he was there. In fact, he almost looked infuriatingly calm, like he had expected him to show up at any moment, Irish temper flaring. “Please, come in, Captain.” Coulson looked at Melinda May, who looked as wary as Steve had seen her several times before. “May, go. I think the Captain and I need to talk.”
“I’m getting tired of you being punched,” May mentioned, giving a long-suffering look at her friend.
“I’m not going to punch him,” Steve said, his voice hard with irritation before looking back at May. “I promise you that. We do need to talk though. I don’t care if you stay or not.”
“Melinda,” Coulson said, his voice a bit lower as he sighed and said, “Go and call Andrew. About that thing we talked about.”
May only nodded, shooting another warning look to Steve before walking out of the room. The door closed behind her, only to slowly move back. Yep, he’d broken the door. Stark would pay for it. Stark usually paid for a lot of things, and besides, Thor already had a laundry list of things Stark was paying for.
Steve shook his head, scoffing before snapping, “You recruited him.”
To his credit, Coulson did not play dumb. “He volunteered.”
“Bullshit.” Steve scoffed before tugging a hand through his hair and looking back at him. “He just got away from HYDRA, and you want to throw him right into a fight against it?”
“What I want doesn’t matter, Captain. It’s what Sergeant Barnes wants. And he wants to join up with us.” Coulson gave a long-suffering sigh before saying, “I know you don’t believe me.”
“The last Director of SHIELD lied to me about a lot, so I think you can understand why I don’t.”
Steve knew in hindsight that Fury had his reasons for keeping his secrets. Coulson was not Fury. But Coulson had taken up a throne that Fury had held for years, and he knew that he could not forget the fact that as different as Coulson seemed from Fury, the latter trusted the former enough to keep an organization alive that Steve wasn’t sure was better off dead.
“Barnes came to me, Captain. He wants to take the fight to HYDRA, the way SHIELD will be. The way that you can’t. You yourself said that taking him to Stark Tower wasn’t an option.”
“That doesn’t mean that this is the only other one,” Steve protested.
“It does when it’s my choice.”
The super soldier paused at the interruption, at the familiar voice. He turned slowly, his eyes narrowing when he saw Bucky in the doorway of the office. Bucky looked exhausted on some level, but calmer than he’d seen in a long time, his hair carefully tied back and his metal arm covered up to his wrist in a long-sleeved shirt.
For a moment, Steve’s mind flashed back to the Stark Expo, so many years ago, of Bucky in his army uniform and himself back to the skinny kid he would always consider himself to be.
He realized then that might be part of his problem. Steve always wondered if he would be able to accept the fact that they’d both changed in numerous ways, and they might never be able to get back to what they were. But god, Steve would have given up anything to make that possible.
“No one forced me into this,” Bucky said, his voice low as he took a step forward, trying to close the door the best he could. “I made the choice. I don’t have anywhere else to go, and they’re taking the fight to HYDRA. That’s why I volunteered, Steve. You can’t help me.”
They were the exact words that Coulson had used. Taking the fight to HYDRA. And Steve had a feeling that it was Coulson repeating Barnes rather than the other way around, because he knew that look on Bucky’s face better than anyone. But that didn’t mean those words didn’t hurt, especially the last part.
Steve couldn’t hide the slight flinch. “Buck-“
The ex-assassin took a deep breath before saying, his voice quiet, “That’s – that’s not what I meant. I’m not saying that you… I just…” He took a deep breath and looked up at the ceiling, his shoulders slumping. “You can’t help me, Steve. But that’s not your fault.”
Coulson stood up. “I’m going to give you time some space,” he said. Clearly the man understood that this was going to be a long and hard discussion.
Steve knew that it was a long time coming though. He’d been avoiding it for too long.
Neither soldier looked back at the director as he walked out of the room. He made a valiant attempt at closing the door behind him, leaving the two alone. Steve’s expression was openly exhausted as he studied Bucky. He swallowed heavily when they were left alone in the silence.
This was the first time they’d been alone since that talk on the plane over, after Bucky had nearly killed both himself and Steve in that gulag. It was the first time they’d been alone since Steve’s breakdown about everything.
And he could tell that Bucky was as worried about it as he was.
“Look-“ Bucky’s voice trailed off as he gave a frustrated sigh. “It’s not attacking you when I say that you can’t help me. You can’t. The only person that can help me right now is myself.”
Steve didn’t answer, instead watching him carefully. He was trying hard to remember what everyone had been telling him since they had found Bucky. That this was not the same man he’d grown up with. That he had to remember that things would be different, that it would take time to get used to who they were now. They weren’t the same. They’d both been through too much to be the same.
