Chapter Text
Outside the forest's edge, sounds of chaos and unnatural violence erupt. Loud enough to shake the trees from branches to roots, to send all manner of creatures fleeing the noise. The air carries the foul taste and scent of the disturbance in the aftermath. The potency of the after is followed only by more. Staccato sounds vibrate the very air. More rumbles that disturb and singe the greenery of the treeline.
Weapons. That's what the noise is. Creations of destruction that have no desire to or respect of the balance nature requires.
The forest is an old one, far older than the vast majority of invisible lines that man has drawn through the lands. It has witnessed many evolutions of those sounds often enough throughout its many centuries.
It has no care for the quarrels of man until the violence breaches its boundaries and threatens the creatures and beings it houses and protects.
The forest’s eyes from the creatures in the trees watch two men break from the chaos, fleeing directly into the underbrush. Counting on the forest for protection from the many that follow. The forest relies on the many sets of eyes along their path, creatures that the men pay no attention to as they run past.
They are wounded. Though the forest senses that the most unwell one is not the one who is bleeding. It has seen many unwell creatures without extensive injuries to know that they can be the most dangerous, a risk to themselves and to others.
It will watch that one closely.
Were it not for the weapons and the palpable foulness that clung to the party, the way the pursuing pack attempted to circle the injured two might remind the forest of the hunting wolves that lived within its boundaries.
The forest didn't usually involve itself.
But men brought their battles into its midst. This was not the battle of predators seeking to feed their own, the natural cycle of predator and prey, each seeking only to survive. This was not a beast instinctively lashing out to protect itself or its young. As men seemed to tend to, this broke the circular balance of nature. This was harm and death for the sake of it.
The forest cautiously urges its inhabitants to flee, to give the influx of man in their midst a wide berth. It would be most displeased if either party harmed the forest’s creatures with the same callous disregard they treated their own kind. The creatures of flight and the smallest that crawled remain, giving the forest the advantage of sight and sound.
A careful nudge of the forest’s innate power is able to separate the hunting and the hunted, redirecting the circling party to the forest’s edge with illusion and misdirection. The fleeing men, the forest urges deeper into its depths, plantlife shifting just so to conceal the trail they leave behind them.
If it does not allow the two to meet, there is less risk of damage.
They will be in need of a guide, if they wish to make it to the forest’s end alive. The forest knows its guard can be as wary of many of its creatures but will help. That will be for the best.
The forest does not interfere any further once it is satisfied that destruction is contained. Though it does watch, and it does listen. Men or no, they sought the forest’s depths for protection and that is not a call the forest can ignore.
“Do you hear anything?” Sam asked as he caught his breath, wincing when the heavy breathing jarred injuries that he'd been able to mostly ignore while they were on the move. Adrenaline was one hell of a drug.
“No,” Bucky responded. He paused and frowned more severely. “Nothing.”
“Little too much of nothing,” Sam agreed after a moment, noting the eerie silence of the forest around them. He couldn't claim to be any sort of expert on this particular sort of ecosystem but he was pretty sure that the absence of even birds was unusual.
They had been right behind them. Sam heard the heavy pounding of footsteps and the rapidfire sound of weapons fire entirely too close for comfort right up until they’d broken the treeline.
Now it was unnervingly silent. Seemingly not so much as a breeze rustling the tree branches above their heads or any manner of creature doing the same. Just Bucky and his own heavy breathing.
“I don't think we should stick around long,” Bucky said, keeping his voice low. “There's something not right about this place.”
“Afraid of a few trees?” Sam teased with a groan as he leaned back against the trunk of one of them.
“It’s not the trees that worry me,” Bucky responded. He turned then, eyeing Sam critically, no doubt picking up the obvious and less obvious injuries and tells. Those explosions had packed a punch. Neither of them had gotten off completely clear, unfortunately. At this point in their partnership, Sam had little doubt there were at least a few things that Bucky was pointedly ignoring himself.
“Ribs?” Bucky asked.
“Yeah,” Sam admitted. “Just bruised, not broken I don’t think. Hurts but I'll manage.”
“Do you have your pack?” Bucky asked, scanning the area quickly but thoroughly before looking back again. “We should wrap them before we try moving. I think we're as safe as we're going to get at the moment.”
“No,” Sam sighed. “They tagged it. Had to lose it before we hit the trees. D’you got yours? You had the satphone. We’ll need to call for extraction.”
“What?” Bucky frowned distractedly and then he shook his head sharply before nodding. He searched his pack for the phone with blind movements, his attention clearly still locked on scanning their surroundings. He only looked away when he tugged the device free of the pack scowling immediately after.
“Did it get damaged?” Sam asked.
“No,” Bucky responded slowly. “It’s fully functioning. It’s just..not working.”
“Not working?” Sam repeated. Then he caught the sharp tension in Bucky’s posture and the wary way he repeatedly scanned the immediate area in between scowling at the uncooperative device, and frowned. “What’s going on?” he asked cautiously. When Bucky didn't answer, Sam pushed off of the tree and slowly approached until they were shoulder to shoulder. “Barnes?”
“Feels like we're being watched,” Bucky finally said quietly, eyes still scanning the area thoroughly. “But I can't pinpoint the source. This whole place just don’t feel right.”
“Maybe it's the trees,” Sam quipped speculatively. He nudged Bucky’s shoulder with his own at the flat glare the response earned, though the effect of the glare was muted by the accompanying amused smirk. He had to agree though, there was something odd about this particular forest. More than just a fail-proof piece of tech not working. “Think we need to find a place to make camp, figure out our next move. Especially if help isn’t coming.”
“Should be no shortage of coverage here at least,” Bucky agreed. “Not sure we can risk a fire though.”
Sam nodded and took a cautious glance of his own before looking up. Most of the trees were very obviously pretty old, considering how tall and wide the trunks were. There were smaller, thinner ones, clearly fighting for their own room to flourish among the older ones. They didn’t quite reach the same heights as the older, larger trees did.
“What if one of us climbed up?” he suggested. “Maybe it’s just the trees that are blocking the signals from getting through. If one of us got up above, might be able to make the call.”
Bucky followed his stare and tilted his head speculatively. “The branches are pretty thin the higher you get,” he commented thoughtfully. “You and I are both a bit heavier than a squirrel. If this place can knock out one of Stark’s satphones, not sure I’ve got much hope in your wings working.”
“If I get high enough to get out of whatever interference this place has, though,” Sam pointed out.
“And if you get that high and they don’t?” Bucky countered pointedly.
“Then I climb my happy ass back down,” Sam snarked. “Seriously though, even if I don’t have the same amount of control with them, I’d still be able to deploy them and the ‘chute to slow my fall if that happened.”
Bucky eyed the trees hesitantly, “One last argument.”
“Shoot,” Sam nodded.
“They know we’re in here and it’s unlikely we’ve made it to the other side already,” Bucky started cautiously. “They get birds in the air and your wings don’t work?”
“That’s reasonably discouraging,” Sam agreed reluctantly. “Do you hear anything that suggests they’re already up?”
“No,” Bucky admitted. “But I can’t hear much of anything outside the immediate vicinity. This whole place seems...soundproofed.”
Frankly, that was also pretty discouraging. It wasn’t the first time they’d relied on Bucky’s enhanced senses to get them out of sticky situations but there weren’t many, if any, instances that Sam could recall where that reliance had failed. Probably went a long way in explaining Bucky’s wary skittishness too.
A rustling sound from directly behind them startled them both. Bucky was turned, left arm raised defensively before Sam could fully follow.
“Goddamn birds,” Bucky huffed. Sam followed his glare and found said bird perched on a low hanging branch just a few feet away, seemingly unruffled by the sudden movements.
“Huh,” Sam mused. “This place just keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
“It’s a bird,” Bucky responded flatly.
“It’s a falcon,” Sam corrected. “Peregrine. Not so much as a flutter since we stopped moving and a falcon, of all things, pops up right behind us? You don’t find that weird?”
“I find a whole lot of things to be weird,” Bucky responded dryly. “Suggesting that the forest is sentient enough to have picked up your call sign? Bit of a stretch, isn't it?”
“Maybe,” Sam agreed. “That's also why it’s weird. I don't know about you but I've not seen or heard any other birds since we stopped running. Could be a coincidence, but that's one hell of a coincidence if it is.”
Bucky went still and then frowned. “Whole lotta birds went up out of the trees with the first explosion,” he said slowly. “Dozens of them. But you’re right. Haven’t seen or heard so much as a squirrel or startled rabbit since we stopped. The usual bugs on the trees and such but nothing otherwise. Then the whole thing with the goon squad all but disappearing from behind us.”
“And then our new friend here,” Sam finished with a nod toward the bird still perched on the branch.
“I should’ve taken them up on retirement,” Bucky grumbled. “Aren’t crows supposed to be the friendly neighborhood messengers?”
“At least you’re not out here with our resident Black Widow,” Sam pointed out and they exchanged a shuddering grimace at the idea. A bird didn’t sound so bad when the alternative could be a literal spider.
“In that case, what do you think it's doing?” Bucky asked.
“Seems like she’s just keeping an eye on us,” Sam answered thoughtfully, eyeing the bird as closely as she seemed to be watching them.
“She?” Bucky repeated disbelievingly.
“She,” Sam confirmed as he carefully inched toward the bird, doing his best to keep his body language as non threatening as possible. Half the thrill of gaining his particular call sign had been the ready excuse to learn more about the birds. Maybe he didn’t really need a ready-made justification to indulge in an interest but it’d been handy to have regardless.