But god, Steve hated the fact that they had ended up like this, like two strangers more than anything else.
Bucky tugged a hand through his hair before pointing out, “You said in the gulag that sometimes the best thing we can do is to start over.”
Steve was completely unsurprised when Bucky quoted him, word by word, what he’d said in that gulag, trying desperately to convince Bucky not to set off the bombs. “You decide who you are, Bucky. Not me. Not HYDRA. You do. I didn’t lie to you before, and I’m not lying to you now. You get to decide who you want to be. You can start over.”
The super soldier didn’t respond to his long-time best friend at first. Instead, he looked back over, and his shoulders slumped as he gathered his thoughts.
“I know,” Steve admitted softly. “I still mean that. I just…” He shook his head. “I hate feeling helpless. The two people who knew me before this… are the ones I can’t help.”
Peggy died. Bucky was still struggling to recover from being put through hell. And Steve was still adrift in a new world, even though he knew that a few new lights were on the horizon – the Avengers, Sam, Sharon. He had a chance to make something of himself in this new world.
Bucky swallowed before saying, “Peggy died of old age. She lived a long life, Rogers. And me…” He took a deep breath. “I’m not dead yet. And maybe… maybe this is something I have to do myself.”
“I wasn’t lying when I told you all that,” Steve said, taking a deep breath as he looked back over at him. “But this- is this what you really want?”
The ex-assassin didn’t answer at first. Instead, he looked behind him to the barely closed door and rolled his eyes. He passed Steve and crossed the room seconds later, heading to the cabinet against the farthest wall, something that honestly looked as old as Bucky and Steve were.
“What are you doing?” Steve asked, frowning as he watched Bucky.
“Looking for something.” Bucky moved to the bookshelf, grinning when he pulled out a particularly boring looking book. “There we go.” He opened it up, revealing a hollowed-out center with a bottle of booze on the inside. “We can’t get drunk off it, but it can help.”
“And we deprive Coulson of it?” Steve wondered, unable to help the slight smile crossing his face.
“Exactly.” Bucky pulled two glasses off the shelf, pouring a generous serving for both before passing him one glass. Instead of sitting down at Coulson’s old seat, he sat on the desk, looking back at Steve. “Kill two birds with one stone, right?”
Steve chuckled before looking back up at him. “I… I overreacted. I know that. But I don’t want you forced into something like all of this again. If this is your choice, I support it. But I want to be sure it’s your choice.”
“I get that.” Bucky hesitated before admitting, “There’s a bunch of reasons I want this, Steve. I know I can do things that his agents can’t. And… and HYDRA has some things I want to look into.”
“Such as?”
Bucky sighed. “The girl that Thor mentioned, the one from the Lerna. I read the reports Natal- Romanoff wrote after speaking with Foster and her assistant. That girl fought off a half Asgardian like it was nothing, and then jumped off a balcony like it was going down a step. I think she’s enhanced.” He looked back at Steve. “And if it’s not natural…”
A chill shot down Steve’s spine like a bullet, enough that he didn’t even realize that Bucky had almost called Natasha Natalia. “You think she has a serum.”
“HYDRA was obsessed with it, Steve. My memories of the late twentieth century are blurry, but I was either in cryo, in Russia, or a HYDRA base.” He hesitated before saying, “I remember Masters with a little girl, in the mid-nineties. Training that little girl. I remember hearing a little girl scream when I was woken up for a mission.”
Steve felt sick. Zola had done all of that to Bucky, back at Azzano. They had potentially done it to a little girl who didn’t have anyone coming for her, a little girl that was now one of HYDRA’s assets with potentially no idea what she was doing.
And then came the familiar rage. The anger at the fact that HYDRA had gotten away with hurting people for so long.
He really had died for nothing. Steve was determined to make sure that his life was enough to stop HYDRA from hurting others, at least this time.
“You know what I’m gonna do. What are you planning?” Bucky asked after a few minutes. He studied Steve’s face carefully, and Steve briefly wondered if Bucky was as worried about him as he was about him.
He wouldn’t doubt it. Not even decades of brainwashing and assassinations would be able to numb Bucky’s protective instincts.
Steve swallowed, sighing as he looked back at his best friend. “The Avengers are going to take the fight to HYDRA. They’ve been going after people, doing whatever they want. We have to stop it, and we might be the only people who can.”
He hadn’t decided until that moment. On some level, Steve knew that was about his only option if Bucky decided not to come along. But Bucky seemed determined to do this on his own. And while he knew that Coulson would be more than happy to accept him as SHIELD, Steve knew that he couldn’t. Bucky needed space. Bucky needed to figure out who he was as a person before they could truly figure out where their friendship stood.