“What are you doing?” Bucky groused.
“Just getting a closer look,” Sam shrugged. “She doesn’t seem too bothered right now.”
“We outta be finding a place to make camp,” Bucky pointed out.
Sam got within a foot of the falcon before she launched off the branch. She swooped over their heads. Her second loop brought her lower, her wing lightly cuffing Sam and then Bucky on the back of the head before taking off again.
“Think that means we’re supposed to follow?” Sam asked speculatively, biting back a laugh at Bucky’s obvious disgruntlement.
“Yeah, let’s follow a creepily smart bird through a creepy forest,” Bucky snarked. “What could possibly go wrong with that?”
“Do you have a better idea?” Sam shot back easily. “It’s not like we got a whole lot of other options right now. Like you said, there’s something strange about this place, but right now it seems inclined to help us or at least not work against us, which considering the mysterious disappearance of our tail seems like something to think about. I think it’d be pretty dumb to snub that, don’t you?”
Bucky scowled but reluctantly conceded the point with a resigned nod. He ducked sharply, left arm protectively over his head when the falcon swooped over them again.
“I think she’s getting impatient,” Sam huffed with a small smirk. “Let’s go. If we end up doing circles, we’ll do it your way and try to find the far end of the forest and call for help.”
“Not sure we’d find it,” Bucky admitted with another cautious glance at their surroundings. “We flew over when we first came in. It’s not a small forest.”
“Then let’s go,” Sam said.
Thankfully, the falcon didn’t seem to be taking them in circles. Though she did periodically swoop around behind them, diving low only to pull up just short of scuffing them again. It felt a lot like being herded along.
“Think she thinks we’re going too slow,” Bucky huffed, shooting an annoyed look up at the bird as she took off ahead of them again.
“Suppose she’s right,” Sam shrugged as he pushed through the particularly thick underbrush. “Pretty easy to go faster when you don’t have to worry about any sort of obstacle.”
“Probably too tight to use yours?” Bucky asked consideringly.
Sam eyed the closeness of the trees and the low hanging branches and nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Might be able to if I had to, but I wouldn’t have the same maneuverability here.”
“D’you think Lang’d let you shrink yourself and your pack?” Bucky mused.
“Probably not,” Sam answered, amused by the idea. The thought of taking flight while shrunk down to Ant-Man-insect size didn’t seem nearly as off-putting as maybe it should have been. “That would be fun, though. Might ask just to see the reaction.”
“Make sure you’ve got some sort of camera on you,” Bucky smirked.
“I’ve always wondered what that suit would do with an enhanced person wearing it,” Sam added. “Scott’s baseline but he’s got the strength and bug thing when he’s wearing it, even when he’s tiny, right? So would someone like you have, you know, extra extra strength? Or would it still be normal bug guy strength?”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Bucky admitted. “If I had to guess, the suit boosts what it’s already got to work with? Maybe I’d just have my own boosts. No idea.”
They both ducked sharply when a flash of wings drifted directly over their heads again.
“We’re going,” Bucky groused after the falcon who’d taken off ahead of them. “Goddamn birds.”
“I wonder if it’s her or the forest that’s getting impatient with us,” Sam mused.
“At this point, I’m gonna go ahead and say both,” Bucky huffed. “Who’d have guessed that a thing made of mostly stationery things could be so damn pushy.”
Sam snickered at the grumbling. “Well, she’s probably tired of babysitting,” he pointed out. “She’s probably got a nest somewhere near that she’d rather be hanging around in.”
The falcon’s pace slowed just a few minutes later. She made another small circle around them, both Sam and Bucky ducked automatically in case she decided to swipe at them again, before coming to land on Sam’s shoulder. He flinched reflexively, recalling how sharp a falcon’s talons could be. He was immediately grateful for the reinforced materials that made up his uniform. He wondered, absently, how well the material would hold up if she decided she wasn’t quite so pleased with them.
As soon as she settled comfortably enough, the wariness faded somewhat. Sam had the same thrilled rush that he’d gotten the few times he’d been able to see one of the birds up close, perched on his arm, protected by thick leather. It was a bit surreal to have that in the middle of a wild forest rather than a preserve.
“I’m gonna check it out,” Bucky said.
Sam blinked and then winced a little guiltily at letting himself get distracted so easily considering there was still so much that was uncertain about the whole situation. Bucky either didn’t notice or didn’t comment on the distraction, he just gave a small, slightly amused smirk as he carefully picked his way through the underbrush.
Just a few feet ahead was the mouth of a small cave, almost entirely hidden by the dense underbrush. They would have to hunch down to get through the opening. It looked like it might be a tight fit for two men their size, but it would be good cover for anyone still trying to track them.