No matter how much it would kill Steve to wait, Bucky had to do what was best for himself.
Steve shook his head before saying, “I’m going with them. Sharon’s taking a job with Stark. Sam wants to stick with the VA, and Mia is consulting everywhere, but… I’m going back to the Avengers.”
“And I’m staying with SHIELD.” Every time Bucky said it, he sounded more confident. It was his choice. It was the best choice for him. Steve tried damned hard to be happy about that.
It would take time, for both of them. But for the first time in a long while, Steve was confident that maybe they could find a new path that suited them both. And maybe rebuild their friendship along the way.
Steve looked back at him. “I said to you that we had to start over. And I know… I know I haven’t been good with that promise. But I need you to know that I’m trying here, Buck…” He swallowed when he realized it. “God, I didn’t even ask you if you want to be called that still.”
It was so small. It was so god damned small but Steve had assumed that he would want to be called that still. He’d assumed that something that small wouldn’t matter, but it did.
“You can still call me that.” Bucky sighed before saying. “Just… don’t get surprised if everyone else is calling me James. I don’t mind if you still call me Bucky. But you’re the only one.”
“If you don’t feel comfortable with it-“
“I don’t mind. I promise.” Bucky looked back over at him before pointing out, “We’ll have time to figure things out. Email’s a thing, apparently. Texting. It’ll just take time. No expectations on either of our parts, right?”
“Yeah.” Steve sighed before looking down at his glass. He’d barely drank any of this. Steve held it up before saying simply, “To new beginnings, I guess.”
“New beginnings.” Bucky paused before downing the drink easily and adding, “Punk.”
Steve snorted into his drink before replying, hope in his chest for the first time in forever, “Jerk.”
September 2014 – The Playground
“So, your office is going to be on a corner. And it’s really nice. Pepper is decorating it as a hobby.”
“Uh huh.”
“And there’s a bunch of options for places you could live in, we own a share in a building near the Brooklyn Bridge…”
“Tony,” Sharon interrupted, raising an eyebrow as she looked over her laptop. “Breathe. I know you’re excited. I’m just… I’m just trying to get my bearings together.”
And there were a lot of bullshit to sift through to get those bearings. She was already dealing with the onboarding paperwork for this position, getting the Avengers back together.
Thor was the first to leave the Playground; considering the fact that he now had a life in London with Jane and their son, he’d mentioned that it would at least be a few months until they would be able to return to the States, especially since there was the tricky matter of whether Erik would be considered a British citizen, an American citizen, or nothing at all, considering his birth had been on Asgard. Tony was already hiring very expensive immigration lawyers to figure it out.
Bruce and Tony were both in New York again, in the Tower. Bruce was staying in his own apartment in the Tower out of safety concerns, and Tony and Pepper, of course, were preparing for the birth of their baby. Thor would be in the Tower with them, for Jane and Erik’s safety.
Sharon was just trying to figure out what their first move was. The Avengers coming back together would be news, and that would be a spotlight on them that HYDRA would take advantage of.
They had to be careful. If they weren’t careful, they would be dead, and it was Sharon’s job as head of asset management to make sure that none of their assets ended up dead.
Tony sighed when he looked back at her. They’d been video chatting for at least an hour, trying to discuss things. Well, Sharon had been trying to discuss things. Tony had been distracting her. But to his credit, he seemed to understand that.
The mechanic sighed before admitting, “Yeah. We’re not exactly giving you a lot of time to get those, are we?”
“You know I like to keep busy.” It was mostly to avoid thinking about things she’d rather not, but Sharon knew that Tony was trying.
“Even you need a break sometimes.” Tony squeezed a stress ball that was shaped like a small Iron Man helmet.
“I’ll take a break later. Maybe use your beach house on Martha’s Vineyard.”
“Mi casa es su casa,” Tony assured her, smirking slightly before saying, “Pepper’s gonna be traveling a lot, and our nanny will be with her. Keep the baby out of the line of fire when we can.”
She knew that the Tower would be a target. None of them were dumb enough to believe otherwise. She didn’t know what Thor’s plan was, but Sharon knew that they were all trying to figure out what the best options would be.
“Good, my godbaby needs to be safe.” Sharon beamed before saying, “I am excited to meet them.”
The grin that crossed Tony’s face honestly warmed her heart. Tony seemed to be taking the idea of fatherhood seriously, and he seemed more at peace the closer it got to the baby’s arrival. Tony had enough baggage from his own upbringing; Sharon hoped that becoming a father himself might help Tony start healing more.