Sam shifted, carefully enough not to jostle either the bird on his shoulder or his own body--which was definitely starting to feel the wear and tear of the day--so he could keep watch. Just because neither he or Bucky had heard anything so far, didn’t mean they weren’t still out there.
“It’s clear,” Bucky said moments later. “Was a little worried we’d be busting in on some poor creature’s den but it doesn’t look like anything’s used it in a while.”
The falcon on Sam’s shoulder ruffled her wings irritably, her feet curling a little tighter to keep her balance. “I think she finds your lack of faith annoying,” he grinned.
“Of course the bird can understand us,” he huffed with a dry laugh. Bucky shook his head and continued his observation of the cave. “It drops off and widens inside. It’s not gonna be as tight of a fit as I’d thought it might be. It’s not a huge cavern or anything but big enough.”
The falcon launched herself from Sam’s shoulder to perch on one of the lower hanging tree branches instead. She eyed them for a brief moment before turning her attention to preening her feathers. Apparently, they’d been dismissed.
Sam startled when his observation of the bird was interrupted by a subtle movement he only just caught out of the corner of his eye. He jerked around to find a man standing a short distance away. Sam’s sudden turn had caught Bucky’s attention. Sam noted that he was just as startled, which was more than a little disturbing. Enhanced senses and all. Not much managed to sneak up on him.
This forest was proving itself to be something else entirely, it seemed.
The ability to sneak up on both of them wasn’t the only thing...odd about the man. His presence was just as unsettling as the rest of the forest, including the falcon still perched in the nearby tree. He observed them silently, something both curiously amused and annoyed in his expression. Tall, roughly the same height as Sam and Bucky, give or take an inch or so. His body language was loose and confident; he clearly didn’t consider them much of a threat at least.
Really, there wasn’t a whole lot unusual about the man’s appearance, all things considered he looked every bit of a normal, big, bearded guy. Except for the suddenness of his arrival and the fact that he was standing in the middle of the forest with not a stitch of clothing on him. Aside from that.
His head cocked to the side curiously, eyes narrowing as he searched their stunned expressions. Then he looked down at himself and huffed a sigh, rolling his eyes before leveling them with an exasperated glare. Pretty dramatic from a guy standing naked in the middle of the woods.
Sam had seen a lot of things since taking up the shield and joining with any number of people and beings with abilities that would be unbelievable had he not witnessed them for himself. The sudden appearance of loose pants and a shirt (that was probably intended to be loose but failed miserably) on the mysterious man was still a pretty surreal sight to see.
A low, irritated sound from beside him drew Sam’s attention. He subtly shifted his weight, letting him keep an eye on the new arrival while still checking on Bucky.
“What the hell…” Sam bit out in surprise as he spotted Bucky’s bound, struggling form, wrapped tight from shoulders to thighs in various greenery, his arms pinned to his sides and glaring darkly ahead. He quickly but cautiously moved between Bucky and the new arrival. He supposed if the guy had the whole damn forest at his disposal, it made sense why they weren’t perceived as a threat.
“That’s not very nice,” the unknown man said slowly and carefully as though he had to consider each syllable. He eyed the two of them before focusing his attention on Bucky for a moment. “Are you going to behave?”
“Sneaking up on people isn’t the best way to get a warm welcome,” Sam pointed out coolly. He might not have seen it himself, but he knew well enough that Bucky’s response to surprise was almost always to go on the offensive. All of it could’ve been avoided with just a little more thought. The man conceded the point with a nod.
“I don’t intend on harming him,” the man said just as carefully, though with a hint more confidence in the pronunciation. “But I also don’t intend to allow him to do harm. The same is true for you.”
The vines and roots slowly withdrew, lingering at the last points of contact just long enough to ensure that Bucky had his balance. Sam met his eye questioningly, and Bucky gave a short, crisp nod to indicate he was okay. His rattled irritation with the sudden, unexpected appearance of an unknown person, coupled no doubt by the easy way he was caught and bound, was palpable.
To be fair, Sam wasn’t in much of a position to judge. He didn’t care for the situation either.
“Rest,” the man instructed firmly with a nod toward the small cave, pointedly ignoring the ire, irritation and confusion radiating off of the other two men. “You’ll need it.”
“That doesn’t sound as reassuring as you think it does,” Sam huffed.
“Who are you?” Bucky interjected in a steely demand.
The man blinked and his eyes narrowed in confusion for a brief moment, an odd pause that didn’t really make sense. “Steven,” he responded shortly, though the last syllable tipped upward almost in question rather than statement. Another thing to add to the list of things that were not-quite-right with this guy.
“Rest,” he repeated. “You will be safe. Tomorrow I’ll lead you to the end.”
Sam exchanged a wary glance with Bucky. That wasn’t ominous at all.