Tony looked back at her a moment later. “Oh, before I forget.” Something you might want to do on the way to New York.” A file popped up on Sharon’s screen, and she sighed as she mentally promised herself to get a better firewall. “Peggy owned a small storage unit in Pennsylvania, on the way to New York. Might want to stop by it, find out if there’s any intel.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Sharon admitted, clicking on it and looking at the property, at the records of payments for over two decades. Peggy had kept it quiet, under the name Maggie Sousa. “A lot of stuff wasn’t digitalized with SHIELD.”
“Just let me know when we can expect you and Rogers.” Tony paused before groaning and raising his hands. “Okay, I’ve got to ask. Is something going on between you two?”
Sharon raised a brow at him on the screen. “Between me and Steve?”
“Yeah. I know you guys have talked a few times, but I don’t know. I’m kinda getting a vibe. A weird one.” He raised a brow. “C’mon, tell me. Something’s going on.”
She didn’t have an answer to that. Because she knew exactly what Tony was talking about. A trust had built between them, a trust that they each had the other’s back, and Sharon honestly didn’t know what it was. She knew right now it was more of vibes of what could be than anything else.
Neither were ready for something like that. And Sharon knew that she was quite possibly reading far too much into it to say that there was something there.
“I trust him,” Sharon said simply, sighing as she tugged a hand through her hair. She looked through one document, pointedly avoiding Tony’s eyes across the screen. “And I think you guys need someone you can trust. We’ll be driving up together though, it makes more sense.”
“I get it. I’ll move on now.” He paused, and Sharon briefly heard Pepper calling on the other end. “Got to go, someone needs me.”
“Is she nesting yet? Katie was crazy nesting back when she had her daughters.”
“You have no idea. I didn’t know there was a wrong way to organize socks, but apparently I found it.” Before he hung up, he added, “And Sharon… I’m glad you two are coming up.”
“So am I, Tony.”
Sharon hung up the call and sighed as she looked down at the screen in front of her. There was so much to do. So much intel to sift through, figure out what might be useful as a lead and what would be useless. Not to mention getting everyone up there safely.
But Sharon Carter had always liked a challenge. And this was just another challenge.
She ignored the fact that the consequences would be even worse if they didn’t make the right choices.
September 2014 – The Playground
A few hours before Clint, Natasha, and Kate officially left the compound, there was a knock at Coulson’s office door.
“It’s open,” Coulson called as he looked through files. Barnes had provided enough intel and suggestions that there was no shortage of potential targets. They were going to be very busy soon enough. And when the Avengers were up and running, things would be even crazier. Not to mention the fact that while Barnes would be a huge asset, they would need more agents.
He was focused enough on the intel in front of him that he didn’t say anything else for a moment. Instead, he marked where he had been reading, closed the intel, and looked up. And then, of course, promptly froze out of shock when he realized who had come in there.
Clint’s face was carefully blank. Coulson was blatantly reminded of the bitter, angry young man he’d found in a prison off a tip from an old friend in Homeland Security, an archer who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time while the people who truly were to blame were in the wind. He’d turned himself in. He hadn’t run.
And Coulson hadn’t seen that level of closed-off ness since then.
“Don’t say anything,” Clint warned. “I’m not here to talk to you. I’m here to say my piece. Say a word and I walk out.”
The Director of SHIELD swallowed heavily as he nodded simply. He did not move up from his desk, instead watching his former agent slam the newly repaired door shut behind him.
Clint took a deep breath, tugging a hand through his hair as he glared across at Coulson. “How dare you.”
There was a pain in his voice that Coulson hadn’t heard for a long time. And Coulson knew that this was deserved. He deserved every bit of yelling that came after this, and he would take it because he knew that Clint needed it.
“How fucking dare you.” Clint’s voice was harder and colder than steel. “How dare you. You say you didn’t have a choice, except you did. You know how I know that? Because you taught me that everyone has a choice. Or were you bullshitting me all those years ago?”
He hadn’t been. There’d of course been some level that had wanted to get that kid, that lost, angry, jaded archer back over onto a better path, but Coulson had not been lying when he had told Clint that there was always a choice. Clint had made his choice then, and Coulson should have known that this would be turned back against him.
Clint kept going. “After New York, I ran, Phil. I went to Alaska and I hid in a cabin for months on end because I was afraid of myself. I didn’t see my niece or nephew for over a year. I missed the birth of my second nephew.”
Coulson knew that as well, because Clint’s older brother had made his way to his office to lecture him a bit before trying to bully the location of Fury out of him. Barney had since left to go back home to Iowa, but was clearly not happy with Coulson. And he couldn’t blame that.
“I ran and then when SHIELD fell, I –“ Clint took a deep breath before closing his eyes and saying, “And the only thing that got me through that damned captivity? Knowing I had a choice. Surrender or survive. I chose to survive. Every single time. I chose to live through that.” He shook his head before repeating, “And you had a choice here.”
The archer turned away from him, heading towards the door before glaring back at him. “And I really hope you can learn to live with it.”
The archer walked away, not bothering to close the door behind him. He could hear Clint’s footsteps fading away, the archer not bothering to try and mask them.
Coulson knew that everything was more complicated than simple choices. Clint had been strong enough to survive that gulag, had been lucky enough to have people coming after him. Coulson knew that revealing his survival had not been an option, not with the wounds so raw.
“I know I made a mistake,” Coulson said simply, sighing when he realized someone else stood in the doorway. “You going to remind me again?”
Natasha shrugged lightly, she was staring in the direction Clint stormed off in. “I laid it all out in that motel room a few months back. I think we’re good. I’m past it. He… he’ll take much, much longer.”
And wasn’t that a damned fact.
“You know he’ll get over it eventually,” Natasha pointed out simply.
“I know. But that doesn’t mean I don’t deserve every bit of anger he’s felt.”
The redhead didn’t deny that. “You’ve got a good team here, Phil,” she pointed out. “You can focus on that for now. Let Clint come to you again.”
“Take care of him,” Coulson said. He glanced at her before admitting, “You always do. But keep a closer eye than normal. At least until he’s done being angry.”
“You clearly underestimate a Barton temper, but alright.” Natasha sighed before stepping forward and offering her hand. Coulson stood up and shook it firmly. It was formal. But Coulson knew Natasha had her own emotions to sift through.
“Good luck,” Coulson mentioned, nodding at her. “You’re heading out now?”
“Soon.” Natasha pulled her hand back before heading to the door, looking back at him. “I need to have a talk I’ve been avoiding too. Your newest agent and I… we need to discuss a few things.”
Coulson knew better than to ask. Some secrets, he mused, were going to stay secret for now.
September 2014 – The Playground
After her talk with Coulson, as Kate and Clint made sure everything was packed, Natasha went to him.
He was in the Playground’s gym. He grunted as he went at the punching bag, not paying attention to anything around him. Natasha had seen Steve enough times to know that Barnes was likely the same, lost in his own mind as he tried to do something with his body. They were best friends; even with Barnes’ memory loss, it wasn’t a surprise that they would be similar.
Natasha paused in the doorway, watching him for a few minutes. An earbud fell out while he was working, and she saw the exact moment he realized she was there, the second the punches went just a bit harder.
She spoke first. If he wanted this conversation to happen, she damned well was going to be the one that spoke first and held some semblance of power over it.
“You remember me.” She was almost impressed at how calm her voice was.
Bucky swallowed, pausing in his movements. He did not look over at her. “You were younger.”
“That I was.” Her eyes flickered away before she looked back over at him. He needed the facts. And she’d long since mastered only giving clinical facts. And he’d long since mastered listening.
“HYDRA loaned you to a deep Russian intel cell in the 1980s, towards the end of the Cold War. You trained me in the Room. We started a relationship. After about a year, it was discovered – when we tried to run away. You sacrificed yourself to make sure I escaped. I thought you died until you shot me through the stomach to kill a man I was protecting. I tried to find you, and failed, until you shot me again in the streets of DC.”
It was so much more complicated than that. There were the politics of the Room, the moment that Yelena and Alexei decided to tear down the Room with her, when Ivan had decided his son’s soul was worth more than power, how close every single one of them had come to dying to take down Lukin, how Natasha had been forced to run for years before… but that was the gist of it.
And that was all that Barnes needed to know.
“You would have never found me.” He finally looked back at her, swallowing before pointing out, “You never would have found me, Natalia, you know that.”
“That doesn’t mean I didn’t try, soldat.” He flinched at the nickname. “We’re some of the only survivors of the Room. Alexei, Yelena, Yuri, Ivan…” She hesitated before saying, “Lukin.”
Barnes turned sharply towards her, his eyes narrowed, and Natasha raised her hand. “He won’t go near you. He’s very happy as an oligarch. And besides. He knows the second he steps out of line, every single one of us will join to kill him.”
And as much as all of them might have their differences, each of them had played a part in the downfall of the Red Room. And with their positions of power now – Yuri in Russian intelligence, Ivan in politics, Yelena doing whatever the fuck she was doing with her French Maggia wife – none of them would hesitate if Lukin threatened that.
And even Lukin would hesitate to cross that alliance.
Bucky looked back over towards her, moving closer. “Does he know?” She knew he wasn’t talking about Lukin at that point. Her and Clint’s relationship had been made very clear by that point, to everyone.
“I’m sure he’s pieced it together. Now that we’ve talked… I do plan on telling him. Clint and I don’t keep secrets, not anymore.” She looked back before saying, her voice lower when he stood in front of her, “Steve has no idea. That’s your choice if he knows. I don’t mind if he does.”
“I’ll tell him. Not right now. But later on. When things are calmer.” Bucky swallowed heavily, sighing as he looked back over at her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more.”
“You helped me where it mattered, when I was getting out.”
He gave a sad smile before pointing out, “You got yourself out of there, Natalia.”
“Maybe. I know I’m the one who built a life for myself.” Natasha paused before reaching out and taking his metal hand gently, raising a brow up at him. “Now it’s your turn. Build yourself a life, Yasha. You deserve that much.”
He gave a quiet sigh. “I don’t know if I do.”
“I think you do. Even if you don’t think so… know that other people do.” Natasha stepped forward and sighed. She stood in front of him a moment later before leaning up to kiss his cheek. “Call if you need anything. I mean it.”
Bucky didn’t reply. Instead, he watched her walk from the room. Less than an hour later, she was in a car heading up the East Coast with Barton and Bishop, dog in the back seat.
That night was the first night Bucky dreamed of what had happened in the Room, and his list of those that needed to die grew.
September 2014 – The Playground
Steve was the last to leave.
He left with Carter. They had to go and get things from a storage unit, things of Peggy’s that might provide intel on HYDRA at the end of the war. If they knew where HYDRA had gone after they’d fallen, they knew where they might pop up next. Then they would drive up to New York. Carter would join Stark as the head of asset management. Steve would go to the Avengers.
It was a bittersweet goodbye.
In the main hangar area, just underneath what Coulson called the Bus, Bucky didn’t fight when Steve pulled him into a too tight hug. “Call if you need me. Any time. Any day. Whenever.” Steve was trying too hard, but Bucky couldn’t fault him for that.
“You too.” He could remember that too tight hug when he had gone off to war, leaving Steve behind. This felt similar; this time, though, they were both entering their own wars. Bucky swallowed before adding, “Stay safe, Rogers.”
Steve pulled away, managing a quiet smile and nod. “You too, Barnes.” His eyes flickered back over to the team before saying, “You’ve always been good as a team member. Watching everyone’s back.”
“I kept your ass alive for long enough.” He looked back at Team Coulson, hanging around the edges. Mack working on his motorcycle, Jemma nearby him, Coulson and May chatting quietly while Trip and Skye talked with Carter. “They’ll be a new challenge.”
“I think they’ll be something,” Steve admitted.
Bucky hesitated before saying, “I… I want it to be something. I want this to work.” He looked back at Steve before admitting, “I don’t know if it will or not. But I want to try.”
“I get it. I do.”
Because Steve truly did. He wanted the Avengers to work this time. They had a war to fight. They had to get back together, and a part of him was relieved. He trusted the Avengers. He trusted Sharon. He trusted that everyone going into this fight genuinely cared, and that was more than he thought he would get.
Steve looked back at him before saying, “Buck… if you ever want to get back from behind the scenes… there’s a place for you on the Avengers.”
“I know.” Bucky doubted that he would ever take it. But Steve had offered. And it mattered to Steve that he had offered. “And I promise I’ll call. If not to ask for help… just to talk.”
They couldn’t go back to how they were back in Brooklyn. But Bucky hoped that if they both had a chance to figure out who they were now in this modern world, they could figure out what their friendship would be. It would take time, there would be mistakes.
But they both wanted to try. And Bucky knew that might be enough.
Steve hesitated and nodded, squeezing his metal arm tightly. He could feel the pressure briefly, and Bucky managed a weak smile as he watched Steve force himself to walk away, heading to the passenger’s seat.
Across the hangar, Sharon hugged Trip and Skye in turn before heading over towards the car. She waved at May along the way, passing Barnes with a cordial nod.
Before he could stop himself, the Winter Soldier reached out and grabbed her arm with his human one. Sharon looked up sharply, tense, but paused, raising an eyebrow. The words slipped out of Bucky’s throat before he could stop him, but even decades of brainwashing and trauma couldn’t stop the protective instincts that were stirring in him.
“Watch out for him,” Bucky said, his voice low. His blue eyes flickered to Sharon’s brown ones as he said, “Please. He’s shit at taking care of himself.”
Sharon didn’t reply. Instead, she looked back over at Steve, who was staring at the two of them conversing as if it was about the last thing he expected. “I have been so far,” she said simply. “I don’t plan on stopping now. He needs it.”
Bucky snorted despite himself. “If you’re waiting for him to admit that, I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
She gave a genuine laugh. “I’m not. But he’s grateful in his own ways.” She looked back before saying, “Offer goes if you need anything from me either. Trip has my cell number. And… and I get cloak and dagger things a bit more than he does.”
Maye, just maybe, he and Sharon Carter were cut more from the same cloth than he thought.
He let go of her arm after squeezing it gently, and she winked at him. He managed a small smirk, watching the blond head to the driver’s side, her voice coming as she spoke with Steve. She got into the car first, waving to the others as she closed the door behind her and started the car.
Steve hesitated, looking back over towards Bucky before smiling weakly at him again. Bucky only shot a reassuring smirk back, watching as Steve finally slid into the passenger’s seat and closed the door behind him. The windows were tinted enough for Bucky to be unable to see inside, but he could hear the gears of the car shifting as Sharon put it into drive.
The car drove out from the Playground’s garage, and Bucky found himself alone once more.
He stood there for a few minutes, just watching carefully. This wasn’t the first time he’d been alone since he’d left HYDRA. He’d spent six months running, trying to find out who he was and what he wanted to do, stopping HYDRA from doing what’d been done to him to anyone else.
But this was the first time he’d been alone and safe from HYDRA. Or at least, he realized as he heard the voice behind him, safe from HYDRA. Not alone. Not anymore.
“James? Are you alright?”
Bucky’s eyes flickered away from the exit, and he took a deep breath when he saw Jemma there. She looked genuinely concerned, and Bucky forced a tiny nod.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice low. “I’m okay.” He shook his head before admitting, “Just… convincing myself that I didn’t make the wrong choice.”
He knew logically that making a wrong choice would not take away the rest of the choices that he would have in front of him. But Bucky Barnes was still learning how to choose, both large things and small. And this was one of the biggest choices he could make, to go to ground with the remnants of the organization he’d helped to destroy.
“If it’s right or wrong, it is yours,” Jemma pointed out. She gave a tiny smile before admitting, her voice a bit quieter, “I’m still not sure if I made the right choice in staying.”
He shot her a surprised look. She shrugged before saying, “I have a home. And a family there. And they could use me back at home. But I… I don’t want to leave here.” Her eyes moved to those talking. “My family is here too. And… well… I’ll do more good here than anywhere else.”
What remained of Bucky’s family had driven out of the base a few moments ago. But Bucky understood what she was trying to get at.
“I get it,” Bucky said, looking back over at the others. “I know that I’m walking into something that was already a family. I don’t know if I’ll be a part of it…” He looked back over before adding, “But I’m gonna protect them like they are.”
Jemma gave a quiet smile. “I think you’ll fit in here quite well, James.”
“Thanks, Jemma.” He looked back over before sighing. “C’mon. Think it’s time we got to work.”
It was going to be a long fight. But come hell or high water, Bucky Barnes was ready for it.
September 2014 – Central Pennsylvania
For the first hour or two, they were quiet. Sharon put on the radio, and Steve stared out the window, watching as darkness fell and night overtook everything.
He had a lot on his mind, after all. And the last thing Sharon wanted to do was intrude. But she hated silence in car rides, and as much as she trusted Steve, she was not about to let him listen to her long car ride music playlist.
She trusted him enough with her life. Just not enough with that playlist. Yeah, that made total sense.
Sharon gave him approximately three hours of silence, as the sun set and the roads because windier and less kept, even for Pennsylvania roads. When the GPS alerted her that they had approximately ten minutes until they reached the 24-7 storage center, she finally gave up giving him peace and broke the silence.
“Okay,” Sharon said, sighing as she looked back over at him. “I’ve given you time. Now I get to ask. Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer at first. There wasn’t a right answer for whether he was okay or not, because Steve honestly did not have an answer for her. He hated himself for leaving Bucky behind, for not staying with SHIELD. But he knew he would have hated himself more for going against Bucky’s wishes, staying with an organization Steve honestly did not believe in anymore.
Whether or not Bucky believed in it was irrelevant. They were taking the fight to HYDRA in a way that Bucky could handle better than him. And that was the important thing.
“I will be,” Steve admitted, sighing as he glanced back at Sharon. “Right now? I’m feeling guilty that I left him behind. Again.”
Honestly, Steve had no idea when he had gotten to the point where he was open with her, where he openly admitted guilt and what he was feeling. He was still hesitant about sharing that information with anyone outside of Sam. But Sharon was special, that much was clear, and he trusted her.
She’d seen him at his weakest before, when he’d broken down on that plane back to the States, when he hadn’t been sure if they could help Bucky. She hadn’t judged him. Steve would never forgive that.
“You didn’t abandon him,” Sharon pointed out. “He chose to stay behind with SHIELD. He thinks he can make a difference with them. And frankly, with his skill set? I think that he could.”
“Logically, I understand. Emotionally is a lot harder.”
Sharon only sighed before saying, “I get it. Just… don’t beat yourself for feeling emotions. You’re human, Steve, it’s pretty normal.” She glanced down at her GPS before saying, “After this, I say we stop for food. Hell, I say we stop at a hotel and use Stark’s credit card to get a good room for each of us, I don’t want to drive through the night…”
As he listened to her, he looked forward, and then completely froze.
Far up ahead, he could see orange lights, flashing red ones. Smoke rising from the minimal lights that they could see. “Sharon,” Steve said, his voice alert as he stared ahead.
“What-“ Sharon’s jaw dropped when she saw what lay ahead. “Oh my god.” Her foot pressed against the gas pedal, and Steve could hear the wheels squeal.
It took minutes for the car to stop near barricades. Steve was out of the car before Sharon could turn off the engine, his eyes wide as he stared at the fire. The entire storage locker facility was on fire, with at least half a dozen fire trucks around it.
A firefighter approached them as Sharon got out of the driver’s seat. “Folks, I’m gonna need you both to-“ His voice trailed off as he recognized Steve, and for once, Steve didn’t mind.
“I’m Sharon Carter, I’m with Stark Industries and Damage Control’s Asset Management division,” Sharon said, pulling out her ID. It wasn’t a Stark one, but it was something. “I had some personal effects in here, along with potential intelligence belonging to Stark Industries and their collaboration with the federal government, NATO, and the United Nations.“
Sharon was apparently very good at bullshitting, or at least getting someone to listen to her immediately.
“Whatever it was, it’s long gone,” the firefighter said bluntly, looking back over at her. “This fire’s been burning for at least an hour. The entire facility’s engulfed in it.”
Steve swallowed as he watched the flames. “Was anyone in there?”
The firefighter looked back at the blaze. “The third shift admin called the police. She said there’s three security guards at night. One’s been found and taken to the hospital. No sign of the other two.” He sighed before saying, “I can let you stay here, but let me get my captain over here. He might be able to get you more information.”
“Thank you,” Sharon said. She watched him go before shaking her head, tugging the key out of her pocket as she looked down at it.
Steve continued to watch the flames, his hands curled into fists as he shook his head. They didn’t need to say out loud who had done it. They both knew damned well who it was.
“You said Peggy had stuff in there?” Steve asked, swallowing heavily as he watched the blaze. “What type of stuff?”
“I don’t know.” Sharon looked back over a him. “I know what you’re thinking. I’m thinking it too.” She looked back at the fire and swallowed heavily, shadows flickering on her face. “I just – I don’t know what HYDRA would want to hide, what Peggy could have had.”
“Something they were desperate to keep away from us, and something important enough not to digitize to be leaked.” Steve’s eyes flickered back over, narrowing dangerously as he watched the flames. “We need to find out what – if it burned in there, if they took it with them…”
He knew that he was walking into a war. Sharon knew. Every single one of them knew that the second the Avengers assembled, they were entering a war with HYDRA. If HYDRA had any spies worth a damn, they would have realized that the Avengers had joined together, that Thor had gone back to London only temporarily, that the original six had more likely than not joined back together.
The Avengers were replacing SHIELD. And rather than waiting, HYDRA had decided to make the first move. Steve wasn’t surprised. But he’d wished that they would have more time to prepare.
As he watched the storage facility burn, Steve realized that they didn’t’ have time. They had to be ready, now.
“You think we’re ready for this?” Sharon asked softly, almost lost against the wind and the flames. Her phone was to her ear, and he assumed she was calling Tony, to alert him. “Because this game just started, Steve.”
“No. We’re not ready.” Steve swallowed heavily, his hands curling into fists into sides. “But we need to be.”
If they weren’t ready, they were dead. That was the truth of it. And Steve was god damned done with people dying, people being hurt, and HYDRA winning time and time again.
Thor was a father now. Tony would be one soon. They all had loved ones, reasons to fight. Hell, Steve knew that he was farther along than he’d been in the Battle of New York. People he loved would pay the consequences if he failed. And he was tired of failing.
As he watched the flames, Steve felt vibranium lace his spine, and he raised his chin, jaw clenching.
The Avengers were reassembling; and for the first time in years, Steve was ready to step back into war